Now they rode with more spirit, and more fleetness, for their leader had taken heart, and though he did not know for what he hoped, he was hopeful. The nights grew more dark, and much colder, but now they sang a little, and jested in low voices. When they arrived at obscure and wretched inns, far from the main roads, the hosts exerted themselves to put before them the best their poor larders afforded. For these travellers seemed no furtive fugitives, as they had done before, but a gay company travelling on honorable business, and seeking modest lodgings and tables because of modest purses. Heretofore, they had crept into taverns, hats pulled far over feverish eyes, cloaks tightly wrapped about them, and betraying every indication of pursuit. This had inspired uneasiness in the hosts, and wary truculence. But now, this was changed. The gaiety came with spontaneous light-heartedness, for the leader was no longer beset by his own fears, but revealed fortitude and firmness and a new faith.
Cecile, with her new wisdom, understood how volatile was Arsène’s nature, and did not extravagantly expect too much. She knew that he would demonstrate new depths of despair, new morbidities, new distractions. This, then, was her task: to watch for these moods, then offer consolation, faith, courage, and gentleness. When the dark shadow appeared in his eyes, and his lips became heavy and somber, she would reach from her saddle, press his hand, smile humorously, and in a short time the vehement pendulum had swung back again on its too-large arc.
The Marquis knew all this, also. Though his old frame creaked and ached agonizingly, he was mute. But he complained lavishly about the minor and more intimate discomforts of the journey, and kept the company in bursts of ribald laughter. Cecile, with her needle, maintained his decency. Her industry was endless. Torn cloaks and breeches and hose passed regularly through her busy fingers. The company was soon reduced to adoration for her. They marvelled at her endurance, her steadfast smiles when her face was drawn and white with exhaustion. They picked wayside fruits and berries for her, helped her tenderly over stones, literally carried her into inns. She was “Madame la Duchesse” to them, and she pretended, in the spirit of the thing, to wield haughty court over them.
He thought to himself: There is nothing she could not face with fortitude and faith, no hardship, no pain, no weariness, no hopelessness. Ah, this was a woman for a new world!
A new world. The words became familiar to his thoughts. And then, with amazement, he thought: I have been seeking a new world, and it has already been discovered, and is waiting for us!
It was a world of wilderness, of wild places, of unexplored forests, of unbelievable vastnesses. But his own people, and the English, and the Spanish, had already gone to that world, and it was even rumored that in many places respectable cities had already risen, and commerce had taken root.
America! But his heart shrank from it, for it was still engaged with France, with his home, and his kinsmen. The largeness, the immensity, of the new world terrified his insular spirit. But even as it terrified him, his heart began to beat with passion.
Each time his thoughts fearfully approached the idea, they came with more confidence, more hope, more fortitude. Once, riding beside Cecile, he looked at her, and she was startled by the dark glow of his haggard face, the contemplative and dilated expression of his eyes. And then she thought: he has thought of it also! And she smiled deeply upon him.
And now, as they approached closer and closer to La Rochelle, they increased their speed, for they must reach the city before the Cardinal. Once he had arrived, the city would indeed be besieged, and it would be almost impossible to gain entry.
Arsène thought much of the Cardinal these days, and he no longer seemed a malignant plotter, but a tired old man, fit to arouse pity and compassion. Surely, he, too, felt the pressure of the centuries of history upon him. Surely, he too, was sick in the midst of the pestilence. Why, then, did he labor so enormously? Was it because he had no hope, that he knew himself a prisoner? But then, intrigues were for sick men; they were the unnatural stimulants necessary to the alleviation of the pangs of disease.
Once, as they travelled, they saw the lights of distant campfires, and knew that yonder lay the cohorts of the Cardinal. They passed in the night, fleet and swift as shadows. But Arsène looked back, smiling. What did the Cardinal know of the hopes of a new world which so dazzled and intoxicated him? What could he dream of such a world, of such a radiant and giant land?
Arsène could not know that at that very instant the Cardinal was thinking these things, and staring sleeplessly into the dark about his bed. He did not know that the Cardinal heard the distant hoofbeats, and that the sound of them had awakened these strange and mysterious thoughts. Across the black chasms of the night, the hands of the old man and the young man met, unknowingly, feeling only the momentary thrill which passes between the dying and the living at the instant of dissolution, and farewell.
Arsène began to think of Paul de Vitry, of the Abbé Mourion, of the Duc de Tremblant, and he wondered if they, too, had thought of the new world with passion and longing. And then he knew that if they had not actually thought of it, it had lain strangely in their souls, and they had given up their lives for it. Their faith, their hope, their invincible belief in the future, had been the wind in the indomitable sails that had set forth for the new and living land.
He knew that the spirits of these noble men, and the spirits of countless thousands of others like them, were present on the ships that sailed courageously to the west, and that the cargo these ships carried were not only the bodies of the exiled and the hopeful, but the hearts and faiths and passions of those who had died that other men might live in peace.
With such a cargo, with such light in the sails, with such illuminated figure-heads, how else could it be but that the world ahead would be a justification of all their dreams and their faiths? Who would dare to betray them?
Who would dare to allow the coming of the old men, the old lies, the old bloody religions, the old pestilences, and the old diseases, the old hatreds and the old cruelties?
Ah, said Arsène to himself, with passionate dedication, let it be in my hands, and the hands of my children, and my children’s children, to keep that world inviolate and beautiful, faithful and indomitable, a new hope and a new joy for a world of men still unborn, so that they might dwell in freedom and peace forever.
The extravagance of his nature seized upon the new thoughts. Before his mind’s eye rose the visions of dazzling cities, of vehement and passionate men living in peace, exhilaration and hope, of new governments of justice and freshness and peace, of mountains incandescent with light, of vast seas sparkling beneath endless white sails of commerce and adventure. He was overwhelmed. The wilderness fell away, the valleys, chaotic and strewn with boulders, became green and filled with multitudes of fat and peaceful cattle. The bright and glittering air rang with the sound of new cities rising where only silence and eagles lived before. He saw great roads, and heard the turmoil of a new empire. He saw the strange but shining faces of a new people, in which his own blood was mingled with countless other bloods, forming this race of hopeful and vigorous men. Winds, not of close and teeming France, but of fresh and limitless spaces, blew in his face, and he smelled strange and vital odors. Ah, this sweet great land of no torturous history, of no vile persecutions and rotten books, of no memories of dark hatreds and furies, of no hoary churches built by bloody hands, of no mercenary armies engaged in vicious quarrels and treachery! Of no kings and statesmen, gray with ancient lore and ancient disease!
Thinking these things, he became dizzy, had to clutch his pommel to keep himself from falling. Tears filled his eyes; he heard the wild beating of his heart. Here was a solemn adventure set in motion by God, Himself! Here the wilderness waited the happy firm tread of men who believed in the future!
And now he knew that in his heart he had not believed in the future of France, that hag-ridden land in a hag-ridden continent. Men were too heavy with history; their memories were too long. They could not forget, surrounded and choked with the past as they were. Tradition was a labyrinth in which Europe was forever caught. Hatred was a perpetual miasma. He must have done with it. He must leave it, if he was to live.
Now his intoxication grew. The difficulties, the shrinkings of his spirit, the gloominess, fell away from him. So many of his own kind, the Huguenots, had gone to that new world. What they had done, he could do. Surely they were not greater men than he! Dimly, he remembered the tales of the Englishmen who had sailed the terrible seas to the young world, to escape the vengeful hatred of the old men of Europe. He had learned this, with the indifference with which one listens to an unbelievable legend. Now he recalled, very faintly, the stories of the cities they had founded in the wilderness, of the strange things they had encountered, strange races, fruits, trees, birds and animals. He had shuddered with amused delicacy, upon hearing them. Now, they became close and vital to him. He felt new and excited blood in his veins. The last ragged shreds of satin, the last costume of the courtier, fell from his spiritual body.
These Englishmen, these Frenchmen, these Germans, these scores of old races, had gone to the new world, and welded themselves into one new people. Now a new vision rose before Arsène. Who knew but that, in the strange and tumultuous future, this new people might not cut the umbilical cord which bound them to Europe, and create a unique and invincible empire of their own? Freed forever from the old men, the old faiths, the old traditions, the old lies and the old hatreds!
He could hardly contain himself, so turbulent, so passionate, were his thoughts.
Once, he turned to Cecile, and she looked at him in silence. But he saw, on her face, the reflection of his own passion, his own dreams. He said, reaching for her hand, and speaking in a choked and trembling voice:
“My sweet one, will you go with me, even to the ends of the earth?”
She pressed his hand, and said, so softly, that he could barely hear her:
“Oh, not to the ends of the earth, but to the beginning!”
A strange kind of siege had been in progress in La Rochelle for several months before the arrival of the Cardinal. Though the land approaches to the city were still fairly open, a dyke, or mole, had been slowly and remorselessly in progress across the harbor, to prevent the entry of English men-of-war. The Rochellais had watched this building with despair in their hearts, praying that the English would arrive in sufficient time to enter. So far, no hostilities had taken place between the Huguenots and the Catholics. There was no sign of approaching combat or struggle, except for that mole.
Every vantage post facing the sea was watched constantly, with straining eyes and hopeful spirit, for a sail, for the battleships of the English. But the sea remained empty, while the mole grew longer, stone by stone. And with the growing of the mole, the bitterness and disappointment, the conviction of betrayal, grew stronger in the besieged. The churches were filled hourly with those praying that the English might arrive to save their co-religionists, that the promises of England might be fulfilled. But as the days passed, murmurs and open expression of hatred and distrust became more frequent. There were some who declared that the English, as ever, promised, but betrayed at the end, that it was her eternal scheming against France which had set Catholic brother against Huguenot brother, for her own crafty ends. Many declared that the English had become apprehensive and jealous of the growing power of France, and in order to cripple France were hoping to stir up civil war, in which the hopes and ambitions and very existence of Frenchmen would go down in a sea of blood.
But still more could hardly believe that the English would betray them. Sentries and watches stood motionless, their faces fixed on the gray ocean, hope still sustaining their fortitude. Children watched, and women with streaming hair in the wild salt gales, and every rampart, every tower, every wall and rock, had its watcher. And, the Cardinal and the King, with banners, music, silken tents, armed adventurers and soldiers, approached steadily upon the desperate city.
The city had less than twenty-eight thousand inhabitants, including over a thousand Germans, Spaniards and Italian Protestants, or heretics, who had come to assist in its defense. Among the Spaniards and Italians were many brave men of noble blood, who had voluntarily exiled themselves from their rich estates, where the Church had not dared to attack them, in order to devote themselves to the cause of free men, and to die in that cause. It was a strange thing, but among these Germans, Spaniards and Italians was nothing but the sternest resolution and devotion, and if the murmurs of distrust and rebellion and dismay were heard in La Rochelle, they did not arise from the foreign defenders. With hands unaccustomed to toil, they helped build the forts that were to protect the city, and during their labor it was not unusual for many of them to collapse, their hands bleeding and torn beyond recognition. They appeared on the ramparts, working with passion and silent fortitude, so that the grumbling and fearful French were shamed into activity and courage. They watched these foreign defenders and friends with amazement and gratitude, and even adoration. But their amazement was the greater. To the French mind, it appeared incredible that foreigners, with nothing to gain and everything to lose, should be dedicated to an ideal which was somewhat vague in their own minds. In the more stupid, distrust began to grow. Why had these men come, these gentlemen with the fine faces and the delicate hands, to face privation, hunger, pain, ruin and death? What were Frenchmen to them? The French, never famous for altruism, sacrifice or allegiance to a noble ideal, could only gaze at their friends in astonishment, and with doubt, and, many times, with suspicion. Some of the bolder whispered that it was intolerable that these gentlemen were to kill Frenchmen, even if they were the abominable Catholics.
The city had provisions sufficient only for two months, with the greatest care. Farmers, hurrying against time, drove their laden carts over the one or two causeways still open. Because of its low and marshy position, the city was almost impregnable on its land side. The causeways were well guarded, surrounded by forts and fortresses. The citizens were men of a proud and independent nature, complacent over the reputation of their city, maritime and vigorous. Many of them were descendants of the privateers who had ranged the seas, raiding Brittany and England. They had long enjoyed the privileges of refusing admission to royal garrisons, if they so desired, and had a very democratic government in which they elected their own Mayor.
The city was not unaccustomed to siege. In 1573, the Catholics, taking the city, had perpetrated horrible outrages upon the defenseless population, who had starved for months. Many of the older inhabitants remembered this massacre of disarmed men and women and children, and they moved among the people in this second siege exhorting, pleading with them, and recounting to them the dreadful things which would be visited upon them in the event of the fall of the city.
“Remember, the Scarlet Woman never changes,” they would say. “Bloodthirsty and merciless, rapacious and ungodly and without humanity, she will wreak her hatred and vengeance upon us with gloatings and joy. If she destroys us, Rome will order a Te Deum to be sung over our mangled corpses and the slain bodies of our children. Let us, if necessary, die in our homes, of starvation and disease, but never, so long as one last man remains, must we surrender.”
Their faces were so stern, their exhortations so passionate with memory and resolution, that even the most vacilating kept silence. But nevertheless, whispers began to grow. Would the English indeed keep their promise? It was remembered that Charles I, King of England, had, as his wife, Henrietta Maria, the sister of the King of France. Would her pleas be sufficient to break his promise, and abandon the Rochellais to the death and fury of their Catholic enemies? Terror began to blow through the city, remembering the last siege, remembering the Massacre of St. Bartholemew, when Catholics slaughtered thousands of Huguenot women and children, and babes in the cradles, and flung their bleeding corpses into the rivers. They remembered the unspeakable tortures afflicted upon the young and the tender, the burnings and the stranglings, the hangings and the brandings. Now, with the terror came a wild hatred, a lust for revenge. Where an ideal could not sustain the common populace, fear did yeoman duty.
Some of the Spaniards, Germans and Italians had at one time been members of the Catholic priesthood, but had either been excommunicated in their own countries because of their mercy, indignation and true Christianity, or had abandoned their calling to sustain the strugglers for liberty and enlightenment in France. Some of the more stupid and malicious among the Huguenots whispered that these men were spies.
Among these foreigners were several Englishmen with pale devoted faces. They were fervent in their belief that their countrymen would come to the aid of La Rochelle. They watched tirelessly, their sea-blue eyes fixed far out over the empty waves. Never did they doubt that the English would come.
The Cardinal and the King had not yet arrived. The King had been taken with a fever on the road to La Rochelle, and had been compelled to pause at Villeroy, to await recovery. So, taking advantage of every moment, the defenders of the city refortified and strengthened every fort, gathered food to sustain them for the coming siege. Every hour gained was an hour in the balance of victory. The Huguenot farmers worked feverishly to garner their harvests, which they then carted into the city. The fields and the vineyards were heavy with grain and fruit, and to the Rochellais, on the warm winds of September came the rich scents of the ripening countryside. The people were well armed, with muskets and artillery. They settled down to await the siege, gazing fearfully at the causeways and the forts which guarded them, and watching endlessly for the English ships. The populace were sustained in their belief that the land approaches were impregnable. The only entrance to the city was the free sea, and, as France had few or no ships of its own, the Rochellais were confident that the sea lanes would remain open. But slowly, as they watched the stretching of the mole, their hearts sank into despondency and dread. Of what use were the fortified islands in the harbor if the dyke spread far enough to close the sea-roads of these islands?
Among the Senate the whisperers were active. They were not traitors for the most part; they were merely expedient and fearful. Among the one hundred men of the Senate, however, there were less than ten whisperers. In a body, each day, the Senate inspected the defenses. Their appearance inspired the builders and the people, for they represented to them the freedom and democracy of Protestantism, the bulwark of enlightenment. They took heart from the repeated assertions of the brave and noble that though the mainland was fetid with marsh and malaria, the city itself was safe from disease because of its well-drained soil. Moreover, the tides were to their advantage. The chain of towers that guarded the narrow port lifted their battlements grimly to the warm blue heavens.
But slowly, and inexorably, the mole being constructed on orders of the Cardinal, was built on the shallow bottom of the sea near the harbor, within actual sight of the Rochellais. The builders worked calmly, and, apparently, as oblivious as beavers to the besieged city. No word passed between the enemies, though at frequent intervals the ships of the Rochellais slipped through the harbor on errands of communication with the English ports, passing within sight and sound of the builders of the mole.
Buckingham, before his assassination, had stormed the Isle of Rhe, and had been defeated by the Catholics. The Cardinal, realizing that sea power was necessary for the survival of France, after this experience, ordered the building of a navy.
The defeat of Buckingham, and his subsequent death had been a terrible blow to the Rochellais. Their only prayer now, was that Charles I would remember the promises made by Buckingham, and fulfil them. Watching the construction of the mole, fortified by boats chained together with great logs, they knew that it was a race of time between the completion of the mole and the arrival of the English.
In the meantime, the heroic Mayor, Guiton, sustained his people. Extremely squat in appearance, broad of body, with a large erect head and indomitable blue eyes constantly flashing and lighting, his quiet faith and strength were as effective as the fortresses.
It was to this city, then, that Arsène de Richepin, his father, Cecile, and his companions, arrived two weeks in advance of the Cardinal. They rode over one of the guarded causeways, and billeted in the town. Arsène, his father and Cecile were received as guests in the home of the Duc de Rohan, and graciously made welcome by his indomitable and noble old mother.