FEBRUARY12, 1573.—The brother of Charles IX, the Duke of Anjou, arrived yesterday at the royal camp to assume the supreme command of the army. He is accompanied by his two cousins, Henry of Bearn and Condé. The two apostates, after seeing their co-religionists and best friends slaughtered under their very eyes on St. Bartholomew's night, gave the kiss of peace and forgetfulness to Charles IX, and now follow his army to the siege of La Rochelle. These degenerate sons of Joan of Albert, and of Condé have come to battle beside the butchers of their families. Among the other seigneurs and captains in the suite of the Duke of Anjou are the Duke of Montpensier, the Dauphin Prince of Auvergne, the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Dukes of Longueville and Bouillon, the Marquis of Mayenne, the Duke of Nevers, Anthony and Claude of Bauffremont, René of Voyer, Viscount of Paulmy, the Duke of Uzes, the Bastard of Angouleme, Marshal Cossé, the Count of Retz, and many other illustrious seigneurs. Among the most noted captains is old Marshal Montluc, a tiger with a human face. The presence of the experienced general, with whom age has not softened his proverbial ferocity, sufficiently announces that, if La Rochelle should fall into the power of the enemy, we shall be put to the sword, to the very last one of us.
FEBRUARY14, 1573.—The brave Francis of Lanoüe joined us at La Rochelle, thanks to a curious agreement with Charles IX. The revolt of the Low Countries, so ardently wished for by Coligny, miscarried through the treachery of the French court, whose anxiety to please the Pope and Philip II was so thoroughly attested by the massacres of St. Bartholomew's night, that all expectation of seeing it give serious support to a republican insurrection in one of the provinces of the Spanish monarchy had to be abandoned. Lanoüe, deceived by the same hopes that deceived the Admiral, whom the lying promises of Catherine De Medici and her son had kept in Paris, went to Mons in order to concert measures with the chiefs of the proposed uprising; made an unsuccessful effort to call the people to arms; was taken prisoner, and thus escaped St. Bartholomew's night by the merest accident. Every day more alarmed at the indomitable attitude of the Huguenots, and aware of the influence Lanoüe enjoyed among them, Charles IX demanded his liberation at the hands of Philip II, obtained it, summoned the Huguenot leader to the Louvre, and said to him: "I place confidence in your word. Go to La Rochelle. Induce the Protestants to surrender and submit. Should they refuse, I want you to promise me that you will return, and surrender yourself to me at discretion." "I consent," was Lanoüe's answer; "I shall go to La Rochelle. Should it appear to me, in all conscience, that the resistance of the Huguenots is hopeless, I shall do all in my power to induce them to capitulate. But should it appear to me that the chances are favorable to them, I shall induce them to persevere, shall tender them my services. If they decline my offer I shall return and surrender myself to you." Such is the confidence that an upright man inspires even in hardened criminals, that Charles IX accepted Lanoüe's word. Lanoüe sent ahead a courier to the Mayor of La Rochelle to inform him of his compact with the King and request admittance to the city. The City Council assembled. Some of the members severely condemned Lanoüe for lowering himself to the point of dealing with Charles IX; others, a considerable majority, realized the value of Lanoüe's assistance, and favored the acceptance of his services. He was introduced into the city. His patriotic words brought all dissidents over to his side. He inspected the defensive works of the place, and being convinced that it could repel the royalist attack, was invested with the supreme command of the troops, under the surveillance of the aldermen.
FEBRUARY23, 1573.—The presence of Lanoüe among us already bears magnificent fruit. He introduces discipline among our troops. No longer are the murderous skirmishes tolerated in which so many of our men ran foolhardily to death. He curbs the ardor of the hotheads; drills the volunteers in the handling of their arms and in the precision of military evolutions, and he substitutes the tactics of prudence for the rashness of blind bravery and unthinking enthusiasm that have been the bane of the Protestant arms.
MARCH27, 1573.—Faithful to his word, Lanoüe yesterday left La Rochelle and returned to the camp of Charles IX where he surrendered himself a prisoner. From themoment that he took command, our sallies caused great damage to the enemy, but also cost us dearly. We were not able to repair our losses, seeing that our communications by land are cut off, while the enemy is constantly receiving strong reinforcements. We now number only 4,500 men able to carry arms. The enemy, on the other hand, has to-day 28,000 men in line, and sixty cannon. The siege is conducted with consummate skill by Scipio Vergano, the identical engineer who fortified La Rochelle. The traitor knows the strong and the weak points of the place. Accordingly he has concentrated all the attacking forces of the Catholics upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. Their batteries keep up an incessant fire upon that side of our city. Finally we begin to lack for munitions of war. The works raised by the enemy at the mouth of the bay render difficult the entrance of the ships upon which we depend for provisions. Both powder and grain are running low. Captain Mirant's flotilla sailed to England for munitions of war, and to Brittany for food. The vessels are daily expected. If unfavorable winds should delay their return, or if they fail to run the gauntlet of the enemy's outer harbor fortifications, a fearful dirth will soon set in. Having considered the grave difficulties of our situation, Lanoüe was of the opinion that we could not long resist the pressure of forces five or six times stronger than our own. He endeavored to induce the City Council to parliamentarize with the Duke of Anjou, with the end in view of obtaining an honorable capitulation and favorable terms of peace, adding that he, Lanoüe had pledged his word asa man to encourage and aid the Rochelois to resistance so long as he believed resistance to be effective; but that, so soon as he considered resistance futile, he would urge the besieged to capitulate, promising, should his advice not be accepted, to surrender himself a prisoner to the King. After a solemn session, under the presidency of Mayor James Henry, who, worn out and almost dying with fatigue and in consequence of his wounds, but steeled by his republican energy, administered his office, the City Council declared by a large majority that the Rochelois would resist the Catholics to the death. Lanoüe thereupon left the city.
Oh, sons of Joel! Fail not to admire the resolute posture of the Mayor, aldermen and heads of the civic military forces of La Rochelle! Those generous citizens did not take up arms out of ambition, or cupidity, as was the case with the majority of the captains in the army of Charles IX—faithless mercenaries; swordsmen, who sell their skins and kill as a trade by which to live; fighters by profession; men to whom war, for whatever cause, whether just or otherwise, holy or unhallowed, is a lucrative pursuit. No; the Rochelois fought in defense of their freedom, their rights, their hearths. Only the consciousness that the struggle is in behalf of the most sacred of causes can beget prodigies of heroism. All honor to those brave men! Shame and execration upon professional men of war.
The above fragments on the siege of La Rochelle, written by me, Antonicq Lebrenn, take us down to the middle of the month of May, 1573, when the following events occurred.
The City Hall of La Rochelle, an edifice that was almost wholly re-built nearly a century ago, in the year 1486, is one of the most beautiful monuments that patriotism and the love for one's city can boast. Catholic faith has raised up as high as the clouds the spired cathedrals where the priests, Oh, Christ! exalt the assassination of the Huguenots, and preach the extermination of heretics. The cult of the communal franchises has reared City Halls, the cradles of our liberties, the civic sanctuaries, where, upon the banner of the commune, oath is taken to die for freedom—as did the communiers, at whose side our ancestor Fergan the Quarryman fought in the days of Louis the Lusty.[82]The municipal monument that we, Rochelois, are so justly proud of, consists of a vast central building, flanked by two pavilions with pointed roofs. Its principal facade—ornamented with twenty-seven lofty arches, the triple entablature of which disappears under garlands of leaves and fruits chiseled in the stone—is surmounted by a crenelated terrace festooned with thick wreaths of acanthus leaves. From the top of each of the two pavilions abelfry of marvelous architectural beauty pierces the air. The one to the left presents to the wondering eye the sight of a gilt iron cage, that is no less admirably constructed than its dome, carved on the outside as delicately as a piece of lace-work, and held up by three stone figures of colossal stature. One must renounce the task of describing the profusion of crockets that jut out from the walls, and represent sphinxes and chimeras executed with boldness and grace. One must renounce the task of describing the stone festoons that embellish the edifice from its base to its pinnacles, or the infinite wreaths of fruit or flowers that clamber up the ogive moldings, doors and windows, that weave their lintels together, wind themselves around the pillars and columns, and finally crown the capitals. The aspect is that of a mass of verdure—flowers and leaves in bud and full bloom—suddenly petrified by some magic power. This imperfect description can only impart a partial idea of the material beauty of the City Hall of La Rochelle. But the edifice had, if the word may be used, a soul, a breath, a voice! It was the daring soul, the powerful breath, the patriotic voice of the Commune that seemed to animate the mass of stone of which the antique edifice was built. There, especially since the war, and as life centers in the heart, centered the pulsations of the city. All energy started there and rushed back thither. It was there that the sovereign power of the urban republic, represented by the Mayor and aldermen whom the citizenselected, had its seat.[83]Assembled night and day at the City Hall in sufficient number to meet all emergencies, the valiant ediles never left the hall of the council but to mount the ramparts, or join in sallies against the enemy's redoubts. Not infrequently theirs was also the task of calming, controlling or even suppressing popular tumults, engendered by the sufferings of these days. Such was the complex and arduous task reserved for Morrisson, the successor of James Henry, who died in consequence of his wounds and overexertion. Glorify the Commune, sons of Joel, and its heroic defenders.
Well, on that day, towards the middle of May, 1573, a tumultuous mob, made up exclusively of women and children—the able-bodied men were on the ramparts, or taking a few hours' rest—invaded the square of the City Hall of La Rochelle, crying with the heartrending fury that hunger inspires: "Bread!" "Bread!" No less haggard, no less pinched with hunger than their children, a considerable number of these women, having combatted beside the men of La Rochelle in repelling the royalist attacks, had heads bandaged in blood-stained handkerchiefs, or carried their arms in slings. Several children, of ten or twelve years of age, also bore the marks of wounds received in battle whither they accompanied their mothers. The mob, embittered and exhausted by the trials and all manner of privations that resulted from the long siege, saw with terror the approach of famine. Since the day before the baker shops had been closed for want of flour. The supply of food was nearly exhausted. The wretched crowd clamored aloud for bread; they also clamored for Morrisson, the new Mayor, and head of the commune.
Morrisson appeared at the portico of the City Hall and stepped towards the mob. He was at once beloved, feared and respected. Still at the age of vigorous manhood, he wore an iron corselet and arm-pieces, while a heavy sword hung from his side. He jumped upon one of the stone balustrades placed at either side of the door, motioned for silence, and addressed the crowd in a sonorous, firm and yet paternal voice:
"My children! The Council is in session. I have no time to lose in speechmaking. Delegate to me one from among you. Let her inform me what it is that you want. I shall answer."
The Bombarde, acclaimed with one voice as the delegate of her companions, pushed her way forward and approached the Mayor: "Mayor, we are hungry, and want bread! The bakers have neither corn nor flour. The butchers' stalls are closed. Two days ago only a few handfuls of beans and peas were distributed. Since then nothing more has come. Before the siege most of us lived off our fisheries, and we asked help from nobody. To-day every fisherman's boat that ventures out of port is sunk under the cannon balls of the royalist redoubts. What are we to do? Wecannot remain without food; we are hungry; we want bread for our children and ourselves!"
"Yes!" echoed the Rochelois women with loud cries. "Bread! Bread! Morrisson, we must have bread!"
After this explosion of outcries and complaints, silence was restored, and the Mayor resumed in a moved voice:
"Poor dear women! You want bread, and how do you expect me to give you any? There is not a single grain of wheat in the city granary. But we are hourly expecting Captain Mirant's brigantines. They bring from England a cargo of powder, and from Brittany a cargo of wheat. They are anchored only eight leagues from here, near the coast, at the port of Redon. They cannot, in the absence of a favorable wind, run into La Rochelle. The chances are a hundred to one that the adverse wind, which has been blowing all these days, will change. It may change almost at any moment. It may be changing now. If it does, the city will again be supplied for several months. For the present, there is left to us a precious resource, so far neglected—the clams and oysters. We must turn our hands to that. You understand me?"
"Mayor! Do you know that it is now as dangerous to go out for clams as to march upon a battery?" answered the Bombarde. "To go out for clams is to run into the jaws of death!"
"I know it—and if the brigantines of Captain Mirant do not run into port to-day, my wife and two daughters will go out with you to-night, at one in the morning, whenthe tide will be low, and dig for clams," was Morrisson's stoic reply.
"It will be done! Count upon us, Mayor!" replied the Bombarde. "If the brigantines of Captain Mirant do not arrive before night, we shall put up with hunger until night—and then we shall go out and dig for clams. Those of us who will be killed on the banks will no longer need anything. That is agreed upon, in God's name!"
As the Bombarde was uttering these last words, the detonations of several discharges of artillery that shattered the window panes in the City Hall announced the enemy was about to renew the cannonade which it had suspended in the morning. Almost at the same instant the sonorous sound of clarion blasts was heard drawing nearer and nearer, and presently a large number of women of all conditions, marching at the heels of a pastor on a white horse, ahead of which marched the clarion-blower, turned into Caille Square.
"To the ramparts, my sisters! To the ramparts!" shouted the pastor with martial exaltation. "The Lord of Hosts will steel your arms! Your husbands, your fathers, your brothers and your sons are battling for the triumph of liberty. Come to their help! To the ramparts! To the ramparts! The enemy is about to storm the Bastion of the Evangelium! Long live the Commune!"
"To the ramparts, my brave women! And to-night, after clams on the banks, as perilous an expedition as battle itself!" cried Morrisson, while the Bombarde and her companions, joining the other crowd of Rochelois women,repeated in chorus the following psalm, led by the pastor:
The Bastion of the Evangelium, upon which the enemy had long been concentrating all their forces, formed a sharply protruding angle. Its flanks were not sufficiently protected by other works of defense. Accordingly, by directing against the left flank of the bastion the fire of their principal batteries, the enemy had opened a breach in the rampart by the repeated pounding of their shots. At the place where the breach was effected, the upper part of the earthworks, to a width of about fifty feet, crumbled down into the moat, filling it up so fully as to render an assault practicable. Thanks to this mass of debris whichanswered the purpose of a bridge, the assailants could cross the fosse on a run, could scale the last steps of the last wall already laid in ruins, and could enter the city, provided they could bear down the defenders who stood in the breach. From the top of the bastion the eye swept the plain far and wide. A cannon-shot off, the long line of the enemy's trenches could be seen, stretching from the suburb of St. Eloi on the edge of the salt marshes, to the suburb of Colombier. That line bounded the field from end to end; it intercepted the roads to Limoges and Nantes at the crossings of which the batteries were erected which broke a breach through the bastion. The whole stretch between the trenches of the besiegers and the fortifications of the city—one time covered with trees and houses—now lay bare, exposed, devastated, and deeply furrowed by the projectiles. Beyond the desert waste, lay the enemy's entrenchments—earthworks strengthened with gabions and trunks of trees, and here and there crenelated with the embrasures for their batteries. Behind that line of earthworks, the tops of the officers' tents, surmounted with bannerets and floating pennants, could be seen. Finally, on the extreme horizon rose the undulating and woody hills. The breach once made, the Catholics suspended their fire in order to open it again shortly before marching to the assault. It was in answer to the thunder of the cannonade, which announced an imminent and decisive attack, that the old pastor crossed the square of the City Hall at the head of his bevy of Rochelois women, recruited the Bombarde and her companions, andwended his course to the Bastion of the Evangelium. At that place about one-half of the defenders of La Rochelle were gathered, ready for a stubborn conflict. The other troops, distributed in other places, were to be on the alert to repel other attacks. The Council of defense foresaw that the enemy, while hurling one column against the breach, would undoubtedly attempt a simultaneous assault upon other places; consequently women were commissioned to close up the breach as best they might with logs of wood and other material. Colonel Plouernel, upon whom the defense of the bastion that day devolved, and Captain Gargouillaud, in charge of the artillery, gave their last orders. The bourgeois cannoniers were pointing their pieces in advance upon the open and absolutely exposed ground which the royalists had to cross when they sallied from their trenches in order to reach the opposite side of the fosse where the breach was effected. The breach was wide; nevertheless, before they could reach the parapet, the besiegers would have to clamber over a heap of debris ten or eleven feet high, on the top of which a redoubtable engine of defense was mounted, and placed in charge of the women of La Rochelle. This engine of war, an invention of Master Barbot the boilermaker, received the name of thecenser. It consisted of a huge copper basin, holding a ton, suspended from iron chains at the end of a long beam that revolved upon an axis, and was so adjusted to a post firmly set in the ground, that by means of a slight motion imparted to the beam, the huge caldron would empty upon the heads of the assailants the deadly fluidthat it was filled with, to wit, a mixture of boiling tar, sulphur and oil. A number of Rochelois women, Theresa Rennepont and Cornelia my betrothed among them, were busy either keeping up the fire under the copper basin, or pouring into it the oil, tar and sulphur from little kegs that lay near at hand. With her sleeves rolled back above her elbows, and leaving her strong white arms exposed, Cornelia stirred the steaming mixture with an iron rod supplied with a wooden handle. Master Barbot—his head covered with an iron morion, his chest protected with a brigandine, and his cutlass and dagger by his side—leaned upon the barrel of his arquebus and smiled complacently upon his invention. From time to time he would address the women and girls at work.
"Courage, my brave girl!" he said to Cornelia. "Mix up the oil well with the tar and sulphur. Make the mixture thick, soft, and toothsome, like those omelettes made of eggs, flour and cheese that you are so skilled in dishing up, and which your good father and myself relish so much! But the devil take those dainty thoughts! In these days of dearth one may deem himself happy if he but have a handful of beans. By the way of famine and of your father—the heavy clouds that are rising yonder in the south almost always announce a change of wind. Mayhap we shall see this very day the brigantines of Captain Mirant, loaded with wheat and powder, sailing before the wind into port, every inch of sail spread to the breeze, and successfully running the gauntlet of the royalist guns. Long live the Commune!"
"May God hear you, Master Barbot! I would then embrace my father this very day, and the threatened famine would be at end," answered Cornelia without interrupting her work of stirring the mixture, into which Theresa Rennepont just emptied a bucketful of sulphur—on account of which Master Barbot called out to her:
"No more sulphur, my dear Theresa. The tar and oil must predominate in the infernal broth. The sulphur is thrown in only to improve the taste by pleasing the eye with the pretty bluish flame, that gambols on the surface of the incandescent fluid. Now, my little girls, turn the beam just a little to one side in order to remove the basin from the fire without cooling off the broth. We shall swing it back over the fire the instant the Catholics run to the assault—then we shall dish up the broth to them, hot and nice."
While these Rochelois women were thus engaged in preparing the censer, others rolled enormous blocks of stone—the debris of the bastion that was shattered by the enemy's cannonade—and placed them in such positions over the breach that a child's finger could hurl them down upon the assaulting column. Others rolled barrels of sand, which after having served for protection to the arquebusiers on the ramparts, were likewise to be rolled down the steep declivity which the enemy had to climb. Finally, a large number of women were busy preparing stretchers for the wounded. These women worked under the direction of Marcienne, Odelin's widow. Theresa and Cornelia, left for a moment at leisure from their work on the censer,came over to the widow, and were presently joined by Louis Rennepont and Antonicq.
"Mother," said Antonicq, tenderly addressing Marcienne, "when I left the house this morning at dawn you were asleep; I could not tell you good-bye—embrace me!"
Marcienne understood what her son meant. A murderous assault was about to be engaged. Perhaps they were not to meet again alive. She took Antonicq in her arms, and pressing him to her breast she said in a moved yet firm voice: "Blessings upon you, my son, who never caused me any grief! If, like your father, you should die in battle against the papists, you will have acted like an upright man to the very end. Should I succumb, you will carry with you my last blessing. And you also, Cornelia," added Marcienne, "I bless you, my child. I shall die happy in the knowledge that Antonicq found in you a heart worthy of his own in virtue and bravery. You have been the best of daughters to your parents—you will likewise be a tender wife to your husband."
Odelin's widow was giving expression to these sentiments when Louis Rennepont, after exchanging in a low voice a few words with his wife Theresa, words such as the solemnity of the occasion prompted, cried out aloud: "Look yonder! there, under us—among the debris of the breach—is not that the Franc-Taupin? Your uncle seems to be emerging from underground. He must be preparing some trick of his trade."
"It is he, indeed!" exclaimed Antonicq, no less surprised than his brother-in-law. "And there is my apprentice Serpentin also—who is following the Franc-Taupin out of the hole."
These words drew the attention of Cornelia, Theresa and Odelin's widow. They looked down the steep slope formed by the ruins of that portion of the bastion that the enemy had demolished. The Franc-Taupin had emerged from a narrow and deep excavation, dug under the ruins. A lad of thirteen or fourteen years followed him. They covered up the opening that had given them egress. After doing so, Serpentin, the apprentice of the armorer Antonicq, went down upon his knees, and moving backward on all fours, uncoiled, under the directions of the Franc-Taupin, a long thin fuse, the other end of which was deep down the excavation which they had just covered. Still moving towards the parapet, Serpentin continued to uncoil the fuse, and, upon orders from the Franc-Taupin, stopped at about twenty paces from the wall and sat down on a stone.
"Halloa, uncle!" cried Antonicq, leaning over the edge of one of the embrasures. "Here we are; come and join us."
Hearing his nephew's voice, the Franc-Taupin raised his head, made him a sign to wait, and after giving Serpentin some further directions, the aged soldier clambered over the ruins with remarkable agility for a man of his years, and walked over to where Antonicq stood waiting for him.
"Where do you come from, uncle?"
"Well, my boy, what do you expect of me? AtaupinI was in my young days, and now in my old days I relapse into my old trade. I come from underground, through a shaft that I dug through the ruins with the aid of Serpentin, about a hundred paces from here. There I laid a mine, right in the middle of the breach where the good Catholics will soon be running to the assault. The moment I see them there I shall lovingly set the fuse on fire—and, triple petard! the St. Bartholomew lambkins will leap up in the air yelling and spitting fire like five hundred devils, their heads down, their legs skyward. The dance will end with a shower of shattered limbs."
"Well schemed, my old mole!" said Master Barbot. "Fire below, fire above, like the beautiful sheets that I hammer on the anvil. The burning lava of my censer will blaze over the skulls of the royalists, your fuse will blaze under the soles of their feet, and hurl the miscreants into the air capering, turning somersaults, whirling, cavorting, and—" but suddenly breaking off, Master Barbot let himself down upon the ground, and joining the word to the deed, called out:
"Down upon your faces, everybody! Look out for the bullets!"
Master Barbot's advice was quickly followed. Everybody near him threw himself down flat at the very moment that a volley of bullets whistled overhead or struck the parapet, some ricocheting and upturning gabions and logs of wood, others plowing their way through the debris where the imperturbable Serpentin was seated near the fuse that led down to the mine. Despite the danger, the brave laddid not budge from his post. A lucky accident willed it that none of the besieged was wounded by this first salvo of artillery. Master Barbot, the first one to rise to his feet, cast his eyes upon the enemy's batteries, which were still partly wrapped in the clouds of smoke from the first discharge, perceived the first ranks of the assaulting column sallying from its trenches, and instantly gave the signal:
"Everyone to his post! The enemy is advancing!"
"To arms! Rochelois, to arms!"
Master Barbot's call, was answered by a long roll of drums, ordered by Colonel Plouernel. His strong and penetrating voice rose above the din, and his words were heard:
"Soldiers, to the ramparts! Cannoniers, to your pieces! Fire, all along the line!"
"May God guard you, mother, sister, Cornelia!" said Antonicq.
"May God guard you, my wife!" said Louis Rennepont.
"So long, comrade Barbot!" cried the Franc-Taupin, pulling a tinder box from his pocket and sliding down the slope of the breach to rejoin Serpentin. "I shall get myself ready to make the limbs of those St. Bartholomew lambkins scamper through the air."
"And you, my brave girls, to the censer!" cried Master Barbot to the Rochelois women. "Replace the caldron over the fire, and, when you hear me give the order: 'Serve it hot!' turn it and empty it over the heads of the assailants. You others, hold your levers ready near those stones andhogsheads of sand. When you hear me say: 'Roll!' push hard and let it all come down upon them."
Suddenly, fresh but more distant and redoubling detonations of artillery in the direction of the Congues Gate announced the enemy's intention of making a diversion by attempting two simultaneous attacks upon the city. The pastor arrived at that moment upon the ramparts at the head of his troop of women whom the Bombarde and her companions had joined. Some reinforced the women charged with rolling the stones upon the assailants; others organized themselves to transport the wounded; finally a third set, armed with cutlasses, pikes and axes, made ready to resist the assailants at close quarters. At the head of these the Bombarde brandished a harpoon.
His best marksmen had been placed by Colonel Plouernel in the underground casemates, thereby forming, on the other side of the circumvallation, a second line of defense, the loop-holes of which, bearing a strong resemblance to the airholes of a cavern, allowed a murderous fire to be directed upon the enemy. Finally, the companies of arquebusiers were massed upon the breach, which was defended by heaped-up beams and gabions that the Rochelois women assisted in bringing together. A solemn silence reigned among the besieged during the short interval of time that the royalists occupied in rushing through the distance that separated them from the outer edge of our moat. All of us felt that the fate of La Rochelle depended upon the issue of the assault.
Old Marshal Montluc was in chief command of theCatholics. Monsieur Du Guast, at the head of six battalions of veteran Swiss troops, led the column, with Marshal Montluc in the center, and in the rear Colonel Strozzi, one of the best officers of the Catholic army. His task was to reinforce and sustain the attack in case the first companies wavered, or were repulsed. These troops advanced in good order, drums beating, trumpets blaring, colors flying, and captained by the flower of the nobility—the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Bastard of Angouleme, Henry of Bearn, who was now the King's brother-in-law, and Henry of Condé. The two renegates now were in arms against our cause. Finally, there were also Mayenne, Biron, Cosseins, D'O, Chateau-Vieux, and innumerable other noble captains, all crowding near the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou, who marched in the center at the side of Marshal Montluc. The moment that the front ranks of the vanguard reached the thither side of the fosse, Alderman Gargouillaud considered the enemy to be within reach of his cannoniers, and gave the order for a plunging and ricocheting fire. The effect of the salvo was deadly. The thunder-struck vanguard wavered and recoiled. The Rochelois gained time to reload their pieces. A second discharge, fully as deadly as the first, mowed down as many as before, and increased the indecision of the assailants. Old Marshal Montluc, Biron and Cosseins revived the shaken courage of their troops, held them, and forced them back. The dash was made. Leaving the dead and wounded behind, the column crossed the moat; it answered with its arquebuses those of the besieged as it pushed up the slopeof the breach, receiving the cross fire from the casemates upon both its flanks, while, from the companies ranged upon the ramparts, its front was met with a hailstorm of bullets. Despite severe losses, the royalists steadily climbed up the slope of the breach. The Franc-Taupin and his aide, who until that instant lay flat upon their faces behind a heap of debris, suddenly rose and ran towards the circumvallation as fast as their legs could carry them. They had fired the fuse. Hardly were they at a safe distance, when the mine took fire under the feet of the enemy. A frightful explosion threw up a spout of earth, dust and rocks, interspersed with jets of fire, fulgent like lightning through thick clouds of smoke. The smoke slowly dissipated. The slope of the breach reappeared to view. It was torn up and cut through by a deep and wide cleft, the sides of which were strewn with the dismembered bodies of the dead and dying. The soldiers of the vanguard who escaped the disaster were seized with terror, turned upon their heels, rushed back upon their center, trampled it down, threw it into a panic, and spread consternation, crying that the passage of the breach was mined under the feet of the besiegers. The ranks were broken; confusion reigned, the rout commenced. The Rochelois cannoniers now worked their pieces in quick succession, and plowed wide gaps into the compact mass of the fleeing invaders, while the Franc-Taupin, standing beside one of the embrasures and calmly crossing his hands behind his back, remarked to Master Barbot:
"Well, comrade, there they are—heads, arms, trunks,legs. They have danced the saraband to the tune of my mine. I have given a ball to the Catholics, to the defenders of the throne and the altar!"
"Ha! Ha!" replied the boilermaker. "The St. Bartholomew lambkins are going back faster than they came. Should they come back again I shall dish up to them my steaming basin in order to comfort the lacerated feelings of those cut-throats whom the Pope has blessed."
The royalist soldiers could not be rallied by their officers until they were beyond the reach of our guns. They were then re-formed into a new column. The most daring of their captains placed themselves resolutely at their head in order to lead them back to the assault. Preceding this phalanx of intrepid men by several paces, a Cordelier monk, holding a crucifix in one hand and a cutlass in the other, rushed forward to be the first to storm the breach, shouting in a piercing voice the ominous slogan of St. Bartholomew's night: "God and the King!" The monk's example and the enthusiasm of the captains carried the assailants away. They forgot their recent panic, and turned about face to renew the struggle, shouting in chorus "God and the King!" In vain did the fire of the besieged make havoc among them. They closed ranks; they rushed forward at the double quick; they ran up the slope of the breach; they even passed beyond the chasm produced by the late mine explosion. At that moment Master Barbot called out to the Rochelois women in charge of the censer: "Quick! Quick! my daughters! Pour it down hot uponthe Catholic vermin! Anoint the devout papists with our holy and consecrated oil!"
And immediately turning to the other set of women charged with rolling stones down upon the enemy's heads, "To work, my brave women!" shouted the boilermaker. "Crush the infamous pack to dust! Exterminate the brood of Satan!"
Instantly a flood of incandescent oil, bitumen and sulphur poured down like a wide sheet of flame upon the front ranks of the besiegers. They recoiled, trampled down the ranks behind them, and emitted hideous cries of anguish. Every drop of the molten liquid bored a hole through the flesh to the bone. At the same moment enormous blocks of stone and masses of sand rolled, rapid and irresistible, down the slope of the breach, overthrowing, breaking, crushing, smashing whatever stood in their way. Joined to this murderous defense was the frightfully effective fire of our arquebusiers, who shot unerringly, at close range, themselves safe, upon a foe in disorder. And yet, however decimated and broken, the royalists stuck to the assault until they finally reached the circumvallation. The exchange of arquebus shots then ceased and a furious hand-to-hand struggle ensued with swords, cutlasses and pikes. No quarter was given. The conflict was pitiless. The Rochelois women, among them Cornelia, armed with the iron rod of the censer, and the Bombarde, brandishing her harpoon, vied with the men in deeds of daring. These Rochelois women were everywhere among the male combatants, and cut a wide swath with their weapons, wieldedby their white yet nervy arms, after the fashion of the Gallic women who made a front to the legions of Caesar. Twice did Colonel Plouernel, Captain Normand, Alderman Gargouillaud, Master Barbot, Antonicq Lebrenn, Louis Rennepont and their fellow defenders drive the Catholics back beyond the breach; twice did the Catholics, superior in numbers, drive the Rochelois back to the terrace of the rampart. Thus did the battle fluctuate, when Mayor Morrisson came to the aid of the Protestants with a fresh troop of citizens. The timely reinforcement changed the face of the struggle. For a third time rolled back beyond the breach, the assailants were precipitated into the pits or whipped down the slope. Their rout then became complete, wild, disordered. Our arquebusiers, whose fire had stopped during the hand-to-hand conflict, now took aim again, and decimated the fleeing, while our artillery mowed them down. This time the royalist rout was complete—final. Those of them who escaped the carnage, made haste to place themselves behind the shelter of their own lines.
Victory to the Rochelois! Oh, sons of Joel, victory! Long live the Commune!
The victory of the Rochelois was a bloody one, and dearly did we pay for it. We numbered over eleven hundred of our people killed or disabled, men and women. Cornelia Mirant received a wound upon the neck; the Bombarde perished in the breach. Marcienne, Odelin's widow, was struck by a bullet and killed near the rampart as she was bringing aid to a wounded soldier; Antonicq's arm was run through by a pike; Colonel Plouernel was carried to his house in a nearly dying condition with two arquebus shots in his chest. Louis Rennepont, his wife Theresa, Master Barbot, the Franc-Taupin and Serpentin, his assistant in mining, came safe and sound out of the engagement. The Rochelois gathered in the dead and wounded. The Lebrenn family carried to their house the corpse of Odelin's widow. A sad funeral march! But, alas, in these distressful times the exigencies of the public weal have precedence over the holiest of sorrows. One enjoys leisure to weep over his dead only after having avenged them. The triumph of a day does not remove the apprehensions for the morrow. The royalist assault, so valiantly repelled by the people of La Rochelle, might be renewedthe very next day, due to the large reserve forces of the Catholic army, only a small portion of which took part in the attack upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. The City Council urged all the remaining able-bodied citizens to proceed without delay to repair the breach, seeing that the moon, then at her full, would light them at their work during the whole night. Fresh defenses were to be immediately raised upon the side of the assaulted bastion. Then, also, famine was staring the city in the face. Precautions were needed against that emergency. Captain Mirant's ships, which were to revictual the city and replenish its magazines of war, still failed to be descried at sea, notwithstanding a strong wind rose from the southwest towards sunset. The last bags of beans were distributed among the combatants, whose exhaustion demanded immediate attention after the day's conflict. The supply barely sufficed to allay the pangs of hunger. Consequently, in order to insure food for the next day, the women and children were summoned by the aldermen to be at the Two Mills Gate by one o'clock in the morning, the hour of low tide, and favorable for the digging of clams. The gathering of these mollusks offered a precious resource to the besieged, but it was as perilous as battle itself. The Bayhead redoubt, raised by the royalists at the extremity of the tongue of land that ran deep into the offing, could sweep with its cannon the beach on which the clams were to be dug. Towards one in the morning the City Hall bell rang the summons. Upon hearing the agreed-upon signal, the Rochelois women of all conditions issued forth with thoseof their children who were considered strong enough to join the expedition. Each was equipped with a basket. They met at the Two Mills Gate where they found the wife and two daughters of Morrisson the Mayor. They set the example of public spirit. Accordingly, while the male population of La Rochelle was busily engaged in repairing the breach, the women and children sallied forth from the city in search of provisions for all. Although smarting from her wound, and despite the protests of Antonicq, Cornelia Mirant determined to share with Theresa Rennepont the risks of the nocturnal expedition after clams. She joined the troop of women and children.
About four or five hundred Rochelois women issued forth from the Two Mills Gate, situated near the Lantern Tower, in search of clams to feed the population. They were soon upon the beach. Bounded on the right by a ledge of rocks, the beach extended to the left as far as the roadstead in front of the inner port of La Rochelle, a roadstead narrowed towards its entrance by two tongues of land, each of which was armed with a hostile redoubt. The Bayhead redoubt could at once cover with its fire the narrow entrance of the bay, and sweep the full length and breadth of the beach upon which the Rochelois women now scattered and were actively engaged in picking up at the foot of the rocks, aided by the light of the moon, the mollusks that they came in search of. At the start the Bayhead redoubt gave them no trouble, although the enemy's attention must undoubtedly have been attracted by the large number of white head-covers and scarlet skirts, thetime-honored costume of the Rochelois women. Already the baskets were handsomely filling with clams—the "celestial manna" as Mayor Morrisson called them—when suddenly a bright flash of light threw its reflection upon the small puddles of water on the beach, a detonation was heard, and a light cloud of smoke rose above the redoubt. A shiver ran over the clam-digging Rochelois women, and profound silence took the place of their previous chatter.
"The royalists have seen us!" said Theresa Rennepont to Cornelia. "They have begun firing upon us."
"No!" cried Cornelia with mixed joy and alarm as she looked in the direction of the battery. "The enemy is firing upon my father's brigantines! There they are! There they are, at last! God be praised! If they enter port, La Rochelle is saved from famine! Do you see them, Theresa? Do you see, yonder, their white sails glistening in the moonlight? The ships are drawing near. They come laden with victory to us!"
And the young maid, moved with a joy that overcame her alarm, raised her beautiful face to heaven, and in a voice quivering with enthusiasm exclaimed: "Oh, Lord! Guard my father's life! Grant victory to the sacred cause of freedom!"
All thought of the clams was instantly dropped. The women pressed close to the water's edge; with eyes fixed upon the ships, they awaited anxiously the issue of the combat upon which depended the victualing of their city. It was a solemn moment; an imposing spectacle. The further extremities of the two tongues of land that enclosedthe outer bay and left but a narrow entrance to the port, threw their black profiles upon the waves, silvered by the moon. The four brigantines were sailing in single file before the wind with a full spread of canvas, towards the dangerous passage which they had to enter under the cross fire of the enemy's redoubts. A rapid and frightful cannonade followed upon the first shot which had startled the women. Already the first one of the four vessels had entered the passage, when, despite the firmness of her nature, Cornelia emitted a cry of distress and said in consternation to Theresa:
"Look, the mast of the forward brigantine is down! It must have been struck by a ball! Good God, my father is lost if he should be on that vessel—dismantled—unable to move—exposed to the fire of the enemy!"
"All is lost! Alas, all is lost!"
"The brigantines are returning to the open sea!"
"Captain Mirant flees without giving battle! without answering the enemy's fire! without giving back a single shot!"
"Come, let us return to our clams—henceforth the only resource of La Rochelle! Let us continue picking up clams!"
"No! My father is not fleeing from battle," answered Cornelia. "By sailing back he means to tow the dismantled ship out of harm's way. No, Captain Mirant is not fleeing from battle! Do you not see that his vessels are now lying to? They are not sailing away!"
The words of Cornelia, who was long familiar with nautical manoeuvres, thanks to the many voyages she made on board her father's vessels, revived the hopes of the Rochelois women. Their eyes returned with renewed anxiety to the entrance of the port. But, alas, as they did so, none perceived that soldiers of the royal army were coming out of the Bayhead redoubt, and, screened by the shadows cast by the rocks that were strewn to the right of the beach, were silently creeping nearer behind the massive blocks.
"What did I tell you?" Cornelia proceeded to explain. "The brigantines are sailing back again into the passage. The forward one, with the dismantled vessel in tow, is opening fire upon the royalist redoubt. No! Captain Mirant's cannons have not lost their speech!"
And so it was. The brigantine that had the dismantled vessel in tow sailed intrepidly into the passage, returning the enemy's fire from both broadsides. The enemy's redoubts, especially the Bayhead, being the better equipped, replied to the brigantine. Suddenly, however, a cry of terror escaped from all breasts. The brigantine that led was enveloped in a thick smoke which here and there was reddened by the ruddy glow of flames.
The agony of the women of La Rochelle redoubled. Their attention, held captive by the spectacle in the bay, prevented their noticing the Catholic soldiers, who, in increasing numbers, were approaching, hidden behind the last rocks of the ledge. Suddenly the echoes around the rocks repeated, like the reverberations of thunder, the roar of a tremendous explosion. The dismantled vessel, which carried a full load of powder, was blown into the air afterbeing set on fire, not by the enemy, but by Captain Mirant himself; and, as it blew up, it partly dismantled the Bayhead redoubt. The manoeuvre was successful. Not only was the redoubt crippled, but a large number of the soldiers and cannoniers who manned it perished under the ruins of their own batteries. So soon as the intrepid mariner saw one of his vessels disabled from proceeding on its voyage, he had taken her in tow; veered about with the end in view of withdrawing his flotilla from the enemy's fire long enough to enable him to perfect his newly conceived strategy; heaped inflammable materials upon the disabled ship; left the powder in her hold; transferred the sailors to his own bottom; veered again; sailed under full canvas before the wind straight into the passage; and leading in tow the floating incendiary machine which he had just improvised, set it on fire, and cut the cable just before arriving in front of the redoubt, convinced, by his intimate acquaintance with the currents along the coast, that they would drive ashore and against the redoubt the floating firebrand loaded with powder, which, when exploding, would shake the royalist battery to pieces. It happened as Captain Mirant calculated. Once the redoubt was in ruins, Captain Mirant had nothing to fear except from the inferior battery raised on the opposite tongue of land. The bold mariner now proceeded on his course followed by his remaining vessels, deliberately answering the inoffensive shots from the opposite side. Finally, with only the perforation of some of their sails, and a few bullets lodged in their sides, the three vessels steered straight towards the entrance of the interior port of La Rochelle, which they were to save from famine, and re-supply with munitions of war.
"God be praised! The city is saved! May my father have come off safe and sound from the combat!" cried Cornelia, while the other Rochelois women loudly acclaimed with shouts of joy and hope the brilliant triumph of the captain.
The last of the three brigantines had just entered the port when the rattle of arquebus shots resounded from behind the rocks which bordered the beach to the right of where the Rochelois women were assembled. It rained bullets. Women and children, mortally wounded, dropped dead around Theresa and Cornelia. The unexpected attack of the royalist soldiers in ambush threw the unfortunate women into a panic. They had come wholly unarmed, bent upon gathering clams along the beach, and not looking for danger except from the batteries of Bayhead. It happened that a part of that garrison consisted of troops of the guard of the Duke of Anjou, under the command of the Marquis of Montbar, one of the Prince's favorites, and the most noted debauchee of the whole royalist army. So soon as he perceived the Rochelois women spread along the beach, the Marquis set his soldiers in motion, ordered them to slide out of the redoubt, and to creep noiselessly, under cover of the rocks and of the shadows that they projected, with the object in view of massacring a large number of the heroic women, whose intrepidity the royalists had more than once tasted to theirsorrow, and of seizing several of them for the orgies of the Duke of Anjou's tent. Accordingly, after unmasking his ambuscade by the first round of arquebus shots, the Marquis of Montbar rushed with his soldiers upon the startled and panic-stricken women, crying: "Kill all the old ones! Take the handsomest and youngest prisoners! God's blood! You can easily distinguish the pretty girls from the old and ugly! The moon is bright!"
The scene that followed was frightful to behold. Many of the "old" ones were ruthlessly butchered, as ordered by the Catholic captain. Others, having escaped the fire of the arquebuses and the ensuing carnage, finding themselves unarmed, and unable to resist the soldiers, sought safety in flight in the direction of the Two Mills Gate. Still others stood their ground and defended themselves with the energy of despair against the guards who sought to seize them. Among the latter was Cornelia, who, in the turmoil, was separated from Theresa Rennepont as both sought to reach the city. The Marquis of Montbar, happening to be near where Cornelia was struggling in the hands of several soldiers, and struck by the beauty of the girl, called out to his men: "Take care you do not hurt her—keep her alive! God's blood, she is a royal morsel! I reserve her for Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou."
Cornelia, whose wound was re-opened in her struggle with the soldiers, felt herself losing strength and consciousness through loss of blood. She fell in a faint at the feet of Montbar. By his orders two of his guards raised her by her feet and shoulders, and carried her awaylike a corpse. Several other Rochelois women, who were likewise carried off captive to the Bayhead redoubt, now lying in ruins through Captain Mirant's manoeuvre, were that night victims of the brutality of both captains and soldiers. Finally many others succeeded in reaching the Two Mills Gate at the moment that a company of Protestants, attracted by the sound of arquebus shots, sallied from the city and were hastening to the beach. Alas, it was too late! Already the inrushing tide was submerging the dead and the dying victims of the royalist ambush. Already the water reached the foot of the rocks and intercepted the progress of the Rochelois. They could not pursue the enemy who, among other prisoners, carried away the inanimate body of Captain Mirant's daughter at the very hour that the daring mariner weighed anchor in the port of La Rochelle amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.
The headquarters of the royal army were at the suburb of Font, now in ruins. The Duke of Anjou, brother of King Charles IX, occupied at Font, in the center of the royal encampment, a house that went by the name of the "Reservoir," since within its yard lay the reservoir into which the waters were gathered that the now destroyed aqueduct conducted into La Rochelle. The Prince's headquarters, although wrecked by the war, were repaired, and made fit for the royal guest, thanks to the industry of his valets, who upholstered and equipped the ruins with a mass of tapestries and furniture which the pack-mules carried in the wake of the army. The Prince's oratory, where, either in sacrilegious derision, or perhaps yielding to a mixture of fanaticism and lewdness, he both performed his orisons and indulged his debaucheries, was tapestried in violet velvet, garlanded with fringes that were gathered up by gold and silver tassels. Daylight never penetrated the voluptuous retreat, which only a vermillion chandelier illumined with its candles of perfumed wax. On one side of the apartment stood a prayer-stool surmounted with an ivory crucifix; on the opposite side was a thickly cushioned lounge. A Turkish carpet covered the floor. A velvet portiere, closed at this moment, communicated with an inside room.
It was about eight in the evening. Cornelia Mirant, captured on the beach of La Rochelle the night before by the Marquis of Montbar, had just been introduced by him into the oratory of the Duke of Anjou. A feverish agitation imparted an unwonted glow to the countenance of the young girl. Her eyes glistened; her beauty was particularly radiant; a certain coquetish touch was noticeable in the arrangement of her hair; her Rochelois clothing, torn to shreds during the previous night's encounter, had been changed for a robe of poppy-red brocade. A broad embroidered scarf supported and concealed her right hand. The wound she received the day before on the neck had been dressed with care by one of the Duke's own surgeons. Monsieur Montbar—a youth barely twenty years of age, but whose delicate features were prematurely blighted by incontinence—had exchanged his war armor for the apparel of the court. His hair was artistically curled. From his ears hung a pair of earrings encrusted with precious stones; jet black frills hung down from his wrists and encased his hands; a short mantle was thrown over his shoulders; tight-fitting hose and a toque garnished with a brooch of rubies completed his dainty outfit. The Marquis had just brought Cornelia into the oratory, and was saying to her: "My pretty saucebox, you are now in the oratory of the Prince of Anjou, brother of our well-beloved King Charles IX."
"One feels as if in a palace of fairies!" answered Cornelia looking around with feigned and childish wonderment. "Oh, what splendid tapestries! What gorgeous ornaments! It seems I must be dreaming, monseigneur! Can it be possible that the Prince, so great a Prince, deigns to cast his eyes upon so poor a girl as I?"
"Come, my pretty lassy, do not cast down your eyes. Be sincere—you shall ever after feel the glory of having been, if but for one day, the mistress of the King of France's brother. But what are you thinking about?"
"Monseigneur, all this that is happening to me seems a dream. No! You are making sport of a poor girl. Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou does not think of me."
"You will see him in a minute, I assure you; he is just now in conference with Fra Hervé, his confessor." And turning towards the still closed portiere, he proceeded: "I hear the curtains drawn back, and steps in the neighboring room—it is monseigneur."
Hardly had the Marquis pronounced these last words when the drapery was raised, giving passage to the Duke of Anjou. The Prince was then twenty-eight years of age; overindulgence had weakened his gait, and imparted to his effeminate physiognomy a wily aspect, and a suggestion of cruelty and hypocrisy to his smile; added to this, excessive ornamentation rendered his appearance trivial and even sinister. Monsieur Montbar took a few steps towards the Duke, whispered in his ear and pointed to Cornelia. The girl thrilled with suppressed emotion; her right hand, hidden in the wide folds of her scarf, seemedto twitch convulsively and involuntarily to rise to her bosom. She contemplated the Prince with mixed horror and curiosity. Her eyes glistened, but she quickly lowered them before the libidinous glance of the Prince, who, while speaking with the Marquis, regarded her covetously. He said to his favorite: "You are right, my pet; her beauty gives promise of great delight; leave us alone; I may call you in again."
The Marquis of Montbar withdrew. Left alone with Cornelia, the Duke of Anjou stepped to the lounge, stretched himself out upon it nonchalantly with his head resting on the cushion, pulled a gold comfit-holder from his pocket, took a pastille out of it, masticated it, and after a few minutes of silent revery said to the Rochelois:
"Approach, my pretty girl!"
Cornelia raised her eyes heavenward. Her countenance became inspired. A slight pallor overcast it. Her glistening eyes grew moist. Distress was stamped on her features as she muttered to herself: "Adieu, father! Adieu, Antonicq! The hour of self-sacrifice has sounded for me!"
Surprised at the immobility of Cornelia, whose face he could not see distinctly, the Duke of Anjou sat up and repeated impatiently: "Approach! You seem to be deaf, as well as mute. I told you to approach. By God's death, hurry up! Come and lie down beside me!"
Cornelia, without the Prince's noticing her motions, disengaged her arm from the folds of the scarf, and stepped deliberately towards the lounge on which he had again stretched himself out. Again he motioned her to approach,saying: "Come here, I tell you. I would fear to damn myself forever by contact with such a satanic heretic as you, but for Fra Hervé's promise to give me absolution after our amorous encounter."
And rising from his soft lounge, the Prince opened his arms to Cornelia. The girl approached; she bowed down; then, quick as thought she seized the Duke by the hair with her left hand, at the same time drawing out of the folds of her scarf her right hand armed with a short sharp steel dagger with which she struck the Prince several blows in the region of the heart, crying: "Die, butcher of my brothers! Die, cowardly assassin of women and children!"
The Duke of Anjou wore under his jacket a coat of mail of steel so close meshed and well tempered that Cornelia's dagger broke under the blows that she dealt, while the frightened Prince called out for help, gasping: "Murder! She assassinates me! Murder!"
At the Prince's cries and the noise of the struggle between them the Marquis of Montbar, together with several domestics of the royal household, hurried into the oratory, from the contiguous room where they always stood in waiting; they flung themselves upon Cornelia and seized her by the wrists, while the Prince, freed from the grasp of the brave maid, ran livid and demented to his prayer-stool, where he threw himself down upon his knees, and, with lips white with terror, shivering in every part of his body, and with his teeth clattering in his head, he stammered: "Almighty God, thanks be to Thee! Thou hast protected Thy unworthy servitor!" And bending low, tillhis forehead touched the ground, the terrified libertine smote his chest exclaiming: "Mea culpa! mea culpa! mea maxima culpa!"[84]
While the Duke of Anjou was thus giving thanks to his God for having escaped the dagger of the young Protestant girl, she, held firmly by the seigneurs and retainers who heaped upon her insults and threats of death, stood erect with proud front, defied them with steady eyes, and preserved a disdainful silence. Holding himself responsible for the conduct of the Huguenot girl, whom he had taken to his master's bed, the Marquis of Montbar drew his sword and was about to run her through, when the Prince, rising from his prayer-stool cried out: "Do not kill her, my pet! Oh, no, she must not die so soon!"
The favorite re-sheathed his sword. The Duke of Anjou, now pale with rage, staggered to his lounge and sat down. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, cast a look of implacable hatred upon Cornelia, and after regarding her in silence for a moment, said: "Well, my pretty lass—so you meant to assassinate me!"
"Yes—because you are the worthy son of Catherine De Medici, the worthy brother of Charles IX; because you suborned an assassin to poison Coligny!"
The Duke of Anjou remained unmoved, and remarked with a cruel smile: "You are a resolute girl, resolute in word and deed. I came near learning as much at my cost! What is your name?"
"Cornelia Mirant."
"What! You are the daughter of the mariner who last night almost threw into utter ruins our Bayhead redoubt? You are the daughter of the devilish Huguenot who has just revictualed La Rochelle?"
The Cordelier Fra Hervé had just raised the portiere and was about to step into the oratory, when he heard the young girl declare her name to be Cornelia Mirant. The monk immediately stopped. Half-hidden by the tapestry, he remained on the threshold of the room and listened to the rest of the dialogue between the Huguenot girl and the Prince.
"You must be a girl of honorable habits. How came you to yield so readily to the propositions of the Marquis?"
"In the hope of being able to strike you dead with the dagger that I found in the tent of your officer," boldly answered Cornelia.
"A new Judith, you seem to see in me a modern Holofernes! Everything about you breathes courage, honor, chastity. By God! I am becoming interested in you. You have wished my death—well, I wish that you live. So brave a girl should not die."
"What, monseigneur! Shall this wretch escape punishment!" cried the Marquis of Montbar, while Cornelia thought to herself with a shudder: "I dread the clemency of the son of Catherine De Medici more than I do his ire."
"Yes, my pet," answered the Duke of Anjou to his minion; "to-day I am in a merciful mood. I shall practice the evangelical morality of Jesus our Savior; I shallreturn good for evil! I wish well to this haughty republican girl, worthy of the days of Sparta and Rome! I wish the brave girl so well that—here is my sentence: Pinion the virgin's arms firmly; have her watched carefully in order that she may not do away with herself; and then throw her to the common soldiers of the camp. By God's death! The gay fellows will have a dainty repast! Take away from my sight the immaculate virgin, who will not be a virgin much longer!"
"Oh! Mercy! Mercy! Death sooner! The most horrible death! Mercy!" stammered Cornelia, aroused from her stupor; and dropping upon her knees at the feet of the Duke of Anjou, she raised to him her hands in supplication, and implored in heartrending accents: "Martyrdom! For mercy's sake, martyrdom!"
The Prince turned to his favorites: "Let the pretty heretic be taken to the garrison on the spot—on the spot, my pets. We shall follow and witness the sport of our soldiers."
Already was Cornelia being dragged away when Fra Hervé suddenly interposed. The courtiers bowed low before the confessor of the Duke of Anjou.
"My son," said the Cordelier, stepping straight towards the Prince, "revoke the order you have given. The heretic should not be thrown to the soldiers."
"Father," broke in the Duke of Anjou with exasperation, "are you aware the girl tried to assassinate me?"
"I know it all—both the attempted crime and its failure. You shall revoke your order."
"God's blood! Reverend Father, seeing you know it all, I declare, notwithstanding my profound respect for you, that I insist upon my revenge. My orders shall be executed."
"My son, you are but a child," answered Fra Hervé in a tone of disdainful superiority; and leaning towards the Prince the monk whispered in his ear, while Cornelia, now recognizing Fra Hervé, shuddered from head to foot.
"I dreaded the clemency of the Prince—the monk's mercy terrifies me. Oh, Lord God, my only hope lies in You!"
"As God lives, my reverend Father, you are right! I am but a child!" cried the Duke of Anjou, beaming with infernal joy after listening to the confidential remarks whispered to him by the monk. He then again addressed his favorites: "Take the heretic girl to the reverend Father's cell. But, good Father, keep a watchful eye upon her. Her life is now as precious to you as to me."
Cornelia was led away upon the steps of the fratricidal monk.
Fra Hervé lived in the house of the Reservoir of the Font suburb in a sort of cellar that was vaulted, somber and damp as a cave, and which one time served as the direct communication to the aqueduct by means of a stone staircase, closed from above by a trap door. The monk's gloomy lodging was reached through a corridor that opened into one of the rooms situated on the ground floor, and, since the siege, transformed into a hall reserved for the officers of the Duke of Anjou.
The interior of Fra Hervé's retreat revealed the austerity of the man's cenobitic habits. A wooden box, filled with ashes and resembling a coffin, served him for bed. A stool stood before a rough hewn table on which were an hour-glass, a breviary, a skull and an iron lamp. The latter cast a pale light over the cave, in a corner of which a heavy trap door masked the now disused stone staircase, the entrance to which had been walled from within by the royalists, in order to prevent a surprise from that quarter, seeing the water was turned off.
Taken to the gloomy cell, Cornelia found herself alone with the monk. She was aware there was no hope of escape or of mercy for her. The cell had no issue other than the corridor that connected with the hall of the Prince's officers of the guard, which was constantly crowded with the Prince's retinue. Fra Hervé's face was emaciated. His forehead, over which a few locks of grey hair tumbled in disorder, was bony and lustrous as the skull upon his table. Except for the somber luster of his hollow eyes, one would at first sight take the scarred and fleshless head of the monk for that of a corpse. He was seated on the stool. Cornelia, standing before him, shuddered with horror. She found herself alone with the monster who, at the battle of Roche-la-Belle, cut the throat of Odelin, the father of Antonicq, her betrothed. Fra Hervé remained meditative for a moment, and then addressed the young girl in a hollow voice:
"You are aware of the fate that Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou reserved for you in punishment for your attempted murder? You were to be thrown to the soldiers of the garrison—"
"I am in your power—what do you want of me?" interrupted Cornelia.
"The salvation of your soul."
"My soul belongs to God. I have lived and I shall die in my faith, and in execration for the Catholic church."
"This is but another evidence of the impiousness of the Lebrenn family, a family of reprobates, of accursed people, to whom this poor creature was soon to be joined by even closer bonds than those that already join her to them!"
"What! You know—?"
"A Rochelois prisoner informed me that you were the betrothed of Antonicq, the son of him who was my brother."
"Monk, I shall not invoke to you the bonds of family—you have reddened your hands with your brother's blood. I shall not invoke your pity—you are pitiless. But, seeing that no heretics have been burnt for quite a while, I hope you will consent to cause me to be condemned to the pyre for a hardened heretic. I abhor the Pope, his Church and his priests! I abhor them as I do Kings. I execrate all monks, and the whole tonsured fraternity."
Cornelia calculated upon exasperating the Cordelier to fury, and thus to wrest from him the order to be taken to immediate execution—her only refuge from the threats of the Duke of Anjou. But the unfortunate girl deceived herself. Fra Hervé listened to her impassively, and resumed:
"You are cunning. You aspire to martyrdom because death will protect you from the outrage that you fear. I am not your dupe. There will be no pyre for you!"
"Woe is me!" murmured the young girl, seeing her last hope dashed. "Woe is me! I am lost!"
"You are saved—if you will!" Fra Hervé proceeded to say.
"What do I hear?" cried Cornelia perceiving a new glimmer of hope. "What must I do? Speak!"
"Publicly abjure your heresy! Renounce Satan and your father! Humbly implore our holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to receive you into her bosom at hermercy and discretion. The soilure, now upon you, being washed off, you shall take the eternal vows and shall bury in the shadow of the cloister the criminal life you have led in the past. Choose: either immediate abjuration, or—to the soldiers. These pious Catholics will slake their amorousness upon you."
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Cornelia, seized with terror, and her head reeling. "Am I awake? Am I dreaming? Can a man, a priest, outrage a woman's modesty to such an extent? A curse upon you, wretch!"
"What audacity! 'Outrage' a 'woman'!" put in Fra Hervé with a wild and diabolical guffaw. "Is there such a thing as a heretic being a 'woman'? No! A heretic is a female, like the she-wolf in the jungle. Is there such a thing as outrage with a she-wolf?"
"Mercy!" stammered Cornelia in despair. "Have mercy upon me!"
"No mercy!" answered Fra Hervé sententiously. "You shall enter a cloister, or—you shall be given over to the lust of the soldiers. It shall be so! And now, keep your eyes upon this hour-glass," added the monk, pointing to the instrument for marking time that stood near the dead man's skull. "Should you, when the water is run down, not have decided instantly to abjure and to depart this very night to a convent, you shall be delivered to the Catholic soldiers!"
And the monk, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, remained silent as he looked with fixed eyes at the running of the water from the upper into thelower bulb of the clepsydra, while fondling his heavy chaplet with the hand that remained free.
"What am I to do?" the Protestant girl asked herself. "What am I to do in this extremity? Almighty God, have mercy upon me!"
"One-half of the water has run down!" observed Fra Hervé in his sepulchral voice. "Decide! There is still time!"
At the lugubrious announcement Cornelia's mind began to wander; still, one lucid thought rose clear above the growing vertigo that obsessed the young girl's thoughts—the thought of putting an end to her life. Her bewildered eyes sought to penetrate here and there the dark recesses of the cell, which the dim light of the lamp threw heavily into the shade. They sought mechanically for some article that she might use as a weapon with which to inflict death upon herself. Suddenly Cornelia's eyes bulged out in amazement. She held her breath and remained petrified, thinking herself the sport of a vision. Fra Hervé, because of his eyes being fixed upon the hour-glass and his back turned to the trap door that masked the stone stairs leading to the aqueduct, could not take in what was happening. But Cornelia saw the trap door rise noiselessly, inexplicably; presently, in the measure that it rose, the two hands and then the two arms that raised it heaved in sight; simultaneously there appeared the top of an iron casque, and an instant later the face under the casque—and Cornelia recognized Antonicq—her betrothed, Antonicq Lebrenn!