Massacres of the South (1551-1815) - Alexandre Dumas père (the beginning after the end novel read .txt) 📗

step with his usual dignity, stopping from time to time to say a word or make a sign with head or hand. Behind him, two steps lower, came Chamillard, moving and stopping as the king moved and stopped, and answering the questions which His Majesty put to him in a respectful but formal and precise manner.

Reaching the level on which Cavalier stood, the king stopped under pretext of pointing out to Chamillard a new ceiling which Le Brun had just finished, but really to have a good look at the singular man who had maintained a struggle against two marshals of France and treated with a third on equal terms. When he had examined him quite at his ease, he turned to Chamillard, pretending he had only just caught sight of the stranger, and asked:

"Who is this young gentleman?"

"Sire," answered the minister, stepping forward to present him to the king, "this is Colonel Jean Cavalier."

"Ah yes," said the king contemptuously, "the former baker of Anduze!"

And shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, he passed on.

Cavalier on his side had, like Chamillard, taken a step forward, when the scornful answer of the great king changed him into a statue. For an instant he stood motionless and pale as death, then instinctively he laid his hand on his sword, but becoming conscious that he was lost if he remained an instant longer among these people, whom not one of his motions escaped, although they pretended to despise him too much to be aware of his presence, he dashed down the staircase and through the hall, upsetting two or three footmen who were in his way, hurried into the garden, ran across it at full speed, and regaining his room at the hotel, threw himself on the floor, where he rolled like a maniac, uttering cries of rage, and cursing the hour when, trusting to the promises of M. de Villars, he had abandoned the mountains where he was as much a king as Louis XIV at Versailles. The same evening he received orders to leave Paris and rejoin his regiment at Macon. He therefore set out the next morning, without seeing M. de Chamillard again.

Cavalier on arriving at Macon found that his comrades had had a visit from M. d'Aygaliers, who had come again to Paris, in the hope of obtaining more from the king than M. de Villars could or would grant.

Cavalier, without telling his comrades of the strange manner in which the king had received him, gave them to understand that he was beginning to fear that not only would the promises they had received be broken, but that some strange trick would be played upon them.

Thereupon these men, whose chief and oracle he had been for so long, asked him what they ought to do; Cavalier replied that if they would follow him, their best course and his would be to take the first opportunity of gaining the frontier and leaving the country. They all declared themselves ready to follow him anywhere. This caused Cavalier a new pang of regret, for he could not help recollecting that he had once had under his command fifteen hundred men like these.

The next day Cavalier and his comrades set out on their march without knowing whither they were being taken, not having been able to obtain any information as to their destination from their escort--a silence which confirmed them in their resolution. As soon, therefore, as they reached Onnan, Cavalier declared that he considered that the looked-for opportunity had arrived, asking them if they were still in the same mind: they returned that they would do whatever he advised. Cavalier then ordered them to hold themselves in readiness, Daniel offered up a prayer, and the prayer ended, the whole company deserted in a body, and, crossing Mont Belliard, entered Porentruy, and took the road to Lausanne.

Meantime d'Aygaliers, in his turn, arrived at Versailles, with letters from M. de Villars for the Duke of Beauvilliers, president of the king's council, and for Chamillard. The evening of his arrival he delivered these letters to those to whom they were addressed, and both gentlemen promised to present him to the king.

Four days later, Chamillard sent word to d'Aygaliers that he was to be next day at the door of the king's chamber at the time when the council entered. D'Aygaliers was punctual, the king appeared at the usual hour, and as he paused before d'Aygaliers, Chamillard came forward and said:

"Baron d'Aygaliers, sire."

"I am very glad to see you, sir," said the king, "for I am very much pleased with the zeal you have displayed in Languedoc in my service--very much pleased indeed."

"Sire," answered d'Aygaliers, "I consider myself most unfortunate in that I have been able to accomplish nothing deserving of the gracious words which your Majesty deigns to address me, and I pray God of His grace to grant me in the future an opportunity of proving my zeal and loyalty in your Majesty's service more clearly than hitherto."

"Never mind, never mind," said the king. "I repeat, sir, that I am very much pleased with what you have done."

And he entered the room where the council was waiting.

D'Aygaliers went away only half satisfied: he had not come so far only to receive commendation from the king, but in the hope of obtaining some concession for his brethren; but with Louis XIV it was impossible either to intercede or complain, one could only wait.

The same evening Chamillard sent for the baron, and told him that as Marechal Villars had mentioned in his letter that the Camisards had great confidence in him, d'Aygaliers, he wished to ask him if he were willing to go once more to them and try and bring them back to the path of duty.

"Certainly I am willing; but I fear things have now got so far that there will be great difficulty in calming the general perturbation of mind."

"But what can these people want?" asked Chamillard, as if he had just heard them spoken of for the first time, "and by what means can we pacify them?"

"In my opinion," said the baron, "the king should allow to all his subjects the free exercise of their religion."

"What! legalise once more the exercise of the so-called Reformed religion!" exclaimed the minister. "Be sure you never mention such a thing again. The king would rather see his kingdom destroyed than consent to such a measure."

"Monseigneur," replied the baron, "if that is the case, then I must say with great regret that I know of no other way to calm the discontent which will ultimately result in the ruin of one of the fairest provinces in France."

"But that is unheard-of obstinacy," said the minister, lost in astonishment; "these people will destroy themselves, and drag their country down with them. If they cannot conform to our religion, why do they not worship God in their own way at home? No one will disturb them as long as they don't insist on public worship."

"At first that was all they wanted, monseigneur; and I am convinced that if people had not been dragged to confession and communion by force, it would have been easy to keep them in that submissive frame of mind from which they were only driven by despair; but at present they say that it is not enough to pray at home, they want to be married, to have their children baptised and instructed, and to die and be buried according to the ordinances of their own faith."

"Where may you have seen anyone who was ever made to communicate by force?" asked Chamillard.

D'Aygaliers looked at the minister in surprise, thinking he spoke in joke; but seeing he was quite serious, he answered:

"Alas, monseigneur, my late father and my mother, who is still living, are both instances of people subjected to this indignity."

"Are you, then, not a Catholic?" asked Chamillard.

"No, monseigneur," replied d'Aygaliers.

"Then how did you manage to return to France?"

"To speak the truth, sir, I only came back to help my mother to escape; but she never could make up her mind to leave France, as such a step was surrounded by many difficulties which she feared she could never surmount. So she asked my other relations to persuade me to remain. I yielded to their importunities on condition that they would never interfere with my beliefs. To accomplish this end they got a priest with whom they were intimate to say that I had changed my views once more, and I did not contradict the report. It was a great sin on my part, and I deeply repent it. I must add, however, that whenever anyone has asked me the question your Excellency asked me just now I have always given the same reply."

The minister did not seem to take the baron's frankness in bad part; only he remarked, when dismissing him, that he hoped he would find out some way of ridding the kingdom of those who refused to think in religious matters as His Majesty commanded.

D'Aygaliers replied that it was a problem to which he had given much thought, but without ever being able to find a solution, but that he would think about it more earnestly in future. He then withdrew.

Some days later, Chamillard sent ward to d'Aygaliers that the king would graciously give him a farewell audience. The baron relates what took place at this second interview, as follows.

"His Majesty," says he, "received me in the council chamber, and was so good as to repeat once more in the presence of all his ministers that he was very much pleased with my services, but that there was one thing about me he should like to correct. I begged His Majesty to tell me what the fault was, and I should try to get rid of it at, the peril of my life."

"'It is your religion,' said the king. 'I should like to have you become a good Catholic, so that I might be able to grant you favours and enable you to serve me better.' His Majesty added that I ought to seek instruction, and that then I should one day recognise what a great benefit he desired to bring within my reach.

"I answered that I would esteem myself happy if at the cost of my life I could prove the burning zeal with which I was filled for the service of the greatest of earthly kings, but that I should be unworthy of the least of his favours if I obtained it by hypocrisy or by anything of which my conscience did not approve, but that I was grateful for the goodness which made him anxious for my salvation. I told him also that I had already taken every opportunity of receiving instruction, and had tried to put aside the prejudices arising from my birth, such as often hindered people from recognising the truth, with the result that I had at one time almost lost all sense of religion, until God, taking pity on me, had opened my eyes and brought me out of that deplorable condition, making me see that the faith in which I had been born was the only one for me. 'And I can assure your Majesty,' I added, 'that many of the Languedoc bishops who ought, it seems to me, to try to make us Catholics, are the instruments which Providence uses to prevent us from becoming so. For instead of attracting us by gentleness and good example, they ceaselessly subject us to all kinds of persecutions, as if to