Yet there was enough to make us grave. In a fight with the Frondeurs for Charenton, M. de Chatillon, one of the handsomest and gayest of our cavaliers, was killed. He was the grandson of the Admiral de Coligny, and was said to have been converted to the Church by the miracle of the ducks returning regularly to the pond where the saint had bound them to come. I think he must have made up his mind beforehand. But it was a great shock to have that fine young man thus cut down the day after he had been laughing and dancing in our gallery. Yet all people seemed to think of, when everybody went to condole with his young widow in her bed, was that she had set herself off to the best advantage to captivate M. de Nemours!
And then came the great thunderbolt-the tidings of the death of the King of England! I knew it would almost kill Eustace; I thought of my poor godmother, Queen Henrietta, and there I was among people who did not really care in the least! It was to them merely a great piece of news, that enabled them to say, 'Yield an inch to the Parliament and see what it will come to.'
That kind, dignified, melancholy countenance as I last saw it was constantly before me. The babble of the people around seemed to me detestable. I answered at haphazard, and begged permission of Mademoiselle to keep my room for a day, as I thought I should be distracted if I could not get out of reach of M. de Lamont.
She gave permission, but she said it was an affectation of mine, for how could I care for a somber old prince whom I had not seen for ten years?
CHAPTER XIX. INSIDE PARIS
Annora's narrative.
My sister has asked me to fill up the account of the days of the Fronde with what I saw within the city. She must permit me to do so in English, for I have taken care to forget my French; and if I write perilous stuff for French folk to read she need not translate it.
I will begin with that Twelfth-day morning when we were wakened by more noise and racket than even Paris could generally produce. There had been a little tumult about once a week for the last six months, so we could endure a great deal, but this was plainly a much larger one. Some of the servants who went out brought word that the Queen had carried off the King in order to be revenged on Paris, and that the people, in a rage, were breaking the carriages of her suite to pieces, plundering the wagons, and beating, if not killing, every one in them. We were of course mightily troubled for my sister, and being only two women we could not go out in quest of her, while each rumour we heard was more terrible than the last. Some even said that the Louvre had been asked and plundered; but old Sir Andrew Macniven, who had made his way through the mob like a brave old Scottish knight, brought us word that he could assure us that our own Queen was safe in her own apartments, and that there had been no attack on the palace.
Still he had himself seen carriages plundered and broken to pieces by the mob, and the gates were closely guarded. Seeing our distress, he was about to go with Abbe to the Louvre, to learn whether my sister and her son were there, when one of the servants came up to tell us that M. Clement Darpent requested to see my mother, having brought us tidings of Madame la Vicomtesse.
My poor mother never could endure the name of M. Darpent, because she did not like my brother's friendship with any one not noble, but she was as glad to see him then as if he had been a Montmorency or a Coucy.
I always like his manners, for they were even then more English than French. Though going through all due form, he always seemed to respect himself too much to let any one be supercilious with him; and however she might begin at a vast distance, she always ended by talking to him just as if he were, as she called it, our equal. As if he were not infinitely the superior of the hundreds of trumpery little apes of nobles who strutted about the galleries of the Louvre, with nothing to do but mayhap to carry the Queen's fan, or curl her poodle's tail!
I see I have been writing just as I felt in those fervent days of my youth, when the quick blood would throb at my heart and burn in my cheek at any slight to the real manhood and worth I saw in him, and preference for the poor cringing courtiers I despised. The thought of those old days has brought me back to the story as all then seemed to me-the high-spirited, hot-tempered maiden, who had missed all her small chances of even being mild and meek in the troubles at home, and to whom Paris was a grievous place of banishment, only tolerable by the aid of my dear brother and my poor Meg, when she was not too French and too Popish for me. But that was not her fault, poor thing.
My mother, however, was grateful enough to Clement Darpent for the nonce, when he told how he had seen Meg safe beyond the gates. Moreover, he assured us that so far from 8000 horse being ready to storm the city (I should like to have seen them! Who ever took a fortress with a charge of horse?) barely 200 had escorted their Majesties. The Coadjutor had shown M. Blancmesnil a note from the Queen telling him so, and summoning him to St. Germain.
It was likely, M. Darpent said, that the city would be besieged, but he did not foresee any peril for us, and he promised to watch over us, as he would over his own mother, and that he would give us continual intelligence so that we might provide for our safety. It was amusing to see how eagerly my mother accepted this offer, though she had almost forbidden him the house when my brother left us.
I am sure my mother was as uneasy as any of us when he did not appear on the morning after he had gone with his father on the deputation to St. Germain. However, he did come later on in the afternoon, bringing a note from Meg. He had not seen her, only Nicolas and little Gaspard, and he, like all the rest, was greatly incensed at the manner in which the magistrates had been treated. His father had, he said, caught a violent cold, and had been forced to go to bed at once. In fact it really was the poor old man's death-stroke, and he never quitted his chamber, hardly even his bed.
The Parliament, in a rage, put forth a decree, declaring the Cardinal an enemy to the State, and ordering him to leave the Court and kingdom on that very day, calling on all loyal subjects to fall on him, and forbidding any one to give him shelter.
We heard loud acclamations, which made us think something unusual was going on, and it was the publication of this precious edict. I wondered who they thought was going to attend to it when M. Darpent brought in a copy. And my mother began to cry and talk about Lord Strafford. I had to think of Eustace and bite my tongue to keep my patience at our noble 'thorough' Wentworth being likened to that base cringing Italian.
Clement Darpent said, however, that every one had passed it by acclamation, except Bernai, who was a mere cook, and gave fine dinners to such a set of low, loose creatures that he was called 'le cabaretier de la cour.' Moreover, they proceeded to give orders for levying 4000 horse and 10,000 foot. This really did mean civil war.
'I knew it,' said my mother, 'it is the next step after denouncing the King's minister. We shall see you next armed cap-a-pie, like our young advocates at home, all for the King's behalf, according to them.'
Of course she was thinking of Harry Merrycourt, but she was surprised by the answer.
'No, Madam, nothing shall induce me to bear arms against the King. So much have I learned from the two living persons who I esteem the most.'
'And they are?' asked my lady.
'My mother and monsieur votre fils,' he replied.
And I could not help crying out--
'Oh, sir, you are right. I know that Harry Merrycourt feels NOW that nothing can justify rebellion, and that he little knew whither he should be led.'
'And yet,' said he, clasping his hands together with intensity of fervour, 'when all is rotten to the core, venal, unjust, tyrannical, how endure without an endeavour at a remedy? Yet it may be that an imposing attitude will prevail! Self-defence without a blow.'
It seemed as if such war as they were likely to wage could do no one much damage, for they actually chose as their generalissimo that ridiculous little sickly being, the Prince de Conty, who had quarrelled with the Court about a cardinal's hat, and had run away from his mother's apron string at St. Germain to his sister's at Paris.
On re
calling it, all was a mere farce together, and the people were always stringing together lampoons in rhyme, and singing them in the streets. One still rings in my head, about a dissolute impoverished Marquis d'Elbeuf, one of the house of Lorraine, whom the prospect of pay induced to offer his services to the Parliament.
'Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
Qui n'avait aucun ressource,
Et qui ne mangeait que du boeuf.
Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
A maintenant un habit neuf
Et quelques justes dans sa bourse.
Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
Qui n'avait aucun ressource.'
There was more sense in taking the Duke of Bouillon, though he was not his brother, M. de Turenne. These young men were in high spirits. You will find no traces of their feelings in the memoirs of the time, for of course nothing of the kind would be allowed to pass the censors of the press. But there was a wonderful sense of liberty of speech and tongue during that siege. The younger gens de la robe, as they were called, who, like Clement Darpent, had read their Livy and Plutarch, were full of ideas of public virtue, and had meetings among themselves, where M. Darpent dwelt on what he had imbibed from my brother of English notions of duty to God, the King and the State. It may seem strange that a cavalier family like ourselves should have infused notions which were declared to smack of revolution, but the constitution we had loved and fought for was a very Utopia to these young French advocates. They, with the sanguine dreams of youth, hoped that the Fronde was the beginning of a better state of things, when all offices should be obtained by merit, never bought and sold, and many of them were inventions of the Court for the express purpose of sale. The great Cardinal had actually created forty offices for counselors merely in order to sell them and their reversions! The holders of these were universally laughed at, and not treated as on a level with the old hereditary office-bearers, who at least might think themselves of some use.
We smile sadly now to think of the grand aspirations, noble visions, and brave words of those young advocates, each of whom thought himself a very Epaminondas, or Gracchus, though M. Darpent, on looking back, had to confess that his most enthusiastic supporters were among the younger brothers, or those with less fortunate fathers, for whom the Paulette had never been paid, or who felt it very hard to raise. He himself brought sincere ardour for his own part, and was full of soaring hope and self-devotion, though I suspect his father would soon have silenced him if the poor man had been able to think of anything beyond his own sick-chamber.
The real absurdity, or rather the sadness, of it was, as we two saw, that the fine folk in whom the Parliament put its trust merely wanted to spite the Cardinal, and cared not a rush for the Parliament, unlike my Lord Essex, and our other Roundhead noblemen, who, right or wrong, were in honest earnest, and cared as much about the Bill of Rights and all the rest of their demands as Sir Harry Vane or General Cromwell himself, whereas these were traitors in heart to the cause they pretended to espouse. Even the Coadjutor, who was the prime mover of all, only wanted to be chief of a party.
One part of his comedy, which I should like to have seen, was the conducting the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon along the Greve to the Hotel de Ville to ask protection, though I do not know what for.
However, there they were, exquisitely dressed, with Madame de Longueville's beautiful hair daintily disheveled, on foot, and each with a child in her arms. Crowds followed them with shouts of ecstasy, and the Coadjutor further gratified the world by having a shower of pistoles thrown from the windows of the Hotel de Ville.
It was good sport to hear Sir Andrew Macniven discourse on the sight, declaring that the ladies looked next door to angels, and kenned it full well too, and that he marvelled what their gudemen would have said to see them make a raree show of themselves to all the loons in Paris!
The streets soon became as quiet as they ever were, and we could go about as usual, except when we had warning of any special cause for disturbance. We were anxious to know how poor little Madame d'Aubepine was getting on, and, to our surprise, we found her tolerably cheerful. In truth, she had really tamed the Croquelebois! As she said afterwards in her little pathetic tone, so truly French, when they both so truly loved Monsieur le Comte (wretch that he was) how could they differ? You see he was not present to cause jealousies, and when Madame Croquelebois found that Cecile never blamed him or murmured she began to be uneasy at his neglect and unkindness.
Though, of course, at that moment he was out of reach, being in the army that was blockading us. Not that we should ever have found out that we were blockaded, if we could have got any letters from any one, except for the scarcity of firewood. My mother wanted much to get to our own Queen, but the approaches to the Louvre were watched lest she should communicate with the Regent; and we were cut off from her till M. Darpent gave his word for us, and obtained for us a pass. And, oh! it was a sad sight to see the great courts and long galleries left all dreary and empty. It made me think of Whitehall and of Windsor, though we little knew that at that very time there was worse there than even desolation.
And when at last we reached our poor Queen's apartments, there was not a spark of fire in them. She was a guest there. She had no money, and all the wood had either been used up or pillaged; and there we found her, wrapped in a great fur cloak, sitting by the bed where was the little Lady Henrietta.
When my mother cried out with grief that the child should be ill, the poor Queen replied with that good-humoured laugh with which she met all the inconveniences that concerned herself alone: 'Oh, no, Madame, not ill, only cold! We cannot get any firewood, and so bed is the safest place for my little maid, who cares not if she can have her mother to play with her! Here is a new playfellow for thee, ma mie . Sweet Nan will sit by thee, and make thee sport, while I talk to her mother.'
So the child made the big four-post bed, all curtained round, into a fortress, and I besieged her there, till she screamed with glee, while the Queen took my mother's arm, and they paced the rooms together, sadly discussing the times and the utter lack of news from home, when the last tidings had been most alarming. Poor lady! I think it was a comfort to her, for she loved my mother; but we could not but grieve to see her in such a plight. As we went home we planned that we would carry a faggot in the carriage the next day, and that I would take it upstairs to her. And so I actually did, but the sentry insisted on knowing what I was carrying hidden in a cloak, and when he saw it, the honest man actually burst into tears that the daughter of Henri IV. should be in such straits. The Queen kissed me for it, and said I was like the good girl in Madame d'Aulnoy's tales, and she would fain be the benevolent fairy to reward me. And then the little Princess insisted that I was Capuchon Rouge, and that she was my Grandmother Wolf, and after making her great eyes at me, she ate me up with kisses over and over again! Ah! how happy children can be. It was strange to remember that this was the way King Charles's little daughter spent that 30th of January!
We had told M. Darpent of the condition in which we found the Queen, and he told the Coadjutor, who went himself to see her, and then stirred up the Parliament to send her regular supplies both of firing and provisions, so that she never suffered again in the same way.
Each day increased our anxiety for His Sacred Majesty. Lord Jermyn made his way into Paris, and came to consult with my mother, telling her that he had little doubt that the iniquitous deed had been consummated, and between them, by way of preparing the unhappy Queen, they made up a story that the King had been led out to execution, but had been rescued by the populace. I could not see that this would be of much use in softening the blow; in fact, I thought all these delicate false-hoods only made the suspense worse, but I was told that I was a mere downright English country lass, with no notion of the refinements such things required with persons of sensibility.
So I told them, if ever I were in trouble, all I asked of them was to let me know the worst at once. One great pleasure came to t
he Queen at this time in the arrival of the Duke of York, who made his way into Paris, and arriving in the midst of dinner, knelt before his mother. He knew no more of his father than we did, and the Queen's urgent entreaty, undertook to go to St. Germain with a letter from her, asking what Queen Anne had heard from England.
The siege was not so strait but that unsuspected persons could get in and out, but after all, the poor Queen's anxiety and suspense were such that Lord Jermyn was forced to disclose the truth to her before Sir Andrew came back with the letters. She stood like a statue, and could neither move nor speak till night, when the Duchess of Vendome came and caressed her until at last the tears broke forth, and she sobbed and wept piteously all night. The next day she retired into the Carmelite convent in the Faubourg St. Jaques, taking my mother with her. As, according to French fashion, I was not to be left to keep house myself, my mother invited Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney to come and take charge of me, and a very good thing it was, for we at least had food enough, and my dear good friends had very little.
We were all stunned by the dreadful news from England. It was very sad old Sir Francis, who had borne without complaint the loss of land, honours, and home, nay, who had stood by to see his only son die at Naseby, sitting like one crushed, and only able to mutter now and then: 'My Master, my good Master.' You might know an English exile in those days by the mourning scarf and sad countenance. I remember a poor wild cavalier whom my mother and Meg never liked to admit when Eustace was not at home, going down on his knees to Lady Ommaney for a bit of black silk, when he looked as if he was starving.
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