Jacques Bonneval | Page 9

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 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.
The commissioner, perceiving that the bishop was getting the worst of it, broke in with--
"All this is beside the mark. The king is determined that you, Monsieur Chambrun, should be a good Catholic; so it is no good begging off. You had much better accept the good offer made you, which I trust you will do on thinking it over."
"The only offer I desire," replied my uncle, "is of a passport, to enable me, as soon as I am well enough, to follow my brother ministers to Holland. My reason tells