The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution

But now there stepped forth one--Sandricourt, Governor of Nîmes--who forbade him to do that which he threatened; warned him that if one more house or street was injured he would himself that night set forth for Paris, and tell Louis that Montrevel was unworthy of the command he held in this distracted province. "Ha! Sandricourt, 'tis Sandricourt," whispered one in a knot of Protestants standing near to where Martin and the man he had accosted were. "He is the best, he and Fléchier, bishop though he is. If all were like them--if Baville were--then--then we might live in peace, not see nor know the awful terrors we have seen this day. Oh, the horror of it! the horror of it!" and he buried his face in his hands as though to hide some sight that he feared might blast him. Baville! The name recalled the man to Martin's memory. Nay, it did more, far more than that. Recalled his love, Urbaine. Set him wondering, too, if by any chance this holocaust had taken place at the Intendant's suggestion; if this was a vengeance on those who had destroyed her. For he must deem her dead by now; weeks had passed since she disappeared. Had he set the shambles fresh running with blood to avenge her loss? He must see Baville at once, must tell him she was safe. Thereby, perhaps, more slaughter might be averted. "Where is Baville?" he asked, turning to the group of terrified Protestants by his side. "Is he in this carnage?" "God, he knows," one replied. "Yet he has not appeared. Not since this commenced. Were you here at the beginning?" "Nay, I arrived but now. Is it true, can it be true there are three hundred destroyed within that?" and he glanced toward the _débris_ of the mill, the superstructure now nothing but ashes and charred beams, with, lying above them, the red tiles of what had been a roof ere it fell in, burying beneath it--what? "It is true, it is true," the man wailed. Then, composing himself, he told of all that had gone before. "They were at prayer," he said, "in there, in Mercier's mill. I myself and Prosper Roumilli," indicating one of the men by his side. "Also Antoine La Quoite and Pierre Delamer," nodding to two others near him, "were hastening to join them; all grieved that we were too late. Late, _grand Dieu!_ What have we not escaped?" "Death and destruction," whispered La Quoite, trembling. "Ay, death and destruction. _Hélas!_ they raised their songs of thanksgiving too loud. Their _cantiques_ told where they were, reached the ears of that murderer there who was at his breakfast----" "He was," again interrupted La Quoite, "with the woman, Léonie Sabbat. A fitting companion. She can drink even him beneath the table." "Furious he left that table, summoned a battalion, passed swiftly here, surrounded the mill. Furious, too, because as they passed the cathedral he heard the organ blow, knew that Fléchier worshipped too, mad and savage because during such time we should also worship God in our own way." "Yet our day will come," murmured Pierre Delamer, "it will come. I am old, yet shall I not die until it comes." "The soldiers burst open the door," went on the original speaker, "rushed in among them sabres in hand, slew many. Yet this was too slow for him----" "It was," exclaimed La Quoite. "He said they would be three hundred minutes slaying three hundred people thus. Too slow! He drew off his men, closed the doors, set fire to the mill. You see the end," and he pointed to the ashes of the ruined place, ashes that were also something else besides the remains of the mill. Again the first speaker took up the story, Martin feeling sick unto death as he stood by and heard. "From within there came the shouts of the lost, the piercing cries, the heartrending shrieks. Midst burst walls, at windows, upon the roof, we saw the death-doomed appear. Flying spectres, phantoms, upon them the wounds the soldiers had made, black, singed by the flames. And then, O God! the sight passed man's endurance." "What next?" asked Martin, white to the lips. "What next? This: With their new weapons, the accursed _baïonnettes_, the soldiers thrust back into the flames those whom the could get at; those whom they could not reach they fired at. We saw them fall back shrieking. Yet in God's mercy their shrieks ceased soon--there were none left." "But one," exclaimed the man called La Quoite, "a girl, _pauvre petite fillette!_ She escaped so far as to reach the ground unhurt, to escape their blades, although they held them up as she jumped from the window, so that thereby she might be impaled. But they missed her, and, running toward Montrevel, she shrieked for mercy. Poor child, poor child! not more than fifteen--than fifteen!" "His lackey," struck in Delamer, "had more mercy than the master. He helped her to escape from out the hands of the soldiers." "Thank God there was a man, a human heart, among them," murmured Martin. "Ay, yet it availed little. The brigand ordered her to the hangman's hands, also the lackey. The gibbet was prepared. Both would have died but that a Catholic woman, _une s[oe]ur de la miséricorde_, upon her knees--Heaven's blessings light upon her!--besought him by the God whom all worship equally to give them their lives." "And he yielded?" "He yielded. He spared these two, though an hour later the lackey was thrown outside the gate of Nîmes, his master bidding him go hang or drown himself, or join his friends, _les Protestants_, whereby once more he might fall into his hands." "There is one good piece of news yet to be told," whispered La Quoite, who was a man of fiercer mood than the others. "In the _mêlée_ the soldiers sabred many of the Catholics unwittingly. God be praised!" and he laughed harshly. And now the end of this day's work had come. Montrevel had left the spot. Behind him went the dragoons and _milices_. The butchery was over. He should have been well satisfied with his morning. Yet it scarcely looked as though he were so. His eyes glared around him as he rode off, his hand clutched convulsively the sword laid across his horse's mane. No wonder that they said afterward, when his recall came and the noble and merciful Villars replaced him, that on that day he was mad as the long-chained and infuriated panther is mad. He had met with nothing but defeat and disaster since he had marched into Languedoc _tambours battants_; nothing but scorn and contempt and derision from the mountaineers whom he had sworn to crush beneath his heel; had received nothing but reproof from headquarters. "Baville must be somewhere near," Martin said to La Quoite as they watched him ride forth from the scene of carnage. "Where is he?" "I know not; yet, doubtless, not far. And he too is mad for the death of his loved one. God grant he is not close at hand; that none of us fall into his clutches. He would spur Montrevel on to fresh attempts." Yet La Quoite's prayer found no echo in Martin's heart. He wished to find Baville, desired to see him, to stand face to face with him and tell him that Urbaine was safe. For safe she must be even after this massacre, safe even though in Cavalier's hands. Had he not said that he knew for certain she too was a Protestant, as they were--_une Huguenote!_ Note.--Justice requires it to be said that, of all the Roman Catholic writers who have described and written upon the slaughter at the mill in Nîmes, not one has approved of it, or attempted to exonerate Montrevel. In truth, this awful outrage was the brutality of a rude, ungovernable soldier and not of a priest; and Fléchier, Bishop of Nîmes, was loud in its condemnation. It led to Montrevel's recall and to the arrival of Marshal Villars, who at last restored peace to Languedoc by the use of clemency and mercy. Such peace was not, however, to take place for some time. Also it should be stated that Baville was quite free from any part in this matter, and that Louis XIV knew nothing of what had happened, nor indeed of any of the terrible events which occurred about the same time, it being the system of Madame de Maintenon and of Chamillart to keep him in ignorance of what was being enacted so far away from Versailles. It has been told that when he heard of the massacre at the mill he was observed to weep for the first and only time in his life. He might well do so! CHAPTER XXVI. DOOMED. Remembering that his horse (which he would require ere long to carry him to the mountains, since although, as he had thanked God again and again, Urbaine was in no danger, Baville would doubtless desire him to obtain her release at once) had been left in the stables behind the Porte des Carmes, Martin made his way there. Went toward the gate, resolved to fetch it away and place it in some more secure spot than the one in which several dragoons had tied up theirs ere dismounting. Reaching the yard, he found the animal; found also that the dragoons must have preceded him, since now all their horses were gone excepting one, which, by its caparisons and trappings, by the great gold sun upon the bridle, the throat-plume and saddle-flaps, as well as by its fleecy bear-skin saddle-cloth, was plainly an officer's. "A fine beast," he mused as, ere he removed his own horse, he held a bucket of water to its mouth, "a fine beast. Too good to be employed in carrying its rider to such work as he and his men have been about to-day." As he thought thus he heard the heavy ring of spurred boots upon the rough flags of the yard, also the clang of a metal scabbard-tip on them, and, glancing round, saw coming toward him a young dragoon officer, his face flushed, perhaps with the heat, perhaps with the business that he and his troops had been recently employed upon. "_Peste!_" the man exclaimed as he came up to his own steed and began unfastening the bridle from the staple to which it was attached. "_Peste!_ Hot work, monsieur, this morning, what with the glaring sun and the flames from the mill. _N'est-ce pas, monsieur?_ Yet, yet I wish those heretics had not been of the feeble. It is no soldier's work slaughtering babes and women and _vieillards_. My God!" he broke off, exclaiming, a moment later, "So it is you, villain!" "What!" exclaimed Martin, astonished at this sudden change of speech and regarding him as though he were a madman. "What! _Villain!_ To whom does monsieur apply that word?" and the look upon his face should have warned the young man to be careful of his words. "To whom," the other sneered, however, "to whom? To whom should I apply it but one? Who else is there in the stable-yard but you to whom it would apply? And if there were fifty more, I should still address it to you. Also the word murderer." "To me! Are you mad that you assault a stranger thus with such opprobrium? Answer, or, being sane, draw the weapon by your side." "Which is that which I intend to do. Yet I know not whether you are fit to cross blades with. You! You!" "You will know it shortly," Martin said quietly, as now he drew his own sword and stood before him, "unless, that is, you have some very tangible explanation of your words to offer." "Explanation! Explanation! Oh, _avec ça!_ you shall have an explanation. Are you not the fellow who sat on the bridge when De Peyre's dragoons rode into Montvert after the murder of the Abbé du Chaila? Are you not the man who led the attack on the Intendant's daughter, dragging her from her carriage, carried her off to the mountains, to your accursed _attroupés_; doubtless assisted in her murder? Answer that, _maraud_, and tell no lies." And even as he spoke he struck at him with the gauntlet he held in his hand, muttering, "I loved her, I loved her, and I will slay you." Then said again, "Answer ere I slay you."