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 recalling 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.