Jacques Bonneval | Page 9

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 glass 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
_arrêt?_" and passed on.
We had heard nothing of any _arrêt_; 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 nobody 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 assuring 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