The Chaplet of Pearls

No change was made in the life of the captives of Nid de Merle after the answer from Paris, except that Pere Bonami, who had already once or twice dined at the Chevalier’s table...

One room at Hurst Walwyn, though large, wainscoted, and well furnished, bore as pertinaciously the air of a cell as the appearance of Sister Cecily St. John continued like that...

A youth came riding towards a palace gate, And from the palace came a child of sin And took him by the curls and led him in! Where sat a company with heated eyes. Tennyson, A VI...

I am all wonder, O my son, my soul Is stunned within me; powers to speak to him Or to interrogate him have I none, Or even to look on him. --Cowper’s ODYSSEY

The door was opened at last, but not till full daylight. It found Eustacie as ready to rush forth, past all resistance, as she had been the night before, and she was already in...

Never wont to let the grass grow under his feet, Henry of Navarre was impatient of awaiting his troops at Pont de Dronne, and proposed to hasten on to Quinet, as a convenient ce...

Montpipeau, though in the present day a suburb of Paris, was in the sixteenth century far enough from the city to form a sylvan retreat, where Charles IX, could snatch a short r...

The morrow was Sunday, and in the old refectory, in the late afternoon, a few Huguenots, warned by messages from the farm, met to profit by one of their scanty secret opportunit...

Golden sunshine made rubies and sapphires of the fragments of glass in the windows of Notre-Dame de l’Esperance, and lighted up the brown face and earnest eyes of the little dar...

Dusk was closing in, but lamps had not yet been lighted, when with a trembling, yet almost a bounding heart, Eustacie stole down the stone staircase, leading to a back-door--an...

Letters! They were hailed like drops of water in a thirsty land. No doubt they had been long on the way, ere they had reached the hands of the Chevalier de Ribaumont, and it was...

A few days later, when Berenger had sent out Philip, under the keeping of the secretaries, to see the Queen-mother represent Royalty in one of the grand processions of Rogation-...

There came a man by middle day, He spied his sport and went away, And brought the king that very night, And brake my bower and slew my knight. The Border Widow’s Lament

‘One bird in the hand is not always worth two in the bush, assuredly,’ said Philip, when Berenger was calm enough to hold council on what he called this most blessed discovery;...

Madame la Duchesse de Quinet had been a great heiress and a personal friend and favourite of Queen Jeanne d’Albret. She had been left a widow after five years’ marriage, and for...

A late autumn journey from the west coast to Paris was a more serious undertaking in the sixteenth century than the good seaman Master Hobbs was aware of, or he would have used...

Is it the dew of night That on her glowing cheek Shines in the moonbeam?-- Oh, she weeps, she weeps, And the good angel that abandoned her At her hell baptism, by her tears draw...

The unhappy Charles IX. had a disposition that in good hands might have achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil, was no sooner allowed to follow i...

Till at the set of sun all tracks and ways In darkness lay enshrouded. And e’en thus The utmost limit of the great profound At length we reach’d, where in dark gloom and mist Ci...

Summer was nearly ended, and Lucy Thistlewood was presiding in the great kitchen of the Manor-house, standing under the latticed window near the large oak-table, a white apron o...

So extensive was the Louvre, so widely separated the different suites of apartments, that Diane and Eustacie had not met after the pall-mall party till they sat opposite to thei...

The old city of Montauban, once famous as the home of Ariosto’s Rinaldo and his brethren, known to French romance as ‘_Les Quatre Fils Aymon_,’ acquired in later times a very di...

In the spring of the year 1572, a family council was assembled in Hurst Walwyn Hall. The scene was a wainscoted oriel chamber closed off by a screen from the great hall, and fit...

Early on Monday morning came a message to Mademoiselle Nid de Merle that she was to prepare to act the part of a nymph of Paradise in the King’s masque on Wednesday night, and m...

Whether the dark pool really showed Sir Marmaduke Thistlewood or not, at the moment that his son desired that his image should be called up, the good knight was, in effect, sitt...

A grand cavalcade bore the house of Quinet from Montauban--coaches, wagons, outriders, gendarmes--it was a perfect court progress, and so low and cumbrous that it was a whole we...

While Berenger slept a heavy morning’s sleep after a resless night, Philip explored the narrow domain above and below. The keep and its little court had evidently been the origi...

There had been distrust and dissatisfaction at home for many a day past. Berenger could hardly be censured for loving his own wife, and yet his family were by not means gratifie...

‘Tis said, as through the aisles they passed, They heard strange voices on the blast, And through the cloister galleries small, Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall, Loud...

‘Too late,’ muttered Berenger to himself, as he stood by the fire in his prison-chamber. Humfrey and Philip were busy in the vaults, and he was taking his turn in waiting in the...

Hope, spring, and recovery carried the young Baronde Ribaumont on his journey infinitely better than his companions had dared to expect. He dreaded nothing so much as being over...

Parted without the least regret, Except that they had ever met. * * * * Misses, the tale that I relate, This lesson seems to carry: Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper ti...

As soon as it was possible to leave Nissard, Berenger was on his way back to head-quarters, where he hoped to meet the Duke de Quinet among the many Huguenot gentlemen who were...

Next, Sirs, did he marry? And whom, Sirs, did he marry? One like himself, Though doubtless graced with many virtues, young, And erring, and in nothing more astray Than in this m...

Berenger was obliged to crave permission from the King to spend some hours in riding with Osbert to the first hostel on their way, to make arrangements for the relay of horses t...

‘Father, dear father, what is it? What makes you look so ill, so haggard?’ cried Diane de Selinville, when summoned the next morning to meet her father in the parlour of the con...

Contrary winds made the voyage of the THROSTLE much more tardy than had been reckoned on by Berenger’s impatience; but hope was before him, and he often remembered his days in t...

Young knight, whatever that dost armes professe, And through long labours huntest after fame, Beware of fraud, beware of ficklenesse, In choice and change of thy beloved dame. S...

By the day and night her sorrows fall Where miscreant hands and rude Have stained her pure, ethereal pall With many a martyr’s blood. And yearns not her maternal heart To hear t...

Mericour found the welcome at Hurst Walwyn kindly and more polished than that at Combe Manor. He was more readily understood, and found himself at his natural element. Lord Walw...

Her rival lived! The tidings could not but be communicated to Diane de Selinville, when her father set out _en grande tenue_ to demand his niece from the Duke de Quinet. This, h...

The night is come, no fears disturb The sleep of innocence They trust in kingly faith, and kingly oath. They sleep, alas! they sleep Go to the palace, wouldst thou know How hide...

A wild storm had raged all the afternoon, hail and rain had careered on the wings of the wind along the narrow street of the Three Fairies, at the little Huguenot bourg of La Sa...

So the Court of France thought the bridal of Henri Beranger Eustache de Ribaumont and of Marie Eustacie Rosalie de Rebaumont du Nid-de-Merle, when, amid the festivals that accom...

It is the fashion to call every story controversial that deals with times when controversy or a war of religion was raging; but it should be remembered that there are some which...