Jacques Bonneval Part 2

"He may have fallen into some pit, or lost himself among the dungeons,"

said my mother. "We will go and help you to find him."

So she and I accompanied Marie, who was crying bitterly, and made frequent inquiries for him by the way.

When we got inside that vast, circular inclosure, we agreed that Marie should explore one side and we the other, and thus meet at the other end. This took us some time, for you must know that it consists of two stories, each of sixty arcades, seventy feet high; and under its great arches and pillars are many vaulted chambers and pa.s.sages, wherein good Christians have been confined; and again, wherein other good Christians have found asylums in time of hot persecution. Within the amphitheatre were originally thirty-two rows of seats, which would accommodate at least twenty thousand spectators that had a mind to feast their eyes on scenes of blood in the central arena. I looked with curiosity at this place, which I had never so thoroughly visited before. Some of the dens were still in use for the bulls that were baited on Sundays, and others seemed lairs for rogues and vagabonds; but there was many a corner which, as I said to my mother, would afford a good hiding-place in time of danger, and one, especially, in which I thought a fugitive might defy detection (though _I_ had detected it).

Well, we hunted high and low, but could not find little Jules. His mother was distracted: we feared she would lose her reason altogether.

Madeleine devoted herself to her like an angel; neighbors were full of compa.s.sion--those of our own persuasion, I mean; for the Catholics mocked her and said, "Go seek him in the Jews' quarter. The Jew baker's daughter has, doubtless, made him into pies. Go seek him in their secret a.s.semblies--in their cellars--in their slaughter-houses--doubtless they are fattening him for their Pa.s.sover." Conceive the anguish of the mother.

At length she found he was not dead. Her heart leaped for joy. But when she found how the case stood with him, she was ready to wish him dead and numbered among the little children that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Jules had been kidnapped and tampered with by the Catholics. The little apostate had been taught to curse his parents.

The case occasioned a great deal of talk in Nismes at the time; unhappily, similar kidnappings made it soon forgotten, except by the family.

One day, when I had been hunting for him, I came suddenly on the young man who had stared so rudely at Gabrielle at Beaucaire. I was sorry to see him in Nismes. I did not like the look of him, with his narrow head, low forehead, and eyes too near his nose, though otherwise he was well enough. Returning to our factory, I found him just coming out of it.

I said to my father, "Who is that?" He said, "A troublesome fellow, I think, but he brought a message from your uncle Nicolas. He is called Martin Prunevaux. He asked me all manner of impertinent questions, and, if he fall in with you, may ask you as many; but remember Jaques Coeur's motto,

"'En close bouche N'entre mouche--'

"And again, 'Dire, faire, taire.'"

"Ay, ay, father, you may depend on me," said I, heartily.

Sometimes, before I went to bed, I stepped out to get a glimpse of the light in Madeleine's window. I should observe, it was also Gabrielle's, for the sisters shared the same room. The moon cast strong lights and shadows, and I kept in the shade till close to the house, when what was my disgust to hear the wretched tinkle of a guitar under the window!

Serenades might be all very well for Italy, but we did not favor them in Nismes; and stepping briskly up to the musician, I said abruptly, "We want none of this miserable noise!"

He started as if shot, saying, "Pardon, monsieur," evidently taking me for one of the family; a mistake which I favored by knocking at the door. As I was in deep shadow he did not recognize me, but the moonlight fell full on his face, and I saw it was Martin Prunevaux. I felt exceedingly inclined to fall on him and beat him for daring to tune his wretched pipes under Madeleine's window; but a second thought a.s.sured me that Gabrielle must be his object; the more so that I was sure I saw her shadow (which was shorter than her sister's) fall on the curtain, and I could even fancy her making merry behind it. Still, I liked not such a fellow to come prowling about either of the sisters. I stood my ground, that I might not be guilty of a runaway knock, and when Alice came to the door I made a bungling speech and said, "Oh, I suppose the family are all gone to bed. I am late tonight." She said, "They are so, sir,"

and looked surprised. I said, "There was a street musician of some sort before the house when I came up. I think I have chased him away." She said, "All the better, sir; we are much obliged to you; we never encourage such people."

When I rallied Madeleine, next day, on having been serenaded, tears sprang into her eyes, and she a.s.sured me it was not her fault, adding that she feared Gabrielle, in her thoughtlessness, must have given some encouragement to a presumptuous young man. "However, when my father returns, he will take measures," she added, "to prevent our being further troubled with him." Monsieur Bourdinave was at this time traveling on business.

The sisters spent that evening at our house as was not unusual. On these occasions we often sang hymns; and I had just set the tune of "Chantez de Dieu le renom"--

"Chantez de Dieu le renom, Vous serviteurs du Seigneur!

Venez pour lui faire honneur, Vous qui avez eu ce don"--

and was lifting up my voice on high, followed by the sweet treble of the girls, when a shower of stones rattled against the cas.e.m.e.nt, and a flint pa.s.sed close to Madeleine and hit my father on the cheekbone. Hot with anger, I rushed into the street, and found a group of unmannerly fellows outside, who, instead of taking to their heels, gathered round me with defiant looks.

"What is the meaning of this?" cried I in anger.

"What is the meaning of your disturbing the neighborhood with your uproar?" cried one of them, saucily.

"Uproar! We were singing to the praise and glory of G.o.d. Do you know that you have hurt my father?"

"We neither know nor care; and if you don't keep a quiet tongue in your head, will slit it as soon as not."

"Come in, son, come in," said my father, whose cheek was covered with blood. "As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men"--drawing me indoors as he spoke.

"Excellent advice! Take care that he follows it," cried they, tauntingly, as my father shut-to the door. I was burning with rage; Madeleine was in tears; the children, with scared looks, were gathered round my mother. My father, with gentle force, drew me into the little circle, and made me sit down beside him.

"My children," said he, "we have been warned that evil times are coming, and this may be the beginning. If it prove otherwise, we shall have the more reason to praise the Lord; but if it please Him to try and to prove us, let us not be found unprepared. Our strength lies in prayer, in not giving offence, and in not being easily offended."

"We gave no offence, father," said I.

"But you were too easily offended. If any one had cause of complaint, it was I; but I do not take it up."

My mother was meanwhile bathing his cut cheek and applying a plaster.

"Sure, it would make any son's blood boil, to see his father hit!" cried I; and I saw that Madeleine sympathized with me.

"Why, then, let his blood cool again," said my father, jocularly. "Tush, many a school-boy gets a worse hurt than this, and makes no moan. There!

your mother has made all right, and I feel no smart. Let us say no more about it."

I thought he strikingly acted on our Lord's axiom of "If thine enemy smite thee on the one cheek, offer him the other," but could not just then enter into it. I longed to give those rascals a good beating.

"Now, then, I'll set the tune again," said I, affecting composure.

But, "No, no," said the girls simultaneously; and "No, no," said my dear mother. "Don't you see," she continued, "I have all this broken gla.s.s to pick up? If you will do me a real kindness, you will step round to the glazier, the first thing in the morning, and get him to mend the window before breakfast."

"I'll go at once," said I; but "No, no," was again the word. My father laid his hand firmly on my right arm, and Madeleine hers on my left.

Though her touch was as light as a snow-flake, I would not have shaken it off for the world.

"The streets are unquiet to-night," said my father, "and I mean no one to go forth till the girls return home, when we will see them safely to their door; going out the back way."

So we spent the next hour in a sober, subdued manner. Madeleine shyly let me steal her hand and hold it some minutes, as though she knew it would calm me. And so it did; there was much sweetness in that hour, after all.

At length it was time to see them home; my mother kissed and blessed them as if they were going further than into the next street. We went out the back way, my father taking Gabrielle and I Madeleine, and we met with no evil by the way. Being rather high-wrought, I would willingly have faced a little danger for Madeleine's sake.

I kissed her soft cheek unrebuked, and followed my father through the dark with a happy heart Mechanically, rather than from either devotion or defiance, I began to hum "Chantez de Dieu," when my father's warning hand plucked my sleeve, and, at the same instant, a rough voice beside me said, "Hold your peace! Have you not heard of the _arret?_" and pa.s.sed on.

We had heard nothing of any _arret_; but next morning, when I went to the glazier's, he told me that an order had been issued forbidding the Reformed to sing psalms in the streets and public walks, or even within their own houses loud enough to be heard outside. And he told me he was so full of work that he hardly knew which way to turn, in consequence of the many windows broken over night by evil-disposed men suborned to interrupt psalmody. I asked him, half jesting, if he thought any of the suborned men were glaziers; but it hurt him, for he was as good a Huguenot as any in Nismes.

Going home with him, I saw a horrid sight--a dead body that had been some time buried, torn from the grave, stripped of its shroud, and lying in the gutter. I shuddered, and asked the glazier if we had not better tell the authorities; but he hurried on, saying, "Better let it be. The authorities doubtless know all about it." So there had we to leave the ghastly object, though its remaining there was equally prejudicial to decency and to health.

Men's tongues were very busy that day; every one foreboding calamity and n.o.body knowing how to meet it.

My mother sent me, after breakfast, to visit my uncle Chambrun, who had fallen sick; and as the distance was about seven leagues, I went to him on a small but active horse. On my arrival, I found him in bed, with a royal commissioner seated beside him, who was talking to him with great show of courtesy, while my uncle looked much wearied. The bishop of Valence was on the other side of his bed. Finding myself in such high company, I fell back, and awaited a better opportunity of presenting myself.

The commissioner was inquiring very sedulously after my uncle's health, and a.s.suring him he respected him greatly, and wished to show him favor.

"We have been constrained," said he, "to subject several of your colleagues to temporary confinement, but I have great hope that nothing of the kind will be necessary in your case, if you are a man of wisdom who know how to comply with exigencies as they arise, and thereby set an example to those around you. To this end the bishop has come to put a few easy interrogations. It is a mere form, and I am sure you will make no difficulty."

My uncle thanked him for his kind expressions, but said he had a Master in heaven to whom he owed his first duty.

"So have we all," interposed the bishop. And that he should make answer with that end in view and nothing else.

The bishop then took up the word, and very little can I remember of what he said, so hampered was I by his presence; but it was plain that he sought to entangle my uncle in his talk. That was no easy thing to do, my uncle was so temperate and logical, and so much more conversant with the Holy Scriptures than the bishop was.