Part 12

[3] Anne Marie Louise, eldest daughter of Gaston Duke of Orleans and Marie de Montpensier, in her own right Duchess de Montpensier, Princess de Dombes, and Countess d'Eu, cousin of Louis XIV., was born at the Louvre, May 29, 1627, and died at Paris, April 5, 1693; buried in the Bourbon vault at St. Denis, whence her coffin was exhumed with the rest at the Revolution, and her remains flung into a deep pit dug in the Cour des Valois, outside the Cathedral. On the Restoration, these bones were dug up from their desecrated grave, and were reverently re-buried within the sacred precincts; but as it was impossible to distinguish to whom they had belonged, they were interred in two vaults made for the purpose. The engagement of Mademoiselle with the Duke de Lauzun is one of the saddest stories connected with the hapless Royal House of France--none the less sad because few can see its sadness, and perceive but foolish vanity in the tale of the great heart crushed to death, with no guerdon for its sacrifice.

[4] Marie Anne Louise Benedetto, daughter of Henri III., Prince of Condé, and Anna of Mantua: born November 8, 1676; married, March 19, 1692, Louis Auguste, Duke du Maine, legitimated son of Louis XIV.; died 1753.

[5] Marie Victoire Sophie de Noailles: born at Versailles, May 6, 1688; married, February 22, 1723, Louis Alexandre Count de Toulouse, brother of the Duke du Maine.

[6] Charles, Duke de Berry, was the youngest son of the _Grand Dauphin_ (son of Louis XIV.) and Marie Anna of Bavaria: he was born August 31, 1686, and died at Marly, May 4, 1714, probably by poison administered by his own wife, Louise of Orleans.

[7] Nearly all the members of the Royal House of France, from Anne of Austria and her son Louis XIV. downwards, have been enormous eaters.

[8] Messrs. d'Aumont, St. Quentin, and Bontems are real persons, and this account of the private life of Louis XIV. is taken from authentic sources.

[9] _Ruelle_, the space between the bed and the wall, at the head of the bed. The _ruelle_ played an important part in etiquette, only persons especially favored being admitted.

[10] Dan. vi. 7.

[11] "He was a very gifted eater. The rough old Duchess of Orleans declares, in her Memoirs, that she 'often saw him eat four platesful of different soups, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a plateful of salad, mutton hashed with garlic, two good-sized slices of ham, a dish of pastry, and afterwards fruit and sweetmeats.'"--_Dr. Doran's_ "_Table Traits_," p. 421.

[12] Acts xii. 20-23.

[13] Lev. xix. 32.

VII.

THE NIGHT BOSWITH DIED.

"Thou art not weary, O sweet heart and glad! Ye are not weary, O ye wings of light! Ye are not weary, golden-sandalled feet And eyes lift up in Heaven. Were we with thee, We never should be weary any more.

So sleep, sweet love, and waken not for us. Ah! wake not at my cry, which is of earth, For thou these twenty years hast been of Heaven. Still not thy harp for me: I will wail low, That my voice reach thee not beyond the stars. Only wait for me, O my harper! since When thou and I have clasped hands at the gate, We never shall be weary any more."

"O Patient! I am very sorry to have kept you up so late as this--I had no idea that you would wait for me!" exclaimed Celia, as, hastening into her bedroom, she found Patient quietly at work beside the fire.

"I should have done that, Madam, at whatever hour you had returned," was Patient's answer, as she helped Celia to unclasp her topaz and diamond ornaments, and put them away carefully in their cases. "I thought you were early; my Lady often does not quit her assemblies till day-dawn."

"You see," responded Celia, a little apologetically, awaking to the fact that Patient had not expected her for another hour or two, "I am so little accustomed to these things. I never was up at such an hour as this before."

"All the better for you, Madam," said Patient, quietly.

"You do not like these assemblies?"

"I have nothing to do with them, Madam."

"But if you had," persisted Celia, looking for Patient's opinion as a sister in the faith.

But Patient seemed scarcely willing to impart it.

"You command me to answer you, Madam?" she said.

"I want to know, Patient," replied Celia, simply.

"'What concord hath Christ with Belial?'" answered Patient. "Madam, when I was but a young maid, I looked on the world as divided into many sects--Covenanters, Independents, Prelatists, Anabaptists, and the like, and I fancied that all who were not Covenanters (as I was) must needs be more or less wrong. Methinks I am wiser now. I see the world as divided into two camps only, and the army wherein I serve hath but one rallying-cry. They that believe, and they that believe not--here are the camps, 'What think ye of Christ?'--that is the rallying-cry. I see the Church as a great school, holding many forms and classes, but only one Master. And I think less now of a fellow-scholar sitting on another form from mine, and seeing the other side of the Master's face, if I find that he heareth His voice, and followeth Him. Madam, what think you all those great ladies down-stairs would say, if you asked them that question--'What think ye of Christ?'[1] Poor souls! they never think of Him. And with them in the enemy's camp I have nought to do, so long as they remain there."

"But may we not win them over to our side?" queried Celia.

"Ah! my dear young lady!" answered Patient, rather sadly, "I have seen that question lead many a disciple astray who did run well. When a man goes over to the enemy's ground to parley, it ends at times in his staying there. Methinks that it is only when we carry the Master with us, and when we go like the preachers to the poor savages in the plantations, that we have any hope of doing well. 'Tis so easy to think, 'I go there to please God,' when really we only go to please ourselves."

Patient remained silent for a few minutes, but said presently--

"The Sabbath afore the harrying of Lauchie, Madam, which was Communion Sabbath, Mr. Grey preached a very rich discourse from that word, 'He hath made with me an everlasting covenant.'[2] After, fencing the tables, he spake from that other word of Paul, 'Ye are Christ's.'[3] And in speaking on one head--he dividing his discourse into thirty-seven points wherein believers are Christ's--he said one word which hath stuck in mine heart since then. 'We are all vastly readier,' quoth he, 'to try to follow the Master in the few matters wherein He acted as God, and therefore beyond us, than in the multitude wherein He did act as our ensample. For an hundred who would willingly follow unto the Pharisee's feasting, there is scarce one who is ready to seek out sinners, saying unto them, "Go, and sin no more."'[4] Whereupon he took occasion to reprove them among his flock that were of too light and unstable a nature, loving overmuch, gadding about and taking of pleasure. I was then a young maid, and truly was somewhat exercised with that discourse, seeing that I loved the customs yearly observed among us on the 1st day of November, which the Papistical folk called Hallowe'en."

"What customs, Patient?"

"Divers light and fantastical vanities, Madam, which you were no better to hear tell of,--such like as burning of nuts with names to them, and searching of eggs brake into glasses, for the discovering of fortunes: which did much delight me in my tender age, though now I know that they be but folly if not worse. Moreover, they would throw apples in tubs of water, and the laddies and lassies, with their hands tied behind, would strive to reach them by mouth, and many other siccan fooleries."

"It sounds rather amusing, Patient."

"So it might be, Madam, for we bairns which were of too small age for aught less foolish. But for us, who are members of Christ's body, and have heard His voice and followed Him, what have we to do with the deeds of this weary and evil world, which we cast off when we arose to follow Him? Maybe I had better not have said this unto you, Madam, seeing that (saving your presence) you are yet but a young maid, and youth is naturally desirous of vain delights. When you are a little further on in the way, the Lord will teach it you Himself, even as He hath taught me."

"To tell you the truth, Patient, while I quite see with you in the main, I think you a little severe in the particular."

"I do not doubt it, Madam. The Lord knoweth how to deaden your heart unto this world, and He can do it a deal better than I. But if you be His (the which I doubt not), it must needs be."

"I have scarce a choice now," said Celia, in a low voice, feeling doubtful how far she ought to make any remark to Patient which might seem to reflect on Lady Ingram.

"That I perceive, Madam," answered Patient, in the same tone. "Only--if you will condescend to pardon the liberty I take in saying it--take heed that the pleasing and obeying of man clash not with the pleasing and obeying of God. 'For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life--is not of the Father, but is of the world.'"[5]

"Patient, there is one thing which I feel very much here--the want of a Protestant service."

"I used to feel that very sore, Madam. Not that I miss it not now, 'specially at times: yet scarce, me thinks, so sadly as I once did. At first I was much exercised with that word, 'Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together;'[6] and I marvelled whether I ought to remain in this place. But I began to think that it was not I that had forsaken mine own land, but the Lord which hath caused me to be cast out thence; I having, moreover, passed a solemn word to my dear Lady when she lay a-dying, that I would not leave Master Edward his lone in this strange land while he was yet a bairn. Then me thought of some words of Mr. Grey in that last sermon he ever preached. 'A soldier,' quoth he, 'hath no right to choose his position.' So now, seeing that since the Dragonnades, as they called the persecution here, there is no worship permitted to be had, and also that the Lord, and not I, hath placed me here, I am content. Every Sabbath, ay, every day, He preacheth unto me in the Word, and there is no finer discourse than His."

"What persecution, Patient?" asked Celia, as she lay down on her pillow. "This King hath never been a persecutor, hath he?"

"Ay hath he, Madam. The morn, if it please you, I will tell you some stories of the Dragonnades. My Lady hath given me further work to do for you; and if you think meet, I can bring my sewing into your closet as aforetime."

"Pray do, Patient: I like your stories. Good-night."

"Good-night, Madam, and the Lord be with you!"

"Your very obedient servant, Mrs. Celia Ingram," observed Mr. Philip, lounging into his sister's boudoir the next morning. "I hope your early rising has done you no harm."

"I rose at my usual hour, which is six."

"I rose at _my_ usual hour, which is nine."

"O Philip!" cried Celia, laughing.

"Well, now, what earthly inducement have I to rise earlier? I am doomed--for my sins, I suppose--to spend four mortal hours of every day in dressing, breakfasting, dining, and supping. Moreover, I am constrained to ride a horse. _Item_, I have to talk nonsense. Fourth and lastly, I am the docile slave of my Lady-Mother. Is there anything in the list I have just given you to make a fellow turn out of bed three hours before he can't help it?"

"I should not think there was, except in the last item."

"Not in the last item, Madam, seeing that her gracious Ladyship does not shine upon the world any sooner than I do--have you not discovered that yet?"

"It seems to me, Philip, that you want something to do."

"Well, that depends," said Philip, reflectively. "It might be something I should not relish."

"Well!" said Celia, a trifle scornfully, "I never would lead such a useless life as that, Philip. 1 would either find something to do or make it."

"How very like a woman you talk!" loftily remarked Mr. Philip Ingram, putting his hands in his pockets.

Celia laughed merrily.

"I don't like it, Celia," resumed Philip, more seriously, "but what can I do? I wish exceedingly that my mother would let me go into the army, but she will not. Edward, you know--or you don't know--is a Colonel in King James's army; so that he can find something to do. I wish you would talk to my mother about it."

"_I!_" echoed Celia, in an unmistakable tone.

"You," repeated her brother.

"My dear Philip, you surely very much mistake my position with her. I have no more influence with my Lady Ingram than--than her little pug dog."

"A precious lot, then," retorted Mr. Philip, "for if anybody ruffled the tip of Miss Venus's tail, they would not be asked here again for a twelvemonth. It is you who mistake, Mrs. Celia. The only way to manage my mother is to stand up to her--to let her know that you can take your own way, and you will."

"Neither you nor I have any right to do that, Philip," replied Celia, gravely.

"I have not, that I allow," said Philip. "I don't quite see that as regards you. Her Ladyship is not _your_ mother."

"I think that she takes to me the place both of father and mother, and that I have no more right to argue with or disobey her than them."

"That is your view, is it?" inquired Philip, meditatively. "Well, if you look at it in that way, of course you cannot ask her. So be it, then. I must be contented, I suppose, with my customary and highly useful mode of life."

"I find no lack of occupation," observed Celia.

"No, you are a woman," said Philip. "And as Patient's old rhyme (of which I never can remember the first line) says, 'Woman's work is never done.' Women do seem to possess a marvellous and enviable faculty of finding endless amusement in pushing a needle into a piece of linen, and pulling it out again--can't understand it. Oh! has my mother told you that we are going to St. Germains next week?"

"No," said Celia, rather surprised.

"Then there is a piece of information for you."

"She expects me to go, I suppose?"

"If you don't I won't," said Mr. Philip Ingram, dogmatically.

"Is the--the--Court"--began Celia, very hesitatingly.

"Is the Pretender there? Come out with it now--I shall not put my fingers in my ears. Yes, Madam, the Pretender is there, and his mother too, and all the rest of them."

"Oh!" sighed Celia, much relieved. "I thought you would be a Jacobite."

"You are a Whig, then, Mrs. Celia?" asked Philip in an amused tone.

"I do not know that I am a politician at all," she answered; "but I was brought up to the Whig view."

"All right!" said Mr. Philip, accommodatingly. "Don't let my mother know it--that is all."

"I think my father--Squire Passmore, I mean"--Celia explained, a little sadly, "told her so much at our first meeting."

"So much the better. And you expected to find me a red-hot Jacobite, did you? To tell the truth, I don't care two pins about it; neither does my mother, only 'tis the mode here, and she has taken it up along with her face-washes, laces, and lutestring. Of course I would not call the King anything but 'Your Majesty' to his face--it would hurt his feelings, poor gentleman, and I don't see that it would do any good. But if you ask me whether I would risk the confiscation of my property (when I have any) in aiding a second Restoration,--why, not I."

"Do you consider yourself an Englishman or a Frenchman, Philip?"

"Well, upon my word, Mrs. Celia Ingram, you are complimentary! 'Do I consider myself an Englishman or a Frenchman!' I am an Englishman, Madam, and proud of it; and I will thank you not to insult me by asking me whether I consider myself a Frenchman!"

"I beg your pardon, dear Philip," replied Celia, laughing. "But you have never been in England, have you?"

"Never--I wish I had."

"What is the Pretender like, Philip?"

"Well, Madam, the Jacobites say he would be only and wholly like his father, if he were not so very like his mother: while you Whigs are of opinion that he resembles some washerwoman at Egham, or bricklayer at Rotherhithe--don't remember which, and doesn't matter."

"But what, or whom, do you think him like?"

"Not very like his mother, in my judgment, which is very unbiased, except in his height, and the shape of his hands and mouth. Still, I should not call him unlike her. Of his likeness to his father I can say nothing, for I don't remember King James, who died when I was only eight years old. The son is a very tall man--there is over six feet of him, I should say--with a long face, nearly oval,--dark eyes, rather fine,--and a pleasant, good-natured sort of mouth."

"Is he a pleasant man to speak to? Does he talk much?"

"To the first question--yes; he is by no means without brains, and is very gracious to strangers. To the second--no, very little. If you are looking for me, Thérèse, in your wanderings up and down, here I am, at her Ladyship's service."

"It is not her Ladyship, Sir, dat want you. Dupont tell me to say you dat Monsieur Colville is in your rooms."

"Colville! that is jolly!"

And Mr. Philip Ingram took his immediate departure. Celia guessed that Mr. Colville was the solitary friend of whom he had before spoken.

"Now, Patient, I want to hear about the Dragonnades. Oh! surely you are not making up all those dresses for me?"

"Yes, Madam," answered Patient, in her passive way. "My Lady has ordered it."

"Well," sighed Celia, "I wonder when I am to wear them?"

Patient gathered up one of the multifarious dresses--a blue gauze one--and followed her mistress into the boudoir.

"You have never seen King Louis, Madam?"

"Never; I should like to have a glimpse of him some day."

"I never have, and I hope I never shall."

"Do you think so badly of him, Patient?"

"They call him The Great: methinks they might fitly give the same title to the Devil. He is a man with neither heart nor conscience. God forbid that I should judge any man: yet 'tis written, 'By their fruits ye shall know them,'[7] and the fruits of this King are truly dreadful. It doth look as if the Lord had given him 'over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.'[8] Privately, he is a man of very evil life; and publicly--you will hear shortly, Madam, what he is. 'Tis now, methinks, nigh upon twenty years since what they called the Edict of Nantes[9] was done away with. That decree, passed by some former King of this country,[10] did permit all the Protestants to hold their own worship, and to be visited in sickness by their chosen ministers. This, being too gentle for this King, he therefore swept away. His dragoons were sent into every place throughout France, with orders to force the the poor Protestants to go unto the wicked mass, and to harry them in all manner of ways, saving only to avoid danger of their lives. One Sabbath thereto appointed, they drave all in every place to mass at the point of their swords, goading and pricking on such as lagged, or showed ill-will thereto. I saw one crowd so driven, from a window--for my Lady being a Papist, kept safe them in her house: or else it was that I was not counted worthy of the Lord to have that great honor of suffering for His sake. Poor souls! white-headed men there were, and tender women, and little, innocent, frightened children. It was a sight to move any human heart. I heard many a tale of worse things they did. Breaking into the houses, destroying and burning the household furniture, binding and beating the men, yea, even the women; drumming with hellish noise in the chambers of the sick, until they swooned away or were like to die; burning the houses of some and the workshops of others: all this we heard, and more."

"Patient, how dreadful!" said Celia. "Why, 'tis near what they did in the days of Queen Mary."

"They only went a little further then on the same road--that was all, methinks," answered Patient, calmly. "When the Lord readeth in the Books before men and angels the stories of the persecutions in England and in Scotland, He will scarce forget the Dragonnades of France."

"I did not know that there had been any persecution in Scotland, Patient--except what King Charles did; I suppose that was a sort of persecution."

"Did you not, Madam?" asked Patient, quietly turning down a hem. "I was not thinking of King Charles, but of the earlier days, when tender women like Helen Stirk and Margaret Wilson perished in the waters, and when the bloody Cardinal brent Master George Wishart, that true servant of God and the Evangel, in his devil's-fire at St. Andrews."

"I never heard of all those people, Patient."

"Ay, perchance so, Madam. I dare say their names and their sufferings scarce went beyond their own land," replied Patient, in a constrained voice, as if her heart were a little stirred at last. "But the Lord heard of them; and Scotland heard of them, and rose and bared her arm, and drave forth the men of blood from off her soil. The Lord is their Avenger, at times, in this life--beyond this life, always."

"Tell me something more about them, Patient. Who was Master Wishart?"

"He was a Scottish gentleman of good birth, a Wishart of Pitarrow, Madam, who, giving himself up unto the service of God and the Evangel, in Dundee and other towns, and bringing the blessed Word and the blessed hope unto many a poor hungered soul, was seized by the bloody Cardinal Beaton, and brent to death as the reward of his labors, in the year of our Lord, 1546. They that did know him at that time, and Master John Knox afterward, did say unto divers persons, as I have heard, that even Master John was not fit to stand up with George Wishart. He was a true man, and one that spake so good and sweet words as did move the hearts of such as heard him. I think the Lord knew how to ease him after his sore pain, and that, now that he hath had rest in Heaven for one hundred and seventy years, he accounts not that he bare too much for the Lord's sake, that one bitter hour at St. Andrew's."

"And who was Helen--what did you say her name was?--and Margaret Wilson?"

"Helen Stirk, Madam, was a wife that was permitted to die along with her guidman for the name of the Lord, which she counted a grand mercy. I can tell you a little more concerning Margaret Wilson, for she died no so long since, and my father's sister's son, Duncan M'Intyre, saw her die. It was at Wigtown, on the 11th of May, in the year that King James became King. Duncan had business in the town, where some of his kith on his father's side dwelt; and hearing that two women were to be put to death, he, like a hare-brained callant as he was, was set on seeing it. I heard not much about Margaret Maclauchlan, who suffered at the same time, save that she was the widow of one John Millikan, a wright of Drumjargan, and a woman notable for her piety and discretion. But that of Maggie Wilson took much effect upon mine heart, seeing that she was a young maid of just eighteen years, mine own age. She and Agnes her sister, as Duncan told us, were children of one Gilbert Wilson of Glenvernoch, who with his wife were Prelatists. Maggie and Agnes, who were not able to conform unto the ill Prelatical ways wherein their father and mother were entangled, had joined many meetings of the Covenanters on the hill-sides or in the glens, for preaching or prayer."

"How old was Agnes? Was she a married woman?"

"No, Madam; she was younger than Maggie--a maid of thirteen years."

"But, Patient! I never heard of such a thing--two girls, thirteen and eighteen, setting themselves up to judge their parents' religion, and choosing a different one for themselves!" said Celia, in astonishment, for she could not help thinking of the strong expletives which would have burst from Squire Passmore, if she and Lucy had calmly declared themselves Presbyterians, and declined to accompany that gentleman to church as usual.