The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion Read online

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  THE WHITE PLUMES OF NAVARRE

  A Romance of the Wars of Religion

  BY S. R. CROCKETT

  _SIXTH IMPRESSION_

  LONDONTHE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, E.C.1917

  First Edition, Oct., 1906Second Impression, Oct., 1906Third Impression, Oct., 1906Fourth Impression, Dec., 1906Fifth Impression, Jan., 1908Sixth Impression, Aug., 1917

  CONTENTS

  BEFORE THE CURTAIN RISES

  CHAPTER I. THE DAY OF BARRICADES

  CHAPTER II. CLAIRE AGNEW

  CHAPTER III. THE PROFESSOR OF ELOQUENCE

  CHAPTER IV. LITTLE COLETTE OF COLLIOURE

  CHAPTER V. THE SPROUTING OF CABBAGE JOCK

  CHAPTER VI. THE ARCHER'S CLOAK

  CHAPTER VII. THE GREAT NAME OF GUISE

  CHAPTER VIII. THE GOLDEN LARK IN ORLEANS TOWN

  CHAPTER IX. THE REBELLION OF HERODIAS'S DAUGHTER

  CHAPTER X. THE GOLDEN DUKE

  CHAPTER XI. THE BEST-KNOWN FACE IN THE WORLD

  CHAPTER XII. THE WAKING OF THE BEARNAIS

  CHAPTER XIII. A MIDNIGHT COUNCIL

  CHAPTER XIV. EYES OF JADE

  CHAPTER XV. MISTRESS CATHERINE

  CHAPTER XVI. LA REINE MARGOT

  CHAPTER XVII. MATE AND CHECKMATE

  CHAPTER XVIII. THE APOSTLE OF PEACE

  CHAPTER XIX. DEATH WARNINGS

  CHAPTER XX. THE BLOOD ON THE KERCHIEF

  CHAPTER XXI. THE TIGER IN THE FOX'S TRAP

  CHAPTER XXII. BERAK THE LIGHTNING AND TOAH HIS DOG

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE THREE SONS OF MADAME AMELIE

  CHAPTER XXIV. COUSIN RAPHAEL, LORD OF COLLIOURE

  CHAPTER XXV. CLAIRE'S EMBARRASSMENT OF CHOICE

  CHAPTER XXVI. FIRST COUNCIL OF WAR

  CHAPTER XXVII. SECOND COUNCIL OF WAR

  CHAPTER XXVIII. THIRD COUNCIL OF WAR

  CHAPTER XXIX. THE SHUT HOUSE IN MONEY STREET

  CHAPTER XXX. JEAN-AUX-CHOUX TAKES HIS WAGES

  CHAPTER XXXI. THE WAY OF THE SALT MARSHES

  CHAPTER XXXII. IN THEIR CLUTCHES

  CHAPTER XXXIII. AND ONE WAS NOT!

  CHAPTER XXXIV. BISHOP, ARCHBISHOP, AND ANGELICAL DOCTOR

  CHAPTER XXXV. THE PLACE OF EYES

  CHAPTER XXXVI. VALENTINE LA NINA

  CHAPTER XXXVII. THE WILD ANIMAL--WOMAN

  CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE VENGEANCE OF VALENTINE LA NINA

  CHAPTER XXXIX. SAVED BY SULKS

  CHAPTER XL. THE MAS OF THE MOUNTAIN

  CHAPTER XLI. "AND LAZARUS CAME FORTH!"

  CHAPTER XLII. SECRETS OF THE PRISON HOUSE

  CHAPTER XLIII. IN TARRAGONA BAY

  CHAPTER XLIV. VALENTINE AND HER VENGEANCE

  CHAPTER XLV. VALENTINE FINDS CLAIRE WORTHY

  CHAPTER XLVI. KING AND KING'S DAUGHTER

  CHAPTER XLVII. GREAT LOVE--AND GREATER

  AFTER THE CURTAIN

  The White Plumes of Navarre

  BEFORE THE CURTAIN RISES

  The night was hot in Paris. Breathless heat had brooded over the cityall Saturday, the 23rd of August, 1572. It was the eve of SaintBartholomew. The bell of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois had just clashed outthe signal. The Louvre was one blaze of lights. Men with lanterns andpoleaxes, as if going to the shambles to kill oxen, hurried along thestreets.

  Only in the houses in which were lodged the great Huguenot gentlemen,come to the city for the marriage of the King's sister Marguerite to theKing of Navarre, there were darkness and silence. None had warnedthem--or, at least, they had taken no warning. If any suspected, theword of a King, his sworn oaths and multitudinous safe-conducts, lulledthem back again into security.

  In one chamber, high above the courtyard, a light burned faint andsteady. It was that beside the bed of the great Admiral--Coligny. He hadbeen treacherously wounded by the arquebuse of one of the guard of theKing's brother--Monsieur de France, Henry Duke of Anjou, afterwards tobe known to history as Henry III., the favourite son of Catherine deMedici, the cunningest, and the most ungrateful.

  There watched by that bedside many grave men, holding grave discoursewith each other and with the sick man, concerning the high mysteries ofthe religion, pure and reformed, of the state of France, and their hopesof better days for the Faith as it had been delivered to the saints.

  And at the bed-foot, with towels, bandages, and water in a silver salverready for service, one young lad, a student of Geneva, fresh from Calvinand Beza, held his tongue and opened wide his ears.

  "Pray, Merlin de Vaux," said the wounded Admiral to his aged pastor,"pray for life if such be God's will, that we may use it better--fordeath (the which He will give us in any case), that the messenger maynot find us unprepared."

  And Merlin prayed, the rest standing up, stern, grave, prepared men,with bowed and reverent heads. And the Genevan Scot thought most of hisdead master Calvin, whom, in the last year of his life, he had oftenseen so stand, while his own power rocked under him in the city of hisadoption, and the kingdoms of the earth stormed about him like hatefulwaves of the sea.

  And somewhat thus-wise prayed good Merlin.

  "Thou, O Lord, hast put down the mighty from their seats and has exaltedthem of low degree! Clay are all men in Thy hands--potter's clay, brokenshards or vessels fit for altar-service. Yet Thou has sent us, Thyservants, into the wild, where we have seen things, and thought things,and given us many warnings, so that when Thou standest at the door andknockest, we may be ready for Thy coming!"

  Then at these words, prompt as an echo, the house leaped under the heavynoise of blows delivered upon the outer door. And the Admiral of France,sitting up in his bed, yet corpse-pale from his recent wound, liftedhis hand and said, "Hush, be still--my Lord standeth without! For dogsand murderers, false kings and queens forsworn, are but instruments inHis hand. It is God who calls us to His holy rest. For me, I have longbeen ready. I go with no more thought than if my chariot waited me atthe door."

  Then he turned to the Huguenot gentlemen who were grouped about his bed.This one and that other had tried to catch a glimpse of the assailantsfrom the windows. But in vain. For the door was in a recess which hidall but the last of the guard which the King had set about the house.

  "It is only Cosseins and his men," said one; "they will hold us safe. Wehave the King's word. He placed the guard himself."

  "The hearts of Kings are unsearchable," said the Admiral. "Put not yourtrust in princes, but haste ye to the garret, where is a window thatgives upon the roof. There is no need that young and valiant men shouldperish with a wounded man and an old. Go and fight for the remnant thatshall be preserved. If it be the Lord's will, He shall yet take vengenceby your arms!"

  "Ay, go," said Merlin the pastor, casting back his white hair; "for me,I am old, and I stay. Only yester-night I saw an angel stand in the sun,crying to all souls that did fly through the midst of heaven, 'Come,gather yourselves to the Supper of the Great God.' But when, thinkingmyself called, I would have drawn nearer, lo! between me and the tablespread, on which was the wine ready poured out, I saw the Beast, thekings of the earth, and their warriors gathered together to make waragainst the Lamb. And I heard a voice that said, 'Nay, but first thoumust pass through the portal of death ere it be given thee to eat ofthe marriage supper of the Lamb.' So to me it spake. The message was notfor you--ye heard not the Voice. I will stay, for I am weary, and amminded to fall on sleep--to find rest after m
any years."

  And to this Pare, the wise and skilled surgeon, who was ever beloved byAdmiral Coligny, likewise adhered, saying, "I have not heard the voiceof the angel. But I hear well enough that of false Cosseins who is sentby the King to murder us. I have looked from the window, and though Isaw no vision of Beast, I saw clearly my Lord Duke of Guise standwithout calling to them to slay and make an end! So I also will remainfor the love I bear to my lord, and because it is my duty as a goodphysician so to do."

  And the lad John Stirling, the Scot from Geneva, the pupil of Calvin,ventured no word, being young. But, though the others would have carriedhim with them, he shook them off, and abode where he was. For hisvision, and the purpose of it, were yet to be.

  And so it came to pass that this young man from Geneva saw the killingof the great Admiral, and heard the words in which he forgave hisassassins, telling them how that he was ready to die, and that at themost they had but shortened his life by some short count of days orhours!

  And ever through the brief turmoil of the killing, the voice of the Dukeof Guise mounted impatiently up the stairway asking if the Admiral werenot yet dead, and hounding on his dogs to make an end of that noblequarry.

  And even when they assured him he would not believe, but desired to lookon the face of his own and his father's enemy.

  "Open the window and throw him down!" he cried.

  So they cast him out. But the aged prince, with the life still in hisbody, clutched by instinct at the sill of the window as he fell. Theyoung Duke, first ordering up a couple of flambeaux, deliberately wipedthe blood from the face of his enemy with his kerchief, and cried out,"It is even he--I know him well. So perish all the enemies of the Kingand of the Catholic League!"

  Then, as his men still called from the window, the Duke looked up, angryto be disturbed in his gloating over his arch-foe.

  "There is also a lad here," they cried, "one from Geneva, who says he isof the Admiral's opinion. What shall we do with him?"

  "What is that to me?" said the Duke of Guise haughtily; "throw him afterhis master."

  And that is the reason why a certain John Stirling, a Scot of Geneva,went through life lame, wearing a countenance twisted like a mask at afair, and--loved not the Duke Henry of Guise.

  Moreover, though he saw the Duke spurn his dead enemy with his foot, theboy felt not at the time the kicks with which the scullions imitatedtheir master, but lay in a swoon on the body of Coligny. He came tohimself, however, being cast aside as of no account, when they came todrag the Admiral's body to the gallows. After a while the spray of afountain that played in the courtyard roused him. The lad washed hishands and crawled forth. He had lain all the terrible Sunday in thebloody court of Coligny's lodgings, under the shadow of the tremblingacacias, which cast flecks of light and dark on the broad irregularstains of the pavement. But when the evening had come again, and theangry voices shouting "Kill! kill!" had died away, the lame boy hobbledpainfully out. Somehow or other he passed through an unguarded gate, tofind himself sustained by a fellow-countryman carrying a child, a littlemaid of four years. He must have been a strong man, that chance-metScot, for he had an arm to spare for John Stirling. He spoke, also,words of hope and comfort to the boy. But these fell on deaf ears. Forthrough the dull ache of his bones and the sharp nip of his wounds,undressed save for the blood that had dried upon them, the heart of thecripple remained with Henry of Guise.

  "No," he said over and over to himself, repeating the Duke's words, "thework is not yet finished!" It had, indeed, scarce begun.

  And he registered a vow.