Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise by Yonge (summer reads txt) 📕

her neck embraced her, for there was something in her face that won my heart more than it had ever gone out to any woman I ever saw; and I saw by Lady Ommaney’s whole face and gesture that she thought a great sorrow was coming on the good woman. I believe she was rather shocked, for she was a Huguenot by birth, and a Jansenist by conviction, and thus she did not approve of any strong signs of affection and emotion; but nevertheless she was touched and very kind and good, and she returned my embrace by giving me her sweet and solemn blessing.

And as he put me into the carriage, Clement, that foolish Clement, must needs thank me, with tears in his eyes, for my goodness to her.

‘What do you mean, sir,’ said I, ‘by thanking me for what I delight in and value as a daughter?’

Whereupon I, equally foolish, knew what I had said, and felt my face and neck grow crimson all over, and what must he do, but kiss my hand in a rapture.

And all the way home I could hear old Lady Ommaney murmuring to herself, quite unconscious that she was speaking aloud, ‘My stars! I hope I have not done wrong! What will my Lady Walwyn say? Not that he would be altogether a bad match for her after our notions. Her father was only a baron, and theirs is a good old family of the citizen sort, but then my Lady Walwyn is a Frenchwoman, and thinks all that is not noble the dirt under her feet.’

My heart gave a great bound, and then seemed to swell and take away my breath, so that I could not at first speak to stop those uttered thoughts, which made me presently feel as if I were prying into a letter, so as soon as I could get my voice I said, as well as I could, ‘My Lady, I hear you.’

‘Hear me! Bless me, was I talking to myself! I only was thinking that the poor old gentleman there is not long for this world. But maybe your mother would not call him a gentleman. Ha! What have they got written up there about the Cardinal?’

I read her the placard, and let her lead me away from the subject. I could not talk about it to any one, and how I longed for Eustace!

However, I believe terror was what most ailed the old gentleman (not that the French would call him so). He must always have been chicken-hearted, for he had changed his religion out of fear. His wife was all sincerity, but the dear good woman was religious for both of them!

And as time went on his alarms could not but increase. The Parliament really might have prevailed if it had any constancy, for all the provincial Parliaments were quite ready to take part with it, and moreover the Duke of Bouillon had brought over his brother, the Vicomte de Turenne, to refuse to lead his army against them, or to keep back the Spaniards. The Queen-Regent might really have been driven to dismiss the Cardinal and repeal the taxes if the city had held out a little longer, but in the midst the First President Mole was seized with patriotic scruples. He would not owe his success to the foreign enemies of his country, and the desertion of the army, and he led with him most of his compeers. I suppose he was right—I know Clement thought so—but the populace were sorely disappointed when negotiations were opened with the Queen and Court, and it became evident that the city was to submit without any again but some relaxation of the tax.

The deputies went and came, and were well mobbed everywhere. The Coadjutor and Duke of Beaufort barely restrained the populace from flying at the throat of the First President, who they fancied had been bribed to give them up. One wretch on the steps of the Palais de Justice threatened to kill the fine old man, who calmly replied, ‘Well, friend, when I am dead I shall want nothing but six feet of earth.’

The man fell back, daunted by his quietness, and by the majesty of his appearance in his full scarlet robes. These alarms, the continual shouting in the streets, and the growing terror lest on the arrival of the Court all the prominent magistrates should be arrested and sent to the Bastille, infinitely aggravated President Darpent’s disorder. We no longer saw his son every day, for he was wholly absorbed in watching by the sick-bed, and besides there was no further need, as he averred, of his watching over us. However, Sir Francis went daily to inquire at the house, and almost always saw Clement, who could by this time speak English enough to make himself quite intelligible, but who could only say that, in spite of constantly being let blood, the poor old man grew weaker and weaker; and on the very day the treaty was signed he was to receive the last rites of the Church.