Stray Pearls

CHAPTER XIX. INSIDE PARIS

Annora's narrative.

My sister has asked me to fill up the account of the days of the Fronde with what I saw within the city. She must permit me to do so in English, for I have taken care to forget my French; and if I write perilous stuff for French folk to read she need not translate it.

I will begin with that Twelfth-day morning when we were wakened by more noise and racket than even Paris could generally produce. There had been a little tumult about once a week for the last six months, so we could endure a great deal, but this was plainly a much larger one. Some of the servants who went out brought word that the Queen had carried off the King in order to be revenged on Paris, and that the people, in a rage, were breaking the carriages of her suite to pieces, plundering the wagons, and beating, if not killing, every one in them. We were of course mightily troubled for my sister, and being only two women we could not go out in quest of her, while each rumour we heard was more terrible than the last. Some even said that the Louvre had been asked and plundered; but old Sir Andrew Macniven, who had made his way through the mob like a brave old Scottish knight, brought us word that he could assure us that our own Queen was safe in her own apartments, and that there had been no attack on the palace.

Still he had himself seen carriages plundered and broken to pieces by the mob, and the gates were closely guarded. Seeing our distress, he was about to go with Abbe to the Louvre, to learn whether my sister and her son were there, when one of the servants came up to tell us that M. Clement Darpent requested to see my mother, having brought us tidings of Madame la Vicomtesse.

My poor mother never could endure the name of M. Darpent, because she did not like my brother's friendship with any one not noble, but she was as glad to see him then as if he had been a Montmorency or a Coucy.

I always like his manners, for they were even then more English than French. Though going through all due form, he always seemed to respect himself too much to let any one be supercilious with him; and however she might begin at a vast distance, she always ended by talking to him just as if he were, as she called it, our equal. As if he were not infinitely the superior of the hundreds of trumpery little apes of nobles who strutted about the galleries of the Louvre, with nothing to do but mayhap to carry the Queen's fan, or curl her poodle's tail!

I see I have been writing just as I felt in those fervent days of my youth, when the quick blood would throb at my heart and burn in my cheek at any slight to the real manhood and worth I saw in him, and preference for the poor cringing courtiers I despised. The thought of those old days has brought me back to the story as all then seemed to me-the high-spirited, hot-tempered maiden, who had missed all her small chances of even being mild and meek in the troubles at home, and to whom Paris was a grievous place of banishment, only tolerable by the aid of my dear brother and my poor Meg, when she was not too French and too Popish for me. But that was not her fault, poor thing.

My mother, however, was grateful enough to Clement Darpent for the nonce, when he told how he had seen Meg safe beyond the gates. Moreover, he assured us that so far from 8000 horse being ready to storm the city (I should like to have seen them! Who ever took a fortress with a charge of horse?) barely 200 had escorted their Majesties. The Coadjutor had shown M. Blancmesnil a note from the Queen telling him so, and summoning him to St. Germain.

It was likely, M. Darpent said, that the city would be besieged, but he did not foresee any peril for us, and he promised to watch over us, as he would over his own mother, and that he would give us continual intelligence so that we might provide for our safety. It was amusing to see how eagerly my mother accepted this offer, though she had almost forbidden him the house when my brother left us.

I am sure my mother was as uneasy as any of us when he did not appear on the morning after he had gone with his father on the deputation to St. Germain. However, he did come later on in the afternoon, bringing a note from Meg. He had not seen her, only Nicolas and little Gaspard, and he, like all the rest, was greatly incensed at the manner in which the magistrates had been treated. His father had, he said, caught a violent cold, and had been forced to go to bed at once. In fact it really was the poor old man's death-stroke, and he never quitted his chamber, hardly even his bed.

The Parliament, in a rage, put forth a decree, declaring the Cardinal an enemy to the State, and ordering him to leave the Court and kingdom on that very day, calling on all loyal subjects to fall on him, and forbidding any one to give him shelter.

We heard loud acclamations, which made us think something unusual was going on, and it was the publication of this precious edict. I wondered who they thought was going to attend to it when M. Darpent brought in a copy. And my mother began to cry and talk about Lord Strafford. I had to think of Eustace and bite my tongue to keep my patience at our noble 'thorough' Wentworth being likened to that base cringing Italian.

Clement Darpent said, however, that every one had passed it by acclamation, except Bernai, who was a mere cook, and gave fine dinners to such a set of low, loose creatures that he was called 'le cabaretier de la cour.' Moreover, they proceeded to give orders for levying 4000 horse and 10,000 foot. This really did mean civil war.

'I knew it,' said my mother, 'it is the next step after denouncing the King's minister. We shall see you next armed cap-a-pie, like our young advocates at home, all for the King's behalf, according to them.'

Of course she was thinking of Harry Merrycourt, but she was surprised by the answer.

'No, Madam, nothing shall induce me to bear arms against the King. So much have I learned from the two living persons who I esteem the most.'

'And they are?' asked my lady.

'My mother and monsieur votre fils,' he replied.

And I could not help crying out--

'Oh, sir, you are right. I know that Harry Merrycourt feels NOW that nothing can justify rebellion, and that he little knew whither he should be led.'

'And yet,' said he, clasping his hands together with intensity of fervour, 'when all is rotten to the core, venal, unjust, tyrannical, how endure without an endeavour at a remedy? Yet it may be that an imposing attitude will prevail! Self-defence without a blow.'

It seemed as if such war as they were likely to wage could do no one much damage, for they actually chose as their generalissimo that ridiculous little sickly being, the Prince de Conty, who had quarrelled with the Court about a cardinal's hat, and had run away from his mother's apron string at St. Germain to his sister's at Paris.

On recalling it, all was a mere farce together, and the people were always stringing together lampoons in rhyme, and singing them in the streets. One still rings in my head, about a dissolute impoverished Marquis d'Elbeuf, one of the house of Lorraine, whom the prospect of pay induced to offer his services to the Parliament.

'Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,

Qui n'avait aucun ressource,

Et qui ne mangeait que du boeuf.

Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,

A maintenant un habit neuf

Et quelques justes dans sa bourse.

Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,

Qui n'avait aucun ressource.'

There was more sense in taking the Duke of Bouillon, though he was not his brother, M. de Turenne. These young men were in high spirits. You will find no traces of their feelings in the memoirs of the time, for of course nothing of the kind would be allowed to pass the censors of the press. But there was a wonderful sense of liberty of speech and tongue during that siege. The younger gens de la robe, as they were called, who, like Clement Darpent, had read their Livy and Plutarch, were full of ideas of public virtue, and had meetings among themselves, where M. Darpent dwelt on what he had imbibed from my brother of English notions of duty to God, the King and the State. It may seem strange that a cavalier family like ourselves should have infused notions which were declared to smack of revolution, but the constitution we had loved and fought for was a very Utopia to these young French advocates. They, with the sanguine dreams of youth, hoped that the Fronde was the beginning of a better state of things, when all offices should be obtained by merit, never bought and sold, and many of them were inventions of the Court for the express purpose of sale. The great Cardinal had actually created forty offices for counselors merely in order to sell them and their reversions! The holders of these were universally laughed at, and not treated as on a level with the old hereditary office-bearers, who at least might think themselves of some use.

We smile sadly now to think of the grand aspirations, noble visions, and brave words of those young advocates, each of whom thought himself a very Epaminondas, or Gracchus, though M. Darpent, on looking back, had to confess that his most enthusiastic supporters were among the younger brothers, or those with less fortunate fathers, for whom the Paulette had never been paid, or who felt it very hard to raise. He himself brought sincere ardour for his own part, and was full of soaring hope and self-devotion, though I suspect his father would soon have silenced him if the poor man had been able to think of anything beyond his own sick-chamber.

The real absurdity, or rather the sadness, of it was, as we two saw, that the fine folk in whom the Parliament put its trust merely wanted to spite the Cardinal, and cared not a rush for the Parliament, unlike my Lord Essex, and our other Roundhead noblemen, who, right or wrong, were in honest earnest, and cared as much about the Bill of Rights and all the rest of their demands as Sir Harry Vane or General Cromwell himself, whereas these were traitors in heart to the cause they pretended to espouse. Even the Coadjutor, who was the prime mover of all, only wanted to be chief of a party.

One part of his comedy, which I should like to have seen, was the conducting the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon along the Greve to the Hotel de Ville to ask protection, though I do not know what for.

However, there they were, exquisitely dressed, with Madame de Longueville's beautiful hair daintily disheveled, on foot, and each with a child in her arms. Crowds followed them with shouts of ecstasy, and the Coadjutor further gratified the world by having a shower of pistoles thrown from the windows of the Hotel de Ville.

It was good sport to hear Sir Andrew Macniven discourse on the sight, declaring that the ladies looked next door to angels, and kenned it full well too, and that he marvelled what their gudemen would have said to see them make a raree show of themselves to all the loons in Paris!

The streets soon became as quiet as they ever were, and we could go about as usual, except when we had warning of any special cause for disturbance. We were anxious to know how poor little Madame d'Aubepine was getting on, and, to our surprise, we found her tolerably cheerful. In truth, she had really tamed the Croquelebois! As she said afterwards in her little pathetic tone, so truly French, when they both so truly loved Monsieur le Comte (wretch that he was) how could they differ? You see he was not present to cause jealousies, and when Madame Croquelebois found that Cecile never blamed him or murmured she began to be uneasy at his neglect and unkindness.

Though, of course, at that moment he was out of reach, being in the army that was blockading us. Not that we should ever have found out that we were blockaded, if we could have got any letters from any one, except for the scarcity of firewood. My mother wanted much to get to our own Queen, but the approaches to the Louvre were watched lest she should communicate with the Regent; and we were cut off from her till M. Darpent gave his word for us, and obtained for us a pass. And, oh! it was a sad sight to see the great courts and long galleries left all dreary and empty. It made me think of Whitehall and of Windsor, though we little knew that at that very time there was worse there than even desolation.

And when at last we reached our poor Queen's apartments, there was not a spark of fire in them. She was a guest there. She had no money, and all the wood had either been used up or pillaged; and there we found her, wrapped in a great fur cloak, sitting by the bed where was the little Lady Henrietta.

When my mother cried out with grief that the child should be ill, the poor Queen replied with that good-humoured laugh with which she met all the inconveniences that concerned herself alone: 'Oh, no, Madame, not ill, only cold! We cannot get any firewood, and so bed is the safest place for my little maid, who cares not if she can have her mother to play with her! Here is a new playfellow for thee, ma mie . Sweet Nan will sit by thee, and make thee sport, while I talk to her mother.'

So the child made the big four-post bed, all curtained round, into a fortress, and I besieged her there, till she screamed with glee, while the Queen took my mother's arm, and they paced the rooms together, sadly discussing the times and the utter lack of news from home, when the last tidings had been most alarming. Poor lady! I think it was a comfort to her, for she loved my mother; but we could not but grieve to see her in such a plight. As we went home we planned that we would carry a faggot in the carriage the next day, and that I would take it upstairs to her. And so I actually did, but the sentry insisted on knowing what I was carrying hidden in a cloak, and when he saw it, the honest man actually burst into tears that the daughter of Henri IV. should be in such straits. The Queen kissed me for it, and said I was like the good girl in Madame d'Aulnoy's tales, and she would fain be the benevolent fairy to reward me. And then the little Princess insisted that I was Capuchon Rouge, and that she was my Grandmother Wolf, and after making her great eyes at me, she ate me up with kisses over and over again! Ah! how happy children can be. It was strange to remember that this was the way King Charles's little daughter spent that 30th of January!

We had told M. Darpent of the condition in which we found the Queen, and he told the Coadjutor, who went himself to see her, and then stirred up the Parliament to send her regular supplies both of firing and provisions, so that she never suffered again in the same way.

Each day increased our anxiety for His Sacred Majesty. Lord Jermyn made his way into Paris, and came to consult with my mother, telling her that he had little doubt that the iniquitous deed had been consummated, and between them, by way of preparing the unhappy Queen, they made up a story that the King had been led out to execution, but had been rescued by the populace. I could not see that this would be of much use in softening the blow; in fact, I thought all these delicate false-hoods only made the suspense worse, but I was told that I was a mere downright English country lass, with no notion of the refinements such things required with persons of sensibility.

So I told them, if ever I were in trouble, all I asked of them was to let me know the worst at once. One great pleasure came to the Queen at this time in the arrival of the Duke of York, who made his way into Paris, and arriving in the midst of dinner, knelt before his mother. He knew no more of his father than we did, and the Queen's urgent entreaty, undertook to go to St. Germain with a letter from her, asking what Queen Anne had heard from England.

The siege was not so strait but that unsuspected persons could get in and out, but after all, the poor Queen's anxiety and suspense were such that Lord Jermyn was forced to disclose the truth to her before Sir Andrew came back with the letters. She stood like a statue, and could neither move nor speak till night, when the Duchess of Vendome came and caressed her until at last the tears broke forth, and she sobbed and wept piteously all night. The next day she retired into the Carmelite convent in the Faubourg St. Jaques, taking my mother with her. As, according to French fashion, I was not to be left to keep house myself, my mother invited Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney to come and take charge of me, and a very good thing it was, for we at least had food enough, and my dear good friends had very little.

We were all stunned by the dreadful news from England. It was very sad old Sir Francis, who had borne without complaint the loss of land, honours, and home, nay, who had stood by to see his only son die at Naseby, sitting like one crushed, and only able to mutter now and then: 'My Master, my good Master.' You might know an English exile in those days by the mourning scarf and sad countenance. I remember a poor wild cavalier whom my mother and Meg never liked to admit when Eustace was not at home, going down on his knees to Lady Ommaney for a bit of black silk, when he looked as if he was starving.

We could not, of course, have evening receptions for our poor hungry countrymen in the absence of my mother, and with such sorrow upon us all, but Lady Ommaney and I did contrive pies and pasties, and all sorts of food that could be sent as gifts without offence to the families we thought most straitened.

The poor of Paris itself were not so very ill-off, for there were continual distributions of money and flour to keep them in good humour, and there were songs about.

'Le bon tems que c'etait

A Paris Durant la famine,

Tout le monde s'entrebaisait

A Paris Durant la famine,

La plus belle se contentait

D'un simple boisseau de farine.'

La plus belle was the Duchess of Longueville, who tried hard to persuade the people that she was one with them. Her second son had been born only a few days after her expedition to the Hotel de Ville, and she asked the City of Paris to stand godmother to him in the person of the provosts and echevins. Afterwards she had a great reception, which Clement Darpent attended, and he told us the next morning that it had been the most wonderful mixture of black gowns and cassocks, with blue scarfs and sword-knots, lawyers, ladies, warriors, and priests.

He continued to bring us tidings every day, and Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney really liked him, and said he was worthy to be an Englishman.

His father remained very ill, and day by day he told of the poor old man's pain and shortness of breath. Now Lady Ommaney had great skill in medicine, indeed there were those who said she had done the work of three surgeons in the war; and she had been of great service to my dear brother, Lord Walwyn, when he first came to Paris. She thought little or nothing of the French doctors, and waxed eloquent in describing to Clement Darpent how she would make a poultice of bran or of linseed. Now he had learned of my mother to read English easily, and to converse in it on all great matters of state and policy, but the household terms and idioms were still far beyond him, and dear good Lady Ommaney had never learned more French than enabled her to say 'Combien' when she made a purchase. Or if they had understood one another's tongue, I doubt me if any one could have learned the compounding of a poultice through a third person, and that a man!

So, while I was labouring to interpret, Lady Ommaney exclaimed, 'But why should I not come and show your mother?'

'Ah! if you would, Madame, that would verily be goodness,' returned Clement in his best English.

Well, I knew Eustace and Meg would have called me self-willed, when my mother had once made such a noise about our taking shelter from Broussel's mob at the Maison Darpent; but this was a mere visit of charity and necessity, for it was quite certain that the two good ladies could never have understood one another without me to interpret for them. Moreover, when Clement Darpent had rescued my sister from the mob, and was always watching to protect us, we surely owed him some return of gratitude, and it would have been mere bourgeois.

So I went with Lady Ommaney, and was refreshed by the sight of that calm face of Madame Darpent, which she always seemed to me to have borrowed from the angels, and which only grew the sweeter and more exalted the greater was her trouble, as if she imbibed more and more of heavenly grace in proportion to her needs.

We did our best, Lady Ommaney and I, to show and explain, but I do not think it was to much purpose. The materials were not like our English ones, and though mother and son were both full of thanks and gratitude, Madame Darpent was clearly not half convinced that what was good for an Englishman was good for a Frenchman, and even if she had been more fully persuaded, I do not think her husband would have endured any foreign treatment.

When we took leave she said, 'Permettez moi, ma chere demoiselle ,' and would have kissed my hand, but I threw my arms round her neck embraced her, for there was something in her face that won my heart more than it had ever gone out to any woman I ever saw; and I saw by Lady Ommaney's whole face and gesture that she thought a great sorrow was coming on the good woman. I believe she was rather shocked, for she was a Huguenot by birth, and a Jansenist by conviction, and thus she did not approve of any strong signs of affection and emotion; but nevertheless she was touched and very kind and good, and she returned my embrace by giving me her sweet and solemn blessing.

And as he put me into the carriage, Clement, that foolish Clement, must needs thank me, with tears in his eyes, for my goodness to her.

'What do you mean, sir,' said I, 'by thanking me for what I delight in and value as a daughter?'

Whereupon I, equally foolish, knew what I had said, and felt my face and neck grow crimson all over, and what must he do, but kiss my hand in a rapture.

And all the way home I could hear old Lady Ommaney murmuring to herself, quite unconscious that she was speaking aloud, 'My stars! I hope I have not done wrong! What will my Lady Walwyn say? Not that he would be altogether a bad match for her after our notions. Her father was only a baron, and theirs is a good old family of the citizen sort, but then my Lady Walwyn is a Frenchwoman, and thinks all that is not noble the dirt under her feet.'

My heart gave a great bound, and then seemed to swell and take away my breath, so that I could not at first speak to stop those uttered thoughts, which made me presently feel as if I were prying into a letter, so as soon as I could get my voice I said, as well as I could, 'My Lady, I hear you.'

'Hear me! Bless me, was I talking to myself! I only was thinking that the poor old gentleman there is not long for this world. But maybe your mother would not call him a gentleman. Ha! What have they got written up there about the Cardinal?'

I read her the placard, and let her lead me away from the subject. I could not talk about it to any one, and how I longed for Eustace!

However, I believe terror was what most ailed the old gentleman (not that the French would call him so). He must always have been chicken-hearted, for he had changed his religion out of fear. His wife was all sincerity, but the dear good woman was religious for both of them!

And as time went on his alarms could not but increase. The Parliament really might have prevailed if it had any constancy, for all the provincial Parliaments were quite ready to take part with it, and moreover the Duke of Bouillon had brought over his brother, the Vicomte de Turenne, to refuse to lead his army against them, or to keep back the Spaniards. The Queen-Regent might really have been driven to dismiss the Cardinal and repeal the taxes if the city had held out a little longer, but in the midst the First President Mole was seized with patriotic scruples. He would not owe his success to the foreign enemies of his country, and the desertion of the army, and he led with him most of his compeers. I suppose he was right--I know Clement thought so--but the populace were sorely disappointed when negotiations were opened with the Queen and Court, and it became evident that the city was to submit without any again but some relaxation of the tax.

The deputies went and came, and were well mobbed everywhere. The Coadjutor and Duke of Beaufort barely restrained the populace from flying at the throat of the First President, who they fancied had been bribed to give them up. One wretch on the steps of the Palais de Justice threatened to kill the fine old man, who calmly replied, 'Well, friend, when I am dead I shall want nothing but six feet of earth.'

The man fell back, daunted by his quietness, and by the majesty of his appearance in his full scarlet robes. These alarms, the continual shouting in the streets, and the growing terror lest on the arrival of the Court all the prominent magistrates should be arrested and sent to the Bastille, infinitely aggravated President Darpent's disorder. We no longer saw his son every day, for he was wholly absorbed in watching by the sick-bed, and besides there was no further need, as he averred, of his watching over us. However, Sir Francis went daily to inquire at the house, and almost always saw Clement, who could by this time speak English enough to make himself quite intelligible, but who could only say that, in spite of constantly being let blood, the poor old man grew weaker and weaker; and on the very day the treaty was signed he was to receive the last rites of the Church.