Under Calvin's spell; a tale of the heroic times in old Geneva
Alcock, Deborah, 1835-1913
^ .'V ' f L % *-J^‘ *•*-».#' < .'» ' J • / 1 1 L > ^ B n \ mk 1 H }>^ 1m * lak. MM ^ • A. - 1 \ 1 li. ■ « ' - • 1 ' m jlk n iU B tv'—' I V % I r. r . i t f j ‘If • •#. • • 4 r ^ \ i j ■ \ ^ > t *. • 4 4 * I* \ ✓ t % \ t I 1 I I / f r' f ' 1 % % % ♦- / •N r* wC-- ■ :'J(f ?/ r *• . r T 5^A^5y » (• •^ - > ‘Q. . v«-- % ^ •# > » ^ *. t k •. ■• *^ • '. k* • ■ % ' ^ • . »v ^ . Ji y n ^ *• ' -^jfi .', „ . !'. .■ ‘ -•^''' -*^’v' ^flli T' ,r ■— ^ • r. A 4 # , ^.-’X'-V 4 , 1 ^ :■*. • V ‘■V!T‘V - ' X' ", > '‘’ .'!V. ■''■? S ' ' •. 1 < . li « .''• k ' ' •> f ■ 1 Mf ' v^nHU' W ‘ ^ %’-■ •: Jl' *. * '.■■'■' ’t.''»l!i| ^ A >. ' • .,»* V • * _-, rtiil*' ‘ft . , • f~ • k.lKa ^ • •>. t??, ^■BK fc* r I , 1 ^ \ '** ,* • • • 1 rV •/'' ****** H 4i * .ix .* . I / r ^ / jK/ ^ • yj I' .• ♦ “ * f • ,. j /■ -Ikjir.,, . ^;*f' „ ''■*■ -t.'l •r '?X ' • • .< • >r. 4 ’ < ^ A > • r '*-r . 'I .V* « »■ "4 i * . r ‘k , *:- . .r .-f-jT^ .: Jffl ’ "■ >^ .y M''i'’- * '* ‘I’*.' ■' ' ''• BJ \ W/‘ .' • r» * K ‘/r ^ £•’ i'‘" '• . 1<>, " ■ .■■';■?/..'■ '. ' 'i * ^ p ' . >• =- W-. : V .*V r^.:V ' ’-t i. j kT , J,'- ,'»:■ ■■" . - A ^ :V iii^® ,;■ -; \ ■ “ . ' ^ . .V . -y ' ’',. . . c' ■'• '•»>^®i •ill. -■ ,. ,u\' .rT’rv.v.,. ; , J ■ /' ”■ :'?' •: .5. ''yi'*;-. 'mv' '1? . :•■'■ ■' .I", "i ■ ■- ‘V'i f-* • * K :<.Vip,;3 < . - ^...■■■i,-' !,-^.v, • ■^' 'v-'- ■ . , :«;-:.<-..V,;*;?|,.".:;^; ■ V ■ ‘; •. . &:.»■> -•rM;- .-•’^ si t » I L- "■ 'p' • '^r-^-^iB’lin ^ir i*: r>' A'^ W' y '••• ijf fe- 'm:^'. I SiV . ', 7 ■ V ^ > ^ M- y » i/t; .s - .r. -S' ■i.i- ' ', . ‘. .' V • A'>* ;Vc^. V.' or '* : I ' ■•y ' 0 AV. r? tt- 'A s,- / » /^ .• •'’ . * •• .V ^. r ■ 1 ' ' Ss3® ,. .. • . >’ “5. • I • s -Y N\1 ■ V .' - 'y ■'•s^- 1;.‘. “• \l. ' ■■ V- I' !.''’ ,• '. f ' '■ j’'.' 4' *.'■'•> ■ 'f M .' •>• V. ■’v, fW-'i;' . ' '-4: • ■■€■ ‘ { »<} ;■ ■v'Mi*, i 4 ’ • ^ t ■M >• j A Vr < iVv I 1 a. I/O: /<\. •V' iSl r *1 i-i'< >- Ai a • 4'^ u^-:! 'T>i y * ii A'vMV- '•• ■• -*y *5?.' ", /:'- K;. ' '• I » u .» !>> • \ I ■> ' I i'Kl', / • Tv ' ^ 'V • ^{‘ •.■?>’ ■'.••. • 'f u I'l 'M^ I tf /* STi .■'V ► '*•< ^‘ . . ■ L** < V*S 1?3P\ « .... Wi mfMomtiPmmi ; I' • «fe ; >’^V.if ^V'-' ■■- •( y. 3t t ; X i V ■ 'll »*i *’4' ' v’-* 'Ji ^ ' . c In/l ■•:..':‘;i'>'i''V ■ " • V iK Av"'- ’i ftv.v •‘•^ I r*. ' \L'\ ' m ■K 1^: m m ‘n i»l4V X' / ijHt h: V/^2 I IV- J- m K.> Ai fJi »*♦« VJ vf m I mm S't i rX« ■•• ^ n.. # ' » - T' • V r:^ 1 - - # t 1’ • » A / a / • ',V^ V- PTi 'T 'X i ■Si * ^ ft'. . .’'n •ri ^ ■ > I i . < THESE HANDS YOU MAY CRUSH, THESE ARMS YOU MAY SEVER.’ UnderCalvin’sSpell \ A Tale of the H EROIC T IMES in Old Geneva By DEBORAH ALCOCK Author “The Spanish Brothers,” &c. New York Chicago Toronto FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY p $ I t \ 4 y . I I ' I f . \ i r • • r I « I CONTENTS  • • 29 IVT^French Exiles and Genevan Libertines • • 42 V. De Caulaincourt’s Two Friends. • • 52 VI. Norbert de Caulaincourt’s One Friend • • 61 VII. Sister Claudine .... • • • 74 VIII. The New Geneva . .. • •  Help ? . . , • • • 128 XII. A ‘Gentleman of the Spoon’. • • • 142 XIII. The Genevan Bride . . , •  Friend. • • • 186 XVII. Before the Great Council • • • 202 XVIII. Norbert de Caulaincourt is thanked • • 212 XIX. The ‘ Egregious ’ Ami Berthelier • • • 218 XX. A Gentleman of the Spoon again • • • 231 XXL Renunciation .... • • • 241 XXII. A Dreaded Interview. ■ , • • • 249 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. Norbert’s Errand •••••• 258 XXIV. Lyons 267 XXV. In the Prison. 279 XXVI. In the Cathedral 289 XXVII. Dark Days 297 XXVIII. Old Things pass away 308 XXIX. Bearing the Burden of the Years • • • 317 XXX. ‘Go IN Peace’. ,. • • 331 XXXI. The Passing of Calvin • • • • .340 XXXII. The End ••••••••357 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE “These Hands You May Crush, These Arms You May Sever” Title ' “Thank God!” he said with emotion, “His Free City!”. • 29 i “Let Us Play Together the Game of the Key” 94 4 “Oh, Sir, Have Pity, Have Pity!” 112 4 A Person in a Notary’s Robe Began to Read. .119 “Damioselle, I Drink to Your Health and Happiness” 147 'The Veil Was Raised, Just a Little 154 Some Clung to the Pillars, Some Got Up Into THE Windows •. 202 n1 At A Sign From Him the Bearers Stopped. 220 FACING PAGE J He Knelt on One Knee and Stretched Out His Hand 236 Norbert Drew Nearer, and Stood Listening. 269 • They Soon Came To The Gloomy Gateway. .28c 4 The Torchlight Showed Him a Figure That Crouched on the Floor •. 290 As Gabrielle Entered He Turned and Looked AT Her 304 She Only Said One Word — “Victor” .... 334 UNDER CALVIN’S SPELL CHAPTER I THE NUNS OF ST. CLAIRE IT was very early, not yet five o’clock, on a dull and cloudy August morning, in the old city of Geneva, more than three centuries and a half ago. Already a crowd had gathered about the stately gateway that led to the convent of the nuns of St. Claire. There were a few sober citizens, in gowns or doublets of good serge, who lent to the rest an air of respectability they much needed, being mostly the lowest of the people, rough men, and idle street boys who were jesting, shouting and playing pranks on each other and on the bystanders after the manner of their kind. * Prithee, stand you back ! ’ cried a third speaker. ‘ Let us see the fair faces of the ladies as they pass out. The council hath dealt with them better than they deserve, giving them courteous leave to depart whither they would, and a covered waggon for the infirm.’ ‘ A covered waggon, forsooth ! A bath in the lake would have served them better,’ said another. ‘ We are well rid of them and of all their pestilent brood. Curse them ! ’ The cassock wearer turned on him indignantly. ‘ What did the nuns of St. Claire to thee or thine, that thou shouldest curse them ? Look to thyself, heretic. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.’ ‘ Hush I no brawling here,’ spake the voice of authority, as the crowd fell back before one of the syndics, or chief magistrates of the town. ‘ Stand back — stand back ! The ladies are coming forth. For our honour, children of Geneva, let them not hear an ill word among us.’ The peremptory voice of the syndic secured obedience ; and the people stood in momentary silence, looking at the great gate which so long had been closed upon the world outside. They knew what it had shut out — but what had it shut m, all those years ? As they looked the gate trembled, shook, as if about to be opened from within. Twice, thrice, it seemed ready to give way, yet still its fastenings held. Perhaps the hands of the aged porter, who was trying to open it, trembled too much for his task. For indeed it was 6 The Nuns of St. Claire a sad one. The nuns of St. Claire were going forth for ever from the ancient house of their order — to some of them the only home they had ever known, Geneva had accepted the Reformation ; and the religious houses were to be transformed into schools or hospitals. Their inmates, however, were free to remain in the city, or to leave it, as they pleased. In either case no one would molest them. The nuns of St. Claire had chosen to leave. They were going to another house of their order, at Annegy. While the crowd stood waiting, a white-haired, feeble- looking man made his way to the front. He was very lame, leaning heavily on a staff, and his long threadbare coat hung loose on his wasted frame. His face was worn and his cheeks hollow, but his eyes were bright and keen, and burning with eager expectation. The crowd made way for him with a kind of respect, and the man of authority gave him place to stand beside him. While he murmured a word of thanks, there was a general movement. All eyes turned to the great gate as at last it swung wide open. Two and two, in mournful silence, holding each others’ hands, the black-robed, close-veiled nuns came forth. At the head of the sad procession walked the aged lady superior, bent and trembling, her head bowed low, and her tottering footsteps supported by the stronger arm of the prioress, a tall and stately personage, who marched on, erect and steady, holding a crucifix aloft and chanting in a firm voice the Salve, Regina. She knew that the prayer to the Queen of Heaven was blasphemy to her hearers. So much the worse for them ! 7 Under Calvin’s Spell A piercing cry stopped the chant. ‘Claudine! Claudine ! My sister ! * The white-haired man had flung himself upon one of the nuns who was following the prioress. She had been walking with bowed head, weeping quietly behind her veil, which now, in surprise and terror, she flung partially aside. Her face was sweet and pleasant to look upon, though perhaps it had never been beautiful, not even in youth. Her soft brown hair was still untouched with grey, and her brow and cheek still unwrinkled. It seemed as though life had dealt gently with her, and so, after one great agony, in truth it had. She listened with troubled looks to the pleading voice of her brother. ‘ Come with me, my sister, come with me, I need you ! ’ he went on, not aloud, but in a low, intense, half-choking whisper. She shrank away from him in bewildered terror. ‘No, no,’ she faltered. ‘Oh no, I am the bride of Christ.’ Still he clung to her. ‘ Look at me, Claudine, only look at me,’ he pleaded. ‘ I am Ami, your brother, whom you loved so in the old, old days. Do you not remember ? ’ Then she looked at him, looked earnestly, wistfully ; and a new light dawned in her dim blue eyes. ‘ Yes, I remember,’ she said dreamily. ‘ The old days ! — But they are past, so long past— I am dead to the world. Let me go I ’ Still he held her fast. ‘ Claudine,’ he pleaded, ‘ look on me yet again.’ She looked again. ‘ But you are not Ami. You are an old man, a stranger,’ she said, doubt shadowing her 8 The Nuns of St. Claire face. Then, in an altered tone, ‘ And I cannot talk with you. See, we are stopping the way. I must go.’ ‘ You shall not go, Claudine ! Hear me ! By the memory of our orphaned childhood, when I was father and mother both to thee ’ Here the prioress turned and spoke. * What means this unmannerly interruption ? ’ she asked sternly. ‘ Was it not covenanted we should go in peace, without let or hindrance ? Is this your heretic faith-keeping ? Man, stand back ! Touch not the holy sister, the bride of Christ’ Then, in the voice of unquestioned authority, ‘ Sister Agatha, come on.’ The frail form of the broken man seemed to dilate, and he .‘=poke with a kind of majesty, ‘ She whom you call Sister Agatha is my sister, Claudine Berthelier. She is coming home with me.’ ‘She shall not! Sister Agatha, remember yourself and your vows. Pass on ! Master syndic, fulfil your promise, and bid them clear the way.’ The man of authority cleared his throat and looked irresolute. ‘ If the lady will ’ he began. * She will keep her vows. Come, sister.’ Claudine’s bewildered eyes turned piteously from one to the other. Her colour came and went, she looked about to faint. But she did not stir, and made no movement to shake off her brother’s grasp. Then, at last, the lady superior interposed. ‘Let Sister Agatha choose,’ she said, in the weak, quavering voice of old age. ‘ Sister, what wouldest thou ? ’ ‘Yes, choose,’ said the prioress sternly. ‘ Come with us, and keep thy vows ; or go back to the world thou hast renounced, and lose thy soul for ever.’ 9 Under Calvin’s Spell ‘ If God give thee not repentance/ the lady superior said. * But choose, Sister Agatha, for we must go.’ Claudine trembled exceedingly. Like a flood, the days of her youth swept back upon her. But then, there was the habit of half a life-time, there were her vows, there was what she thought her duty to God. She had no power to decide. Ami’s strong will decided for her. He placed his arm in hers, and with gentle force he drew her away. It was time : too long already they had stopped the way. The lady superior turned from her with a sad ‘ Fare you well ; ’ the prioress with a stern, ‘ God forgive you,’ which might have been rendered, ‘I believe He never will.’ Ami led his sister through the throng, for the most part silent and respectful, save for the jeers of a few impudent street boys at the runaway nun. When they got into a quiet street he said, ‘ We have something of a walk before us, for I dwell beyond the bridge, in the Rue Cornavin. My lodging is poor, but comfortable, and I have had a chamber prepared for you. I knew you would come to me.’ She had walked on with him mechanically, as one amazed. Or rather, in such bewilderment as one transplanted suddenly into another world might feel. Streets, houses, passers-by — all were a marvel. The boys who jeered at her were not a marvel only, but a horror. Even the ground beneath her feet gave her a sense of unreality, with which there mingled strangely a feeling of wrong-doing. She was where she had no right to be — and where she had no place. So many houses, so many people, so many faces — and all unknown to her. 10 The Nuns of St. Claire But hearing her brother speak, she tried to rouse herself. In her bewildered brain the instincts of gentle birth and breeding asserted their sway. She made courteous effort to respond, though scarce under- standing his words. ‘ You live alone, then ? * ‘ There is always Marguerite.* Claudine’s dazed, perplexed face showed absolutely a gleam of pleasure. ‘ The dear old nurse ! ’ she said. ‘ But no — it cannot be. She would be a hundred years old/ A dim smile hovered round Berthelier’s firm, clear-cut lips. ‘She is just sixty-three,* he said. ‘It is but sixteen years since we parted, and she was not old then, save to you and me.* ‘ Sixteen years ? I had thought it scarce so long. In Religion, hours are long, but years are short.* ‘I had thought it far longer. Besides Marguerite, there is the child.* ‘ What child ? * with a faint accent of surprise. * A few years ago, when we feared an attack from the Savoyards and the League, we laid waste our own suburbs, by way of defence. You heard of it, of course } * But Claudine shook her head. ‘The people came into the city for shelter, even from St. Gervais. Marguerite and I came too, though the Rue Cornavin was not destroyed. We gave refuge in our lodging to peasants from the country, a man and a woman, who died there of the fever, leaving this little babe. Marguerite must needs tend and feed her, and — what would you have ? Could I put the babe out upon the door-step ? * II Under Calvin’s Spell ‘You could have brought it to a convent.* Berthelier shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. Presently he resumed, ‘Marguerite took good care of the babe, but now the child grows and — I want you.* ‘For her?* with a sense of disappointment she did not herself understand. ‘ More for myself.* Silence followed ; until at last Claudine, whose senses seemed slowly returning to her, ventured a question, ‘ Brother, what has made you white-haired, and so lame ? * ‘I thought you knew. The dungeon and the pulley. But they got nothing out of me. And I have had my revenge. What we fought for has been won, though not by us, nor in our way.* ‘ I do not understand,' said Claudine. After a pause she added, ‘ But I hope, brother, you have not forsaken the Faith, and become a heretic like the rest. Your soul would be lost for ever.* The dim smile came again. ‘I do not believe as you,* he said. ‘ But take comfort ; for as little do I believe the new doctrines of Master William Farrel and Master John Calvin. And perchance at bottom I hold these gentlemen no better than the priests. Still, they have done our work for us.* ‘ I do not understand,* Claudine said again, this time rather piteously. ‘ One of the many things I want you for, my sister,* Ami added kindly, ‘is to teach little Gabrielle her prayers, for Marguerite in her old age must needs go after the new doctrine, while I think the old — if not so 12 The Nuns of St. Claire good for strong men — far meeter for little maids. But at last here we are.* ‘ This house, with the bookbinder’s sign ? * * No, the next. But cross yourself, Claudine, as you pass ; for there has just come to live Master Calvin’s own brother, who binds his books for him.’ As Berthelier approached his own door a beautiful little girl, dark-eyed and dark -haired, sprang out and flung herself upon him with a rapturous, overflowing welcome. ‘ Softly — softly ! ’ said he. ‘ Beware of my staff and my lame leg. Gabrielle, this is my dear sister, and your good Aunt Claudine, who is coming to live with us, and take care of you and me. Go to her, kiss her hand, and ask her to love you.’ The child hung back, pouting. ‘I don’t like her clothes,’ she said, ‘ and I don’t want any one to love me but you and Marguerite.* Berthelier looked at his sister. ‘You see already that you are needed here,’ he said. ‘ Neither Marguerite nor I know aught that should be done for a child, except to love it. But come in, my sister. Welcome to my home, 0^ rather, to your owiu* 13 CHAPTER II THE STORY OF AMI BERTHELIER ‘But freedom’s battle, once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.* WHEN the fair city of Lake Leman accepted the Reformation, she had already felt the glory and the glow of the rising sun of liberty. Some twenty years before, she had cast off the chains of a two-fold tyranny, which in truth was but one. For behind the crozier of the cruel, profligate prince-bishop were the sword and sceptre of the Duke of Savoy ; and bishop and duke together had pressed her down until the burden grew too heavy to be borne, and her citizens asked each other in shop and market-place, ‘ Why should we bear it any longer ? * They were very capable of asking the question, and of finding the answer. Their faculties were trained and quickened by the social and municipal life of a busy town, by commerce, by skilful handicrafts, often by travel, sometimes by all of intellectual advantage the Age could offer — and it was the Age of the Renaissance. For them, as for most of their contemporaries, the Time was young; it was full of activity, of expectation, of 14 The Story of Ami Berthelier promise — full also of the faults of youth, of rashness, audacity, and petulance, and of the ignorance which is absolutely sure of everything in heaven and upon earth. Still, when the Time is young, it is well with those that are young also. Such was the lot of Ami Berthelier, the orphan of a wealthy citizen of Geneva, who had more than doubled his possessions by marriage with the heiress of one of the merchant princes of Augsburg, with whom he had business relations. The young Berthelier, educated at Padua, caught the spirit of the Renaissance, and learned to love well his classical lore, his Latin verses, his library, his ‘ brown Greek manuscript’ But better still he loved the dream of a free, regenerated Geneva. He was a young man of fashion, a student, a scholar, but before all these he was a citizen of Geneva, and heart and soul a Huguenot. This name of honour and renown had as yet no religious significance ; religion entered not at all into the thoughts of such men as Ami Berthelier ; to them it meant merely the member of a league, at first and ostensibly a league of cornhourgeoisie with the friendly citizens of Fribourg, but really and ultimately a league for the defence of the ancient liberties of Geneva. His chief friends were the brilliant and versatile Bonivard, the celebrated Prior of St. Victor, known to history, romance and poetry as the Prisoner of Chillon ; L^vrier, the incorruptible judge, most stainless of Genevan patriots ; and, above all, his own kinsman, Philibert Berthelier. This remarkable man was a typical tribune of the people. With them he jested, laughed, caroused, hiding his graver thoughts beneath a mask of frivolity. He 15 Under Calvin’s Spell became their idol ; and he used all the influence thus obtained to inspire them with his own love of liberty, and to help them to obtain it. Whilst rendering a gay and careless homage, that all men saw, at the shrine of pleasure, the true devotion of his heart was kept for the altar of freedom, upon which he was ready, if need were, to offer up his own life also. His young and wealthy cousin. Ami, chose to burn incense only at the nobler shrine. Early left independent by the death of his father, his tastes led him to prefer intellectual pursuits to grosser pleasures, and to fill his charming country house by the lake with scholars and students, rather than with boon companions. His mother died in his boyhood, but he was much attached to his only sister, ten years his junior ; and it was well known that a yet tenderer tie would one day unite him with the beautiful Yolande L^vrier, niece and ward of the patriot judge. All things were going well with him, when suddenly the storm broke, and the bolt fell that meant ruin. The detested prince-bishop, backed by the sword of Savoy and the influence of the Mamelukes (or friends of despotism in the town), made himself, in an evil hour, master of Geneva. A reign of terror followed, in which confiscation, imprisonment, torture, and death were the order of the day. Two of the protagonists of Genevan liberty, Berthelier and Leviier, died on the scaffold, both with undaunted courage, Ldvrier most like the devout Christian he seems to have been. The third, Bonivard, was thrown into the dungeon which his sufferings, and the immortal stanzas of the English poet, have made so famous. But there were others i6 The Story of Ami Berthelier who bore their share in that great agony, though they missed the glory. ‘They had no bard — and died.* Very bitter was the cup borne to the lips of Ami Berthelier, well known as the devoted admirer and intimate friend of his great kinsman. As even a shred of evidence to convict the patriots of anything that could be called a crime was hard to find, desperate methods were used to obtain it. But neither rack nor pulley, neither chains, nor darkness, nor starvation could open the locked lips of the faithful disciple ; though they broke his strong frame, turned his hair white, and added two-score years to his age. When at last deliverance came, it found him shattered in mind and body, a shadow of his former self. His wealth had been seized by the oppressors ; only enough remained (husbanded and watched over by secret friends) to secure a frugal maintenance for whatever future might remain to him. Marguerite, an old servant of the family who had been his sister’s nurse, came back to him to manage his slender resources, in the modest dwelling-place his friends had obtained for him, consisting of the HagCy or upper story of a house in the Rue Cornavin, of which the lower part was used as a store by a dealer in foreign fruits. His sister, when the evil days began, had found refuge with the nuns of St. Claire, to his great relief. He came back like a ghost to the world of living men. Little life was left in him, and all there was seemed turned to bitterness. It must be a thing most terrible to walk in the furnace heated seven times 17 B Under Calvin’s Spell without the presence of the Son of God. The marvel is that any do it, and survive. But inasmuch as Ami Berthelier, for all the anguish, had not sinned against his own soul, and betrayed the innocent, we may hope that One he saw not nevertheless stood by him unknown, nor ever quite forsook him, even when he doubted His very existence. Ami Berthelier went into his dungeon a careless semi-pagan of the Renaissance, with little faith to lose, but he came out of it a confirmed unbeliever, ‘having no hope, and without God in the world.’ A chill, hard despair of himself, of his country, of all men, had laid hold upon his soul. Even when the Reformation, the true sunrise of modern freedom, of which the others were but prophecies and promises, rose upon Geneva, he was as one to whom, after long agony of separation, his old love comes back again — and he does not know her. The great ‘Twenty-first of May’* found him cold and unmoved. He stood, indeed, in the vast church of St. Peter, amongst the throng of citizens who lifted up their right hands and swore to be faithful to God and to His truth, now revealed to them for the first time in His Holy Gospel — but he raised no hand, he spoke no vow. The whole transaction was foreign to his consciousness, it had for him no meaning and no message. He did not read the signs of the times. He set his face towards the sombre West, whence no light * When the Genevans solemnly swore adhesion to the principles of the Reformation. i8 The Story of Ami Berthelier could come ; and thus, though the East behind him was one blaze of sunrise glory, he could not see it. The sons of Philibert Berthelier, and others of the old Huguenot party who had survived the persecution, or returned from their exile, came to visit him. But they were to him for the most part vanity and vexation of spirit. Some had thrown themselves heartily into the new movement ; but others, led by the young Bertheliers, had quite as little liking for the Reformers as their fathers had for the prince-bishop. They reflected the lower, not the higher section of the old Huguenots ; and Ami, though he had no objection to their irreligion, was revolted by their frivolity, their coarseness, and the license both of their speech and their practice. Still, when in consequence of her acceptance of the Reformation there arose around Geneva a host of powerful enemies, who threatened her very existence, the fire of the old patriotism flamed up amidst its ashes. He, who thought that tears were no more for him, felt hot drops on the fingers that veiled his eyes from the sight of Genevan citizens marshalled to defend their homes, when he could not go with them to the fight. He gave out of his poverty to the defence, and but for Marguerite, would have starved himself to give still more. When the patriotic citizens destroyed their own suburbs, sacrificing their beautiful country houses and much of their wealth, to keep the enemy from finding a foothold there, he gladly abandoned his dwelling in the Rue Cornavin, which belonged to the suburb of St. Gervais, and came to a poor lodging in what was then called La Fusterie. In his narrow quarters there he gave shelter, 19 Under Calvin’s Spell as he told his sister, to a peasant and his wife, who were, like many others, left homeless by the destruction of the suburbs. The peasant was a dull, honest fellow, of the class whom the citizens of Geneva contemptuously styled ‘Grey-feet,* living on and farming his own small plot of ground ; the wife was a Savoyard, and far sharper. They had with them a babe, assumed to be their own. The unwholesome crowding of the town soon brought fever, and both the man and the woman took it and died. When the woman sickened the babe became Marguerite’s care, and to her, when she felt herself dying, she confided that the child was not her own, but a babe of gentle parentage which she had taken to nurse. This information Marguerite duly passed on to her master, who, however, scarcely listened to the tale, and soon forgot all about it. But he did not refuse her earnest request that she might keep the babe and nurse it By the time they returned to the Rue Cornavin, which happily it had not been necessary to demolish, her nursling had become the great joy of her life. Time passed on. Soon, all too soon as it seemed, there was no longer a babe to nurse, but a dark-eyed, dark-haired child-maiden, full of mischief, to guard and guide — a little body, all life to the finger-tips, to keep from falling into the fire or pulling the stools down upon itself, and a little active mind to keep from troubles of another kind and to feed in another way. The strange thing was, that this perplexing creature made up her mind to look for everything to Ami Berthelier himself. With the caprice of childhood, she was the tyrant of the devoted nurse who toiled for her night and day, and 20 The Story of Ami Berthelier the adoring slave of the white-haired man who bestowed upon her an occasional, parenthetic notice. She watched for his look and his smile, employed all her pretty arts to attract his attention, and was lifted to the height of beatitude by a seat on his knee. Berthelier liked it, of course ; a child’s love is the sweetest of flatteries, as may be seen from the fact that no length of time ever obliterates the remembrance from the mind of its object. But as years went by he grew unhappy about the little Gabrielle. He knew she ought to be taught and trained, but he had not the smallest idea how to do it. Nor indeed had Marguerite, who could cook and wash with the best, but even with the needle her hands were unskilful. As for weightier matters, she could not read ; and the kind of religious instruction which, as a devoted but not very enlightened follower of Calvin, she was disposed to give, did not seem to her master exactly food for babes. In all these things his own hands were empty of help. ‘Well-born’ maidens, he reflected, should be taught to sew, to read, and to pray, and of these three desirable accomplishments he could impart but one. This was how, even to himself, he accounted for his appearance that August morning at the gate of the nuns of St. Claire. But the great deeps of the human heart lie far beneath the tide of consciousness. The touch of childish hands had been gradually awakening much within him which he thought was dead for ever. Longings for the sister he had loved so well began to haunt him, growing ever stronger, till they took the likeness of those, the strongest of all, which wring our hearts for — 21 Under Calvin’s Spell 'The touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still/ Suddenly he remembered that his sister was not dead, that he could yet hear her voice, could yet touch her hand. Why, then, not try to do it ? His purpose grew and strengthened, and when the banishment of the nuns at St. Claire gave it opportunity, it bore fruit to action. But would the result; be a success ? For a season he was tempted to doubt it. By his hearth, as one in a dream, sat a pale, bewildered woman, dressed now, not in conventual attire, but in the ordinary garb of a Genevan dame, and vainly trying to adjust herself to the new conditions, and the new conditions to herself, as a child puts together a difficult dissected puzzle. In appearance she found her nurse far less changed than her brother; but the change in old Marguerite’s mind was one of the most perplexing of all the perplexing elements around her. She prayed, but she did not tell her beads like a Christian ; she talked of religion, using long words, such as justification, regeneration, sanctification, which to her hearer might as well, or better, have been Latin, for then she would have believed they had a meaning, though she might not know what it was. Poor Claudine (no one called her Sister Agatha now) was of opinion that the world, since she left it, had gone quite mad ! Within doors and without, it was much the same. The streets were full of unknown perils ; the rough market-women with their cries and quarrelling, frightened her almost out of her senses; even the oxen being driven to the shambles she took at first for wild beasts. 22 The Story of Ami Berthelier In the house she was scarcely more happy. Her brother was kind, and Marguerite duteous, but both treated her as the child which in all worldly matters she certainly was. Even little Gabrielle ignored her, after the unflattering custom of her kind towards a ‘ grown-up ’ who is neither loved nor necessary. She sighed in secret for the convent. She even began to call herself an apostate, and to think she had committed the unpardonable sin. Deliverance came to her ; and through nothing greater than the torn garment of a child. One day Gabrielle ran to her in great distress with her holiday dress, a gay little petticoat of Lyons silk, torn down almost from waist to hem. She had been playing, she explained, with the bookbinder’s little boys next door, and Jeannot did it. ‘ The naughty varlet ! ’ said Claudine. ‘ But why dost thou play with those ill lads, Gabrielle ^ It is not seemly for a little maid.’ Gabrielle pouted. ‘Father lets me,’ she said, and ran away, calling Marguerite. At Claudine’s heart tugged the demon of jealousy. She fetched hastily a simpler dress for the child, and pursued her to the kitchen, where she found her climbing up on the table, to sit there and wait for Marguerite, who, as Claudine’s good star ordained, was just then at the market. ‘ Let me put this on thee,’ she said, ‘ and see, Gabrielle, I will mend thy blue silk, before father comes home to take thee for that walk on the Molard he promised this morning.’ A little more coaxing and the blue silk was safe in 23 Under Calvin’s Spell her hands. The rent was a bad one ; but under the skilful hand of the convent-taught needlewoman it was neatly and quickly repaired. Claudine, as she worked, could not help seeing that the garment was ill-made and ill-fitting. * I would alter it so, and so/ she thought, * and I would embroider the hem with that pretty stitch Sister Ursula taught me.’ As she planned. Marguerite came in, and looked with interested eyes. Presently she went into another room, returning with a great armful of little hoods, kirtles, bodices, tippets, and what not. ‘To tell you the truth, damoiselle/ she said, ‘ through these clothes of the little one the devil has had much advantage over me.’ ‘ I no way misdoubt of it,’ returned Claudine, with unusual energy ; ‘ though I think he makes much more use of Master Calvin’s heresies than of the petticoats of an innocent child.’ ‘ I will not dispute with you, my damoiselle, seeing you are still, as one may say, in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity ; but, all the same, that poor innocent’s green hood and blue kirtle agree no better than the Mamelukes and Huguenots used to do before the Gospel came to us — and she as proud of them all the time as a peacock of its tail or a papistical bishop of his crozier.’ ‘ Well, let us see what can be done,’ said Claudine, diplomatically ignoring Marguerite’s offensive allusions. 