CHAPTER IIILOUIS OF NASSAU
Leipsic was unfamiliar to Rénèe le Meung, she did not know where the sunny streets she chose would lead her, but as she knew no one and had no object in her walk, this did not trouble her. She walked slowly, enjoying the sun, which was the only thing left her to enjoy.
She did not seem a lady of the court, so simple and even poor was her dark green kirtle and mantle, so unpretentious her whole appearance; even if she had wished to follow some degree of fashion she was unable to, for her sole resource was what was given her as waiting-woman to the Elector's niece, and that was little enough.
But she was utterly unconscious of her plainness of attire as she walked unnoticed by the hurrying crowd that now and then pushed her against the wall or the street posts in their haste.
Every one was full of the wedding and the subsequent festivities; the name of Anne and of her groom was on every lip; there seemed no room in Leipsic for anything but rejoicing. The air of gaiety, of idleness, and holiday was accentuated by the great glory of the late afternoon sun which filled the air with golden motes, blazed in golden flame in the casement windows, gleamed on the weathercocks, and filled the upper boughs of the elms and chestnuts in the squares and gardens.
As Rénèe was turning into one of these squares she met the Elector's alchemist walking thoughtfully under theshade of the trees with a small brass-covered book in his hand.
She would have passed and left him to his meditations, but he chanced to see her and instantly paused and saluted her. He had a kindness for her; she had always been gentle and interested in his work when they had chanced to meet.
"This may remind you," he said, holding out the little volume, "of that wonderful Book given by a Jew to the great Nicolas Flamel by which he finally discovered the secret of secrets. Does he not describe it as with brass covers, leaves of bark engraved with an iron pencil, and symbolic pictures finely coloured?"
"And he discovered the stone?" asked Rénèe.
"Ay," answered Vanderlinden wistfully, "and in evidence of it may be seen his statue to this day in Paris, together with fourteen churches and seven hospitals that he founded with the gold he manufactured."
"And the secret died with him?"
"He disclosed it to no one," admitted the alchemist. "I bought this book in memory of his—it cost but two florins and I doubt it is worth more."
He put the book under his arm and asked Rénèe if she would see his house, which was but a few yards away; he had taken, he said, for his stay in Leipsic, the dwelling of another alchemistral philosopher who had lately gone travelling; this man had had a shop for perfumery, soaps, and engraved gems which he—Vanderlinden—was continuing to hold open, and where he did some little trade among those gathered in Leipsic for the wedding.
"I would rather have stayed in Dresden," he added, "and concluded my experiment there, but His Princely Grace insisting on my coming hither, though not paying my expenses of the road, so I am obliged to make what I can with these washes and unguents."
"I am sorry the experiment failed," said Rénèe gently. The occupation of the alchemist seemed to her more worthythan that of most other men; at least he had set his aim high, and was searching for what would benefit mankind as much as it would himself.
"Perhaps the next may succeed," answered the alchemist diffidently, "but I doubt if God hath reserved this great honour for me—this high favour."
They turned towards the house, which was situated at the corner of the square, and entered the shop—a room which was opposite the parlour where Vanderlinden had received the Elector.
This room faced west, and the full light of the setting sun poured through the broad low window on to the shelves where stood the pots, bottles, cases, boxes, vases containing the alchemist's wares, and on to the long smooth counter where the glittering scales gleamed, and where two men were leaning over a tray of engraved gems such as are used for signet rings.
He behind the counter was the alchemist's foremost assistant, the companion of all his wanderings, and the sharer of his fortunes—a lean, silent Frenchman, named Duprès, who was a noted spirit raiser, and possessed a mother-of-pearl table on which he could bring the angels to discourse with him, and a tablet of polished jet in which he could foresee future events.
He was now engaged in holding a violet stone, clear and pure as crystal and engraved with the first labour of Hercules, against the strong sunlight, which flashed through it, giving a glorious strength of colour to the little square gem.
The customer was a young cavalier, not much over twenty, splendidly vested in black velvet cross cut over stiff white satin; a cloak of orange cloth hung from one shoulder, fastened across the breast with cords of gold, three ruffs encircled his throat, the topmost or master ruff being edged with silver lace and touching his ears.
His appearance was singularly charming; though rather below the average height, he was extremely graceful,and he carried his small, well-shaped head with the noble carriage of a fine stag; his features were aristocratic and aquiline, and expressed gaiety, frankness, and good humour; his thick, dark-brown hair fell in waves on to his ruff, and was curled low on to the brow.
His well-formed right hand lay open on the counter, palm upwards, and was filled with the sparkle and light of yellow and red stones.
Rénèe knew this young seigneur well; he was Louis of Nassau, the brother and envoy of Anne's bridegroom, whose mouthpiece and proxy he had been during the three years of the negotiations.
The waiting-woman, with her instinct and training of self-effacement, was drawing back at sight of the young Count, but with his usual gay friendliness he rose and addressed her, asking her opinion of the jewels before him.
"I am a poor judge of such things," smiled Rénèe. "I do not know why I am here at all, save that I was asked very courteously."
She came and stood by the counter, looking, with her habitual utter indifference, at Louis of Nassau; she did not know much of him nor had they ever spoken together further than a few words, but she did not like him despite his courtesy, his charm, his undeniable attraction.
And this dislike was because he, a Protestant himself, had been eagerly forwarding the marriage of his Papist brother with Protestant Anne, because he was known to be looking for a wealthy bride himself, and because she judged him frivolous, extravagant, and thoughtless.
"Will you be glad, seigneur," she asked with a flicker of curiosity, "when His Highness, your brother's wedding is really accomplished?"
He raised his fresh young face quickly.
"If I shall be glad?" he said, and for the first time Rénèe noticed the lines of fatigue and anxiety beneath the brilliant eyes and on the fair brow.
"We shall all be glad," said Duprès, with the freedomhe always assumed, "when the little lady is safely in the Netherlands."
"Not I," said Rénèe. "I would rather live in Saxony than Brussels."
"Does the Lady Anne hold that opinion?" asked the Count.
The question at first amazed Rénèe, then she swiftly recalled how Anne had been shut away and guarded by the Elector (her sickly unattractiveness being more hedged about than beauty, for fear reports of her should reach and disgust her prospective husband), and that Louis could only have obtained rare glimpses of her, and never have had an opportunity to know her temper nor her mind as the waiting-woman knew both.
"My mistress is very glad to go to Brussels, and very devoted to His Highness," she answered conventionally, adding, with more feeling, "She is very young, princely Count, and frail, and the excitement of these days exalts her spirit."
"She does not regret Saxony, I think," remarked the alchemist, "which is well for the future tranquillity of His Highness."
"Nor is she afraid of a Papist Court, eh?" asked the young Count with a frank laugh. "I believe the maiden thinks more of her gowns and her new titles than of the sermons and prayer books she leaves behind."
He spoke carelessly, slipping a ring with a dark honey coloured stone on his finger the while. Rénèe wondered at him.
"Her Grace will remain of the Reformed Faith," she said.
"'But she will live Catholicly,'" quoted the Count with a smile. He spoke as if he was pleased (as indeed he was) that the laborious negotiations had ended in the Prince getting what he had been striving for from the first, namely, the lady without any conditions as to her faith, for a Protestant wife was obviously impossible for a nobleof King Philip. Rénèe had watched the troubled course of the tangled diplomacies of guardian and suitor with equal disdain for the Elector who gave his niece to a Papist for his own convenience and the Prince who took a bride, who was to him a heretic, merely because it suited his ambitions.
Louis of Nassau noticed her silence; he had remarked before that she was strangely quiet and also that she was exceedingly comely. His glance, quick to appreciate and admire fair women, now fell kindly over her graceful figure, her face so finely coloured and so delicate in line, the rose carnation of lip and cheek, the glow of the heavy, carelessly dressed hair.
"I wonder what you think of?" he said.
Rénèe started at the personal address, she had been so long a mere part of the background that when one treated her as an individual it always confused her.
"What should I think of, princely Count?" she answered. "Foolish things, of course."
Louis handed the ring and the violet gem to Duprès, who packed them into little cases of cedar wood.
"You do not look as if your thoughts were foolish," he replied, with more gravity than she had ever associated with him.
"Nay, I think she is a very wise lady, noble seigneur," said the alchemist.
"Your thoughts, then?" smiled Louis of Nassau.
Rénèe's deep-set indifference to all things overcame her momentary confusion.
"I am too good a Protestant to rejoice at this marriage," she replied quietly, "and my thoughts were all sad ones, noble Count, and did not in any way touch your high policies."
Louis of Nassau answered gently; he knew something of her history.
"It is all a question of policy certainly," he paid her the compliment of sincere speaking. "The marriagesuits the Elector and my brother—the lady too, I think—and religious differences are easily accommodated among people of sense. The Prince is no fanatic—your faith will be protected as long as you are in his household. He, too, was bred a Protestant."
Rénèe could make no answer; she knew the Prince had left his faith when the splendid heritages, rank, and honours of his cousin René of Orange had fallen to him—his father had sent the German Protestant to the Emperor's Court to become a Papist, and almost a Spaniard. Rénèe saw nothing splendid in any of this—it was a piece with the rest of the world.
"You dislike my brother?" asked Louis shrewdly.
"I like no one," said the waiting-woman calmly.
"Have you seen the Prince?"
"Nay; when His Highness came to Dresden I was very ill."
"I thought that you had not seen him," remarked Louis. "No one who has seen him dislikes him."
"You put me in the wrong," protested Rénèe. "Who am I to judge great ones? Take no heed of me, gracious Count. I am looking for a hero, and that is as hard to find as the holy stone," she added, with a smile at the alchemist.
"You have been reading Amadis de Gaul, or Charlemagne and his paladins—fie, I did not think it of your gravity," jested Louis of Nassau.
Rénèe flushed into animation, and it was like the sudden blooming of a tightly closed flower, so did the quick flash of her feeling light her features into beauty.
"Thereweresuch men," she said, "and might be again, surely—do you not believe so, Magister? And never were they more needed than now——"
She checked herself sharply and the lovely flush faded. She turned away and picked up one of the slender glass bottles of essences Vanderlinden had placed before her.
Louis of Nassau looked at her curiously. "She is beautiful," he thought.
"Perhaps one day you will find your hero and Vanderlinden his stone," he said, and the sun flickered like a caress over his brilliant person and his pleasant young face.
"Perhaps? Nay, surely," replied the alchemist. "Or if we do not, another will. For both are there as surely as God is in heaven."
"You, too, think the world needs some knight, some paladin?" asked the Count, drawing on his white gloves stitched with gold.
"I have travelled much," replied the alchemist, "and could not avoid seeing, albeit that I was ever engaged in abstruse studies, the great horrid cruelties and wrongs abroad, especially under the reign of His Majesty King Philip, in whose dominions God grant me never to set foot again. I was in England, princely seigneur, while he was King of that country, and I did see things that made me weary of life. So, too, in Spain from whence I fled hastily. And, lately, it is no better in the Netherlands; indeed there are few places where a man can think as he please and speak freely, save only in these states of Germany."
Louis of Nassau looked thoughtfully at the speaker, and then at Rénèe whose fair head was bent over the rows of alabaster pots and bottles of twisted glass and crystal. He had never lived under a tyrant, his brief joyous life had passed in absolute freedom, and with him his faith was not the result of conviction but of heritage. Still the old man's words and the girl's eloquent face were not without effect on him; some emotion strange and vague echoed in his heart, and he sighed as he took the two little boxes from Duprès.
"There are many changes abroad," he said. "Who knows but that this hero may appear to put straight all these tangled wrongs."
He took up his high-crowned white hat with the cluster of black plumes, and, saluting all very pleasantly, left the shop.
"There goes no hero there at least," said Duprès softly,glancing through the window at the Count, who glittered in the sun without. "He spent fifty thalers to-day in unguents—conserve of violets, lotion of citrons, sweetmeats of pistachio nut, rose and orange water!"
"Is his brother like him?" asked Rénèe.
"I have never seen the Prince of Orange," answered the alchemist, but Duprès, who appeared to have been everywhere and seen every one, declared he knew the Prince well by sight.
"He is more magnificent than Count Louis, and more to be feared though so few years older—for he is certainly a great Prince. But prodigal and greatly in debt, they say—and not very pious, nor straight-living—at least, no more so than any man of his blood and youth."
"Ah, Dominus," said Rénèe, "cannot you look in your jet tablets and see what the future of this marriage will be?"
"I have looked for the Elector time enough," replied Duprès with a little smile, "and saw nothing but confusion."
"Have you tried to see the future of the poor Protestant peoples?" asked Rénèe earnestly.
The Frenchman carefully put away the tray of gems.
"That is too large a thing to be looked for in a square of jet or any magic mirror whatever," he replied.
"We must look for it in our own hearts," said Rénèe sadly. "Well, I have out-stayed my leisure; give me leave to come another time and see your treasures."
Vanderlinden took up a tall bottle of milk-white glass with a stopper of scarlet porcelain and filled with jasmine essence; he offered it to Rénèe with a half-awkward kindness.
The waiting-woman, who never received any kind of gift, felt the tears swiftly sting her lids.
"I shall not come to see you since you treat me so well," she said, with an eager little smile; she did not realize that she was the only lady who had ever come to the shopwithout a cavalier to buy gifts for her, nor that if she had been as other women Count Louis would have offered her as much perfumery as she could need; she was unaware how her reserve and her indifference hedged her from common courtesies. She did not miss gallantry and compliments, but she often missed kindness, and therefore the alchemist's action stirred her heart, while Count Louis' flattery would have left her cold.
She passed out into the street, the aromatic odours of the shop still about her. She saw Vanderlinden's two apprentices hurrying along with rosettes of Anne's colours threaded with orange ribbons. The streets were now in shadow, for the sun had set behind the houses, but over all was that sense of festival, of excitement, and in the air were the names of Anne and William of Orange.
CHAPTER IVTHE SAINT BARTHOLOMEW WEDDING
Anne of Saxony stood at the top of the wide stairs of Leipsic town hall waiting to welcome her bridegroom; about her spread the motionless pageantry of harquebusiers, burgher guard, nobles, gentlemen, and pages—all ranged up the stairs and on the landings in groups of brilliant colours and shining weapons.
It was St. Bartholomew's Day, the 24th of August, and intensely hot; the air of the town hall, though constantly refreshed with perfume sprays, was close and dry; through the windows, carefully shuttered against the heat, the sun crept in through odd chinks and made spots of dazzling gold. The pages sighed under their breath, the gentlemen heaved their shoulders under the heavy weight of velvet, brocade, and jewelled chains; the ladies behind the bride swayed to and fro with little whispers and glances among themselves; the Electress stood slightly apart, covertly fanning herself, and lamenting to the bride's uncle, the Landgrave William, son of the old Landgrave of Hesse, that the electoral palace which was so much more commodious than the town hall, should be under repair.
The bride herself stood in advance of all, on the very edge of the top stair; her eyes were directed fiercely down between the two rows of soldiers that glittered against the dark wood balustrades.
The long weeks of tumultuous days and sleepless nights had reduced her feebleness to utter exhaustion, butpassionate excitement supported her, and gave her the strength to stand there bearing the weight of her heavy robes, the heated air, the fatigue of standing.
The Elector, with four thousand nobles, gentlemen, and soldiers, had ridden to meet the bridegroom and his escort outside the city; to those waiting here the return of Augustus and his guest seemed wearisomely delayed.
"Why do they not come—why do they not come?" muttered Anne again and again.
Rénèe le Meung, who stood close behind, remarked her mistress's gorgeous figure with a tired curiosity.
The waiting-woman was herself so remote in heart from all this festivity which she stood in the centre of, so far in spirit from all the excitement by which she was surrounded, that these people seemed to her in a strange way lifeless—splendid puppets like those the tailor had brought on the polished wood gallows; and when she looked at the bride she was sorry, in a vague way, that Anne was not more lovely, more gracious, more sweet. The long-stifled romance of her own youth told her the central figure of all this pageantry should be more worthy.
Since seven that morning Anne had stood on her feet being attired, and it was now towards two of the clock—the actual time of the wedding being five.
All those hours of her women's labour and fatigue, her own screaming impatience and trembling nervousness, had resulted in an appearance almost grotesquely brilliant.
She wore a gown of stiff satin, interchangeable wine red and yellow—the colour of old amber; it flowed fold on fold from her tight waist, to fall heavily on the floor, weighted by a hem of ruby and topaz embroidery; in front it was slightly caught up by a gold cord, to display a petticoat of black and crimson brocade in a design of flowers, and the pointed shoes cloth of gold with red silk tissue roses.
The bodice was crimson cloth of gold, cut low in the front, and rising behind to a high upstanding collar of finest gold lace, the full sleeves were of pale yellow satin,laced across and across with gold and crimson cords; round the throat and over the bosom hung strings of pearls and rubies and long chains of curious enamel; the dull-coloured hair was crowned by a gold cap sewn with pearls, and long emeralds swung in the ears.
From Anne's stooping shoulders there hung, despite the heat, an orange mantle lined and bordered with ermine, which lay a full yard on the polished boards behind her. But none of this costly and princely magnificence could disguise the thin malformed figure, and the fierce fire of the gems only served to make the pale weary face look like a colourless mask—and colourless she was, from her pallid lips to her light brows—only in her pale eyes burned the flame of her passionate, jealous, eager soul.
So she stood, waiting for her lover, as she was pleased to consider him; and Rénèe was sorry for her mistress from her heart.
And now the doors at the foot of the stairs were opened, and the full August sun fell on the black and orange of the halberdiers, the spearmen, and harquebusiers, the gleaming weapons and fluttering banners that rose above the heads of the crowd that filled the market square.
Outside the town hall the whole splendid cavalcade had halted, and presently, through the broad shaft of sunshine and in at the doors came the Elector, accompanied by several other German princes and the bridegroom, escorted by his three brothers—the Counts John, Adolphus, and Louis.
At the foot of the stairs these gentlemen paused for a second, and among those waiting at the top there was the slightest movement and murmur—a bending forward of expectant faces, the rustle of stiff satins.
There was indeed great curiosity to behold the bridegroom, many of those present having never seen him before; Rénèe, more curious because more thoughtful than the others, stepped lightly from behind her mistress and gazed down the stairs.
She saw one cavalier come forward from the others and ascend the stairs a little in advance of them; this was he whose fame had travelled so far, who had been so criticized, so discussed in Saxony, whose marriage project had been the subject of so many intrigues and broils in Madrid, Brussels, and Dresden.
Slowly he came up the stairs, his eyes fixed on Anne, and himself the subject of all regards.
Rénèe watched him long, intently.
This was her first sight of him, and she was long to remember this brilliant scene, long to recall in other scenes of terror, misery, and exaltation that figure coming up the stairs with the blaze of sunshine and the little group of princes behind him.
This, her first impression of William of Orange, was of a gentleman of extreme good looks with the carriage of a soldier and the grace of a courtier. He was slender, twenty-eight years of age, and of a Southern type—dark, warmly coloured, with a small head and regular features, the nose straight, the lips full, the eyes chestnut brown, large, and well-opened; his red-brown hair was short, thick, and curling, his beard close shaven, his complexion dark. He wore still a simple dress of tawny velvet buttoned high under the chin and, turning over with a little collar of embroidered lawn, it was slashed over an under-vest of scarlet, and the sleeves and breeches were of black silk fretted with silver work; his one adornment was a long gold chain of massive links, passed six times round his neck; he carried his gloves and a black cap with a heron's plume in his left hand.
Straight up the stairs he came with an ease that seemed unconscious. Anne swayed towards him; he kissed her cold hand, smiled at her, and stood so a moment beside her, looking down into her pale, almost frightened, face.
In that moment Rénèe saw, as by a sudden light, the bride as she was in contrast with him. By the standard of his complete manhood, his finished accomplishment,his undeniable charm, gaiety, and power, she beheld Anne a peevish, sickly, malicious, ignorant child, and she turned her eyes away. This contrast of bride and groom seemed to her to touch this mating with horror.
The Prince now turned to the Electress, and Anne, with a deep reverence to her future husband, withdrew with her women to the apartments prepared for her use.
No sooner was she there than her strained control gave way; she scolded, she stamped, and finally broke into hysterical tears.
The frightened agitated women ran hither and thither with cordials and essences and all the details of the resplendent wedding-gown with which their mistress had to be vested.
Rénèe, a little bewildered by that sight of the Prince of Orange, went about her duties quietly; she believed she knew the cause of Anne's untimely tears. Deep beneath the Princess's vanities, ignorances, and arrogances lay a woman's intuitions; these warned her, sometimes in a manner not to be ignored, that she was crooked, undesirable, and now they told her that the Prince's kind glance had not been that of a lover. Anne, too, Rénèe thought, had felt the bitter difference between herself and her betrothed.
At last the bride, alternately shaken by nervous temper and stormy sobbing, was arrayed in the wedding-gown of milk-white velvet, over-veiled with a skirt of braided pearls, transparent silver wings rising at the back in lieu of a ruff, and over all a train of pale purple embroidered with crystal flowers; a wreath of myrtle twisted with an orange ribbon was placed on the stiff waves of her crimped hair, the traces of tears were powdered away as well as might be, the rings, necklets, bracelets, chains were replaced. She was perfumed with costly essence extracted from Eastern lilies, then escorted to an upper chamber where waited the Elector, the Electress, two town councillors, the Prince of Orange, and his brother Counts.
All the women now withdrew save the Electress's lady, Sophia von Miltitz, and Rénèe.
In a corner, before a table, stood one Wolf Sesdel, a notary.
The Prince of Orange had changed his attire; he was in rose cloth of gold from head to foot, with a short cloak of dark violet velvet lined with blue, and a triple ruff of gold tissue.
Rénèe glanced at him again. "A mere courtier, like his brother," she thought. Her eyes turned to Count John; he, too, was a princely young man, though without the great charm of William or the infinite grace of Louis.
Bride and groom were now placed opposite each other before the notary, his brother and one of his gentlemen behind the Prince; Dame Sophia, one of the councillors, and Rénèe, behind Anne; in front Elector and Electress with Hans von Ponika, the second councillor, who addressed the Prince, reminding him that the Elector had sent him a memorandum requiring him to preserve Anne in her present faith, to allow her to receive the Augsburg sacraments, even, at extreme need, in her chamber, and to instruct her children in the doctrines of the Reformed Church.
This memorandum William had always refused to sign. He listened to the councillor's long speech courteously, but with a look of amusement, Rénèe thought, as if he appreciated at its true value this last attempt on the part of Augustus to salve his conscience on the question of the bridegroom's Papistry.
"As your princely Highness," continued Von Ponika, "has been pleased to so far give no agreement in writing on these points, it has been arranged that you should now give your consent verbally, before these princely witnesses."
William, with laughing eyes in a grave face, looked at the Elector, whose stern features were impassive. Anne was trembling like one in a fever, and continually pressing her handkerchief to her dry lips and burning cheeks.
Von Ponika proceeded to read the memorandum which William had rejected since April last, and asked if His Highness was prepared to keep the articles contained therein?
The Prince advanced a step towards the Elector and answered—Rénèe noted his voice, low, deep, and soft, a very masculine voice—
"Gracious Elector, I remember the writing that you sent me in April, and which this learned doctor has just read. I now declare to Your Highness that I will act in all as becomes a Prince, and conform to this note as I ever said I would conform."
This evasion was all the Elector had hoped for. He knew as well as William did that no subject of King Philip could live according to the Augsburg Confession nor practise the rites of the Reformed Church, but he had finally satisfied his conscience, and when William offered his hand the Elector took it heartily.
The notary then put the Prince's reply on record, and all left the room.
The bridal procession was now formed. In front the Court musicians playing bravely, after them the marshals, the nobles, the guests, the envoys, the Elector and his wife, and the bride and groom, followed by the councillors and such of the Netherland grandees who had dared King Philip sufficiently to attend a wedding His Majesty secretly frowned on.
So to the sound of drums and trumpet they entered the great hall, which was hung from ceiling to floor with fine silk tapestries of Arras and carpeted with Eastern rugs, and furnished with five round tables and chairs, each chair like a throne.
There the marriage ceremony took place. If the Elector had tacitly accepted William's evasions on religious questions, William as tacitly accepted the Lutheran marriage rites, which would have been little to the taste of King Philip.
After Doctor Pfeffinger had united the two, Anne was conducted to a gold couch with gold curtains set on a dais at the upper end of the hall; the Prince seated himself beside her, and kneeling pages of noble blood handed them goblets of rock crystal filled with sweet wine, and comfits on plates of engraved silver.
The rest of the company were also served, and all drank standing and looking towards the bride. Anne's spirits had now risen; she was flushed with pride and happiness, her eyes sparkled, and she drank her wine with a relish.
The Prince had rather an absent look, though completely at his ease; his mind did not appear to be wholly in the ceremonies in which he was taking part so gracefully.
He now rose, and the Margrave of Brandenburg raised Anne and presented her to her husband.
"Gracious Highness," he said, "I give you this maiden on behalf of the Elector, and I recommend Your Grace to cherish her with all care and affection, and to leave her undisturbed in the right use of the Holy Gospel and Sacraments."
The bridal couple parted, to a second time change their garments.
Anne was in a rapture.
"Is he not noble and fine?" she asked her weary women as they again disrobed her. "I think there is no knight like him in Europe. And how foolish my uncle is with his notes and promises! As if I could not trust my princely husband!"
She used the new title with an affected laugh.
"I am now the Princess of Orange," she added.
"Yes, Highness," said Rénèe. She was weary from the long hours of standing; her head ached from the noise of the drums and trumpets, the glare of all the mingled gems and flashing gold and the bright colours of the dresses, the intensity of the heat, and lack of food. None of the overworked women had eaten since morning; the kitchens were wholly absorbed in preparations for the wedding feast.
Anne's shrill, excited chatter fell distastefully on the ears of Rénèe. 'What will they think of her in Brussels?' she wondered; it seemed grotesque to imagine her the head of the Prince of Orange's gorgeous and extravagant household, the greatest lady in the brilliant Court of the Regent.
But Anne, at least, seemed not to doubt at all of coming triumphs; as she was arrayed she talked incessantly of her future glories.
She now wore a gown of blue satin with an overskirt of silver brocade worked with raised yellow roses, her bodice was one stiff piece of silver as if she was encased in the precious metal itself, her long yellow sleeves were caught together and fastened with sapphire studs; her bosom was bare, but round her throat was a fine ruff reaching to her ears and sparkling with little brilliants, her hair was confined under a cap of silver tissue, and from her shoulders hung a mantle of darker yellow satin with a great collar of rose velvet and a lining of blue.
Thus she returned to the great hall where covers for fifty were laid, ten at each table, and the first course of twenty-five dishes being immediately served, she took her place beside her husband, who wore crimson satin cut over violet cloth of gold, and so sewn with gold that no more than a gleam of the stuff was visible. The Elector's choir began to play a gay measure, and twelve young counts with gold wreaths on their heads brought forward the wine, the water, the napkins for the use of the bride and groom.
It was now past six, and the great heat diminishing. Rénèe and the other women went slowly about the Princess's apartments, putting straight the disorder, and beginning to lay by the gowns in the long travelling coffers; the sound of the bridal music came faintly to their ears, and faintly they could savour the mingled odours of the extravagant wedding dishes. As they moved about their task they ate cakes and comfits, having little hope of a supper that night, and in a tired, disjointed way they talked together.
"She is quite right, he is very handsome," said one, "and very magnificent too. They say he is greatly in debt."
"Well, there will not be much of her fortune left to repair holes in his," replied another. "Such extravagance! And she looks all the uglier for it all. And I hear he is fond of pretty women." The speaker glanced with some satisfaction at her own pleasing reflection in Anne's mirror.
"Was his first wife well favoured?"
"Well, she was straight and had a quiet tongue."
"Herr Jesus! Why should he wed Fräulein Anne?" cried another damsel, wearily seating herself. "Not for her beauty, nor her money——"
"For their 'reasons of State,'" quoted Rénèe, "and also because he does not know her. This will prove an ugly marriage. He does not look a man to suffer a curst wife."
"Perhaps she will be sweeter now," replied the other.
"There is no sweetness in her," said a third, gathering up the bunches of lavender, allspice leaves, rosemary, and orris-root that were to be laid among the bride's clothes in the long carved caskets.
"How my head aches!" said Rénèe.
"It is her voice," replied one of the women, "it rings in the head like the clanging of a brass bell. Come and see the dancing. We can leave this work for a while."
Rénèe and three of her companions slipped away and went by the back entrances to the gallery overlooking the Grand Hall; the soldiers allowed them to pass, and the pages brought them sugar sticks, fruit, and comfits left from the feast.
"I am sickened with sweets to-day," said Rénèe, with a faint smile. She rested her elbows on the carved balustrade of the gallery and looked down.
The tables had been removed and the hall cleared for dancing; the summer sun still shone without, but had left the high windows, and already lamps, hanging to theceiling bosses by gold chains, were lit, sending a soft light over the polished floor and silk hangings on the wall; the choir was singing and playing, and the Court and guests were moving through one of the elaborate figures of the prearranged dances. The ladies in their great farthingales, stiff bodices, and long trains, the gentlemen in their huge ruffs, formal cloaks, embroidered doublets, and gleaming chains, moved slowly and precisely through the intricacies of the dance, as if they traced some complicated pattern on the floor with their fine and sparkling shoes.
To Rénèe they seemed as if they were being moved by invisible strings from the dark ceiling—so many puppets moving with stiff grace and immobile dignity.
She sought out the rose red and gold figure of the Prince of Orange; he was dancing with the Electress. She noticed that he moved with more spirit and gaiety than any of the others; also that he kept bad time to the music, and more than once was a little out of step in the long galliard he had not previously rehearsed.
The dance at an end the bride and groom returned to their gold couch, and a band of maidens in green and purple entered the hall and presented them with long sheaves of lilies bound with silver cords, round bunches of crimson and white roses, sprays of myrtle blossom, and parcels of sweets in gold tissue.
After this the Chamberlain clapped his hands and a party of masquers ran in, curiously habited as Turks, Russians, fools, bird-snarers, and giants, and began executing a fantastic measure.
"The Prince brought them from the Netherlands," said one of the waiting-women.
"It is a silly show," replied Rénèe, "or else I have no heart for these things."
She left the gallery and returned to Anne's temporary apartments, which would no longer be used, as others had been prepared for the Prince and Princess. Rénèe mechanically sorted and folded the confusion of garments, lockedaway the hastily discarded jewels, arranged the brushes, combs, unguents, crimping irons, curling sticks, powders, perfumes, that had been used in the adornment of the bride, then opened the curtains and stepped out of the narrow window on to the little curved balcony that overlooked the market square.
The pale purple sky spread, stainless of cloud, above the roofs, gables, and towers; the bells were ringing gay peals from all the chiming belfries of Leipsic; joy-fires flared up here and there against the crystal light of the stars; the breeze was perfumed with the scent of summer and still sun-warmed. Rénèe was not thinking of the gaiety and loveliness of the festival night; through her mind ran a few sentences she had overheard from two Netherlanders of the Prince's suite as she went up the back staircase to see the dancing.
"How long will these feasts last?" one had said. "The Cardinal plays his own game at home—it would be well to return immediately."
"They say he will persuade the King to enforce the Inquisition," the other answered, "so resolute is he to extirpate heresy."
And the two men had looked stern, gloomy, and anxious for guests at a bridal feast, and Rénèe recalled their words with a bitter shudder.
It was the Inquisition that had arrested her father and handed him over to his death; it was the Inquisition that had confiscated his entire property and left her mother and herself dependent on charity.
Her face grew hard and almost fierce.
"Extirpate heresy," she said half aloud. "Well, I will die that way too."
The joy-fires sprang up and the bells and the music blended; presently the stars faded in the light of the risen moon.
St. Batholomew's Day was over and the famous marriage accomplished at last.
CHAPTER VWILLIAM OF ORANGE
The morrow of the wedding, in the still early hours before the tourneys, mummings, and festivals had begun, while Anne was in the hands of women again being combed, perfumed, and arrayed for the gaieties of the day, the Prince left the town hall unattended and crossed the market square to the handsome residence where his brothers were lodged. Count Louis and Count Adolphus were still abed, weary with dancing and feasting, but Count John was in the great library of the house writing letters. This Nassau was a fine member of his fine race, well-made, alert, with intelligent noble features, though blunter than those of his brothers and too broad for perfect comeliness; his eyes were dark and unusually brilliant, his close hair and moustaches light brown; he had not the great courtliness and magnificence of William nor the singular charm of his younger brother, but he was a very frank, open, high-minded gentleman of a winning appearance, though somewhat grave for his twenty-five years.
He still wore his morning gown of purple velvet with great sleeves purflewed in gold; like all his house he was eminently a grand seigneur.
When his brother entered he rose and greeted him with real affection.
Although William had so early left his home for a new faith and more splendid fortunes, which had made him an intimate of an Emperor and placed him high above allhis family in rank, his relations with his parents and his brothers and sisters had always remained warm and sincere. The recent death of his father had left him Count of Nassau and head of the Dillenburg branch of his house, and his brothers regarded him with augmented devotion and affection both as their hereditary chief and the most famous and brilliant wearer of their name.
"So early?" said Count John.
"I had news from Mechlin last night," said William, who had his agents everywhere. "Did you hear?"
"Nay," replied his brother. "How should I hear anything yesterday save jests and compliments? How is little Anne?"
William raised his brows and smiled; he moved to the sunny window, and seated himself in the red-cushioned embrasure. John, with a quick excuse, returned to finish his letter which was to his mother at Dillenburg, giving her an account of yesterday's ceremony.
The Prince looked out on to the market square; the long tension of his marriage negotiations being now over, he felt a kind of disappointment mingled with his relief, almost as if in his heart he doubted if this much-disputed match had been worth the immense pains he had taken to forward it. Hitherto his relations with women had always been pleasant; he had been first married, when he was seventeen, to Anne of Egmont, the wealthy heiress of the Van Burens. Her hand had not been sought by him, but had been in the nature of a magnificent gift from the favour of the Emperor. Anne, however, had been gentle, prudent, tender, and he had lived with her in contentment and peace; the other women whom he had known or courted since her death had all had some quality to attract or enthral. He was a knight who could choose among the finest by reason of his person as well as of his rank, and his taste had always led him to the gay, the magnificent, the loving. The few hours since he had met his bride yesterday had seemed to show him a specimen of womanhoodwith which he was unfamiliar; the fretful, deformed, passionate, and ignorant girl who was now his wife a little bewildered, a little troubled him. Already he had been stung by her tactless exhibition of the pride that could rate him her inferior, already he had winced a little at the unattractiveness her hysteric excitement and her over-sumptuous attire had emphasized.
Count John closed up and sealed his letter, then glanced at William, who still sat thoughtfully; the sun was over him from head to foot, and sparkled in the thick waves of his chestnut hair and in the bronze and gold threads of the dark-green damask doublet he wore.
"What news from Mechlin?" asked the younger brother.
"Granvelle made a public entry to celebrate his appointment as archbishop," replied William briefly. "No one of consequence was there, and the people went into their houses and put the shutters up."
"It is believed that he will enforce the Inquisition in the Netherlands," remarked John thoughtfully.
"He most assuredly will," said William. "He seems to have unbounded influence with the King."
John looked at him and hesitated; he saw that his brother was unusually grave, and he had a shrewd guess at the cause, but he did not venture to probe William's unusual reserve.
"What did you come to speak of?" he ventured at last.
"Of Cardinal Granvelle," answered William, looking at him.
Count John cast down his brilliant eyes. He was a keen follower of the political events in the Netherlands, and knew perfectly well how matters stood between Cardinal Granvelle and his brother; it was a difficult position, and one that promised great storms in the future.
Anthony Perrenot, at first Bishop of Arras, recently created Archbishop of Mechlin and Cardinal Granvelle, hadat one time been an intimate and supporter of William of Orange, and was still by the world considered his friend; his brother had been William's tutor, and numbers of his relatives held posts and offices in William's lavish and magnificent household. The Prince as Stadtholder of Holland, Utrecht, and Zeeland, and member of the State Council, and the priest as the most powerful member of all the three Boards which advised and controlled Margaret of Parma—Philip's recently-appointed Regent in the Netherlands—had been much brought together, and at first had works as colleagues and friends. But lately Granvelle's violence toward heresy, his smiling insolence, his rapacity, his underhand intrigues with Philip had alienated him from William, who was averse to persecution, and, moreover, since their last stormy parting in the streets of Flushing, no longer in such high favour with his master, Philip. The friendship between Granvelle and William had changed to coolness, then to dislike, and would soon, it seemed, approach open rupture; the priest's new dignities, which set him above all Margaret's councillors—who had always regarded him as their inferior (he was the son of a Burgundian commoner)—did not please the Prince, and this triumphal entry into Mechlin during his absence was a piece of defiance on the part of the new Cardinal that further irritated him.
"This Perrenot grows too great," he said now impulsively. "He has the ear of the Regent——" He checked himself, looked at his brother, who was watching him eagerly, and then added, "John, what do you think would happen if the Inquisition were set up in the Netherlands as it is in Spain?"
"The States General, the Councils, the Stadtholders would protest."
"And if their protests were of no avail?"
"Then—I do not know," said John gravely.
"The people would revolt," replied William of Orange, "for I tell you nearly all in the Netherlands are at heartof the Reformed Faith. When His Majesty delivered to me my charge, he counselled me to stamp out heresy, and he gave me several papers containing lists of those suspected—there were many hundreds of them. Some great ones I warned. And I burned the lists. But Cardinal Granvelle has already ferreted out many whose names were thereon."
"I did not know of this," exclaimed John.
"Lock it in your heart," said the Prince. "I was bred a heretic," he added, with a smile.
"You have always seemed one of us to me," returned the brother simply, "and never a true Papist."
"Oh, I am a good Catholic," said William, looking out of the window, "but I do not think any man should lose his life for his faith, nay, nor his property nor his honours. I believe in tolerance, John, and there are few of that mind."
"It would be a monstrous thing if you should become a persecutor," said Count John, "seeing our father was the first Prince to bring the Reformed Faith into Germany."
"Had I been of that inclination," replied the Prince, "I should not have made this match. What do you think was the reason of it, if not the alliance of Saxony and Cassel—these Protestant States?" He rose now and, looking very earnestly at his brother, came forward into the room.
"John," he said, narrowing his eyes a little, "it is in my heart to tell you of something I have as yet told no man. And do you keep it secret, even from our brothers, who are as yet very young."
"Speak what you wish; it stays with me," replied Count John.
"It is this then: When I and the Duke of Alva were hostages in France, there was an occasion when I was with King Henry hunting—in the forest of Vincennes it was—and we two being apart from the others, the King fell to talking of the peace between him and King Philip, and his great eagerness for the concluding of this.Then, drawing on in his discourse, he did disclose to me a deep design there was between him and my King to exterminate heretics—which design the Duke of Alva was privy to and arranging with him, and he thought I too knew of it, so discussed it with me. And it seemed that this secret project was no less than to destroy all heretics in the realms of France and Spain, and to so uproot the doctrines of Luther that they would never grow again. And this, he said, might be partly done by a general slaughter of these heretics, but the time was not yet ripe. And from his speech I understood that if one looked but askance at an image he might be cast into the flames."
"And you—what did you do?" asked John, startled.
"I feigned that I knew as he thought I did, marked and noted what he said, and breathed no word of it," replied the Prince simply, as if such self-control and astuteness were the commonest things.
Count John was silent with astonishment and interest.
"And therefore, as you remember," continued William, "as soon as I was returned I did influence the States General to beg the King to send forth the foreign soldiery, which he could not well refuse."
"Ah, it was you, not the States!" exclaimed John.
"As His Majesty guessed," smiled William. "'Not the States, but you—you!' he said,—in the second person, John. That was in a Flushing street, and I left him there and would not see him to his ship."
"But since then he has been as favourable to you as always," said Count John anxiously, "even in the matter of this marriage, which was hateful to him, he gave in and sent you a gift."
"Yet," replied the Prince, "he would put me and the other Stadtholders beneath the foot of Granvelle, who is, I do not doubt, his chosen instrument to commence this work of exterminating heresy in the States."
"And you?"
"I was much dismayed when first I heard from KingHenry of this ruthless policy, for I knew it meant the ruin and death of many virtuous people; and then I resolved I would do what I could for them, especially in the Netherlands. And so I will."
Count John looked slightly surprised to hear his magnificent brother speak with such unwonted gravity.
"Why, who is to withstand King Philip and King Philip's men—such as Granvelle?" he asked rather hopelessly.
"The House of Nassau might do it," smiled William lightly.
"You do not mean to oppose the King?" cried the Count.
"Why, God forbid," said the Prince, in the same tone, "but I might oppose his policies, and I shall certainly put a stone or so in the path of my Lord Cardinal."
"I fear this marriage has done you little good after all," remarked his brother regretfully. "Here is the King and the Regent displeased, and the Landgrave of Cassel angered too. Apart from your religion, he says (his son told me), you have too many debts to take a wife."
"Those same debts must be looked to," said William, in the assurance of a man of unlimited wealth and unassailable position.
"And the story has got abroad," continued the Count ruefully, "of that banquet you gave with the cloth and plates and dishes all of sugar, and the Landgrave is spreading it round Saxony and Cassel as a proof of your great extravagance."
"And what of these festivities?" laughed William. "Will they not cost every thaler of the Fräulein's dower that has been so much vaunted?"
Count John sighed. The Nassau family had largely built up their present position through prudent and splendid marriages, and he was sorry that his brother, who had married the richest heiress in the Netherlands for his first wife, should not have done more magnificentlywith his second choice, for he saw nothing to recommend Anne but her rank, her father's fame, and the possible alliance of her Protestant kinsfolk—all, Count John thought, doubtful benefit.
William came up to his brother and placed his shapely hand on his shoulder.
"These debts will be looked to," he repeated. "Wait till I return to Brussels."
The door opened hastily, and Louis and Adolphus entered, both in their light tourney harness, and laughing together from sheer gaiety and amusement.
Adolphus was equipped from head to foot in a crimson padded jousting suit studded with gilt metal nails; he was the youngest of the four, no more than a youth, noble in appearance, and wholly lovable, fairer than his brother in colouring, but of the same slenderness of make.
Both greeted William with great affection, and Louis, who was clattering in gold-embossed cuirass, cuisses, vambraces, and greaves, broke out laughing with the jest that had so diverted him and Adolphus.
"Highness, we want the old magician to foretell the future for us—he has a spirit who can reveal all things; he said he would call it if we wished, and ask what our fate would be!"
"Tush!" said John hastily, "belike it were mummery or else a trick of the Devil."
But William was always ready for curious trials and experiments, though he had strangely little belief in any such things.
"Who is this magician?" he asked gaily.
"A Frenchman who has his abode with the Elector's alchemist," replied Adolphus. "They say he has done wonderful things. The Elector declares he really has such a spirit."
"His Grace is very credulous," remarked Louis. "He will take no action but after he has consulted his charts and his tables, his wheels of fortune and his crystals."
"I believe," persisted John, "that the Devil is in it all."
"Well," declared Adolphus, "the man is coming here to-night before supper, when we shall have a little leisure."
"I will come if I may," said the Prince. "Perhaps I shall have time while Anne is with her tire-women."
He took up his hat and prepared to leave; he saw that there was no chance of a further private talk with John, and he was too much of a courtier to risk being late in his return to the town hall.
As he passed Louis and Adolphus, he put them back against the wall and laughingly criticized their appointments, while John came and leant on his shoulder.
The four brothers, all so young, so charming, so magnificent, so full of noble life and vigour, made a fair picture as they stood so, laughing together from sheer good spirits because this was the lovely morning of their days and none of them had yet known sorrow.
In their slender knightly persons, the very erect carriage of their small heads, their warm colouring, something quick and fiery in their movements, there showed a great likeness between them, proclaiming their common blood, but each was a distinct personality—the Prince, dark, dominant, superb, despite his gay smiling air; John, serious, slightly austere; Louis, graceful, charming, modest, with his long light-brown locks and laughing eyes; Adolphus, blonde, handsome, eager, very princely in bearing.
So, still laughing, they parted, William hastening across the sunny square, where every cap was lifted and every head bent to him, to the town hall.
As he approached the antechamber to his apartments, he saw Anne through an open door.
She was ready clothed for the midday repast and the tourney in a gown of violet cloth of gold veiled in falls of silver lace and finished by a ruff of pure gold thread a foot deep.
William heard her sharp voice raised, and instinctively slackened his step.
A lock of Anne's tresses had caught in the stiff edge of her ruff; one of her women in disengaging it chanced to pull the crimped hair.
Anne turned and smacked the girl's face smartly enough to bring the tears to her eyes.
The Prince saw this little episode; a new type she was indeed, this fierce little cat with her claws always ready, he thought.
As he entered the room Anne became all softness and affection and gentleness.
William saluted her rather absently, but she flushed with joy at his conventional courtly compliments which her inexperience took literally.
"Tell me of Brussels?" she implored, clinging to his arm. "What shall I do in Brussels?"
"Amuse yourself,ma mie," replied William lightly, "and learn the courtesies of the country," he added with a gentle sarcasm which was wholly unperceived by the bride.