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полная версияBlackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

Полная версия

He soon afterwards retired, for the advantage of some little change of air, to the house of a relative in the Regent's Park, where he enjoyed the soothing attentions of his family, and reverently received the consolations of religion. The public manifested great anxiety to have the state of his health, and the morning and evening newspapers contained regular announcements on the subject, as in the case of persons of the highest distinction. Her Majesty, Prince Albert, also, with numbers of the nobility, sent daily to enquire concerning him. For the last day, or possibly two days of his life, he became unconscious, and slightly delirious – and expired, without apparent pain, on Saturday afternoon, the 28th June 1845. For a long series of years, the death of no member of the legal profession had excited a tithe of the public concern which followed that of Sir William Follett, the Attorney-general. The bar felt that its brightest light had been almost suddenly extinguished. Its most gifted members, and those of the judicial bench, heartily acknowledged the transcendence of his professional qualifications, and the unassuming peacefulness with which he had passed through life. Had he lived to occupy the highest judicial seat – the woolsack – few doubted that, when relieved from the crushing pressure of private practice, he would have displayed qualities befitting so splendid a station, and earned a name worthy of ranking with those of his great predecessors.

His funeral took place on Friday, the 4th of July, at the Temple church. He was a bencher of the Inner Temple, and his remains repose in the vault at the south-eastern extremity of the church. For nearly two hours before the funeral took place, the church – a chaste and splendid structure – had been filled with members of the bar, and a few others, all in mourning, and awaiting, in solemn silence, the commencement of the mournful ceremony. At length the pealing of the organ announced the arrival of the affecting moment when the body of Sir William Follett – himself having been not very long before a worshipper in the church – was being borne within its walls, preceded by the surpliced choir, chanting the service, in tones which still echo in the ears of those who heard them. All rose silently, with moistened eyes, and beating hearts, as they beheld, slowly borne through the aisle, the coffin which contained the prematurely dead – him whose figure, erect and graceful in forensic robes, and dignified in gesture, had so recently stood among them, their cheerful and gifted associate in the anxious business of life – from whose lips, now closed for ever, had but lately issued that rich, harmonious voice, whose tones had scarce, even then, died away! They were bearing him to his long home, with all the solemn pomp and circumstance which testify the reverence paid to departed eminence: and when the coffin was placed beside the altar, at the mouth of the vault, no language can adequately describe the affecting and imposing scene which presented itself. The pall had been borne by the Prime Minister, (Sir Robert Peel,) the Lord Chancellor, one of the Secretaries of State, (Sir James Graham,) and the Vice-Chancellor of England; and amongst those who followed, were Lord Brougham, Lord Langdale, the Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, and many of the judges, (almost all the courts, both of law and equity, having suspended their sittings on account of the funeral;) while in the body of the church were to be seen nearly all the distinguished members of the bar, who had been, up to a very recent period, opposed to, or associated with, him whose dust was now on the point of being committed to its kindred dust. Nearest to the body sat the three great ministers of the Crown, who had come to pay their tribute of respect to the remains of their gifted and confidential adviser; and their solemn countenances told the deep impression which the scene was making upon them, so illustrative of the fleeting shadowiness of earthly greatness! and their reflections must have been akin to those which – as may have occurred to them – their own obsequies might, at some future period, excite in the spectators – reflections such as those with which a great one, departed,6 closed his grandest labours.

"Oh, eloquent, just, and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done: and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words – Hic Jacet!"

LET NEVER CRUELTY DISHONOUR BEAUTY

The words chosen as the subject of the following verses, form the first line of an antiquated song, of which the remainder seems not to have been preserved. – See Mr Dauney's "Ancient Scotish Melodies," p. 227.

 
"Let never Cruelty dishonour Beauty" —
Be no such war between thy face and mind.
Heaven with each blessing sends an answering duty:
It made thee fair, and meant thee to be kind.
 
 
Resemble not the panther's treacherous seeming,
That looks so lovely to beguile its prey;
Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming,
That charms the fancy only to betray.
 
 
See the great Sun! God's best and brightest creature —
Alike on good and ill his gifts he showers:
Look at the Earth, whose large and liberal nature
To all who court her offers fruits or flowers.
 
 
Then, lady, lay aside that haughty scorning —
A robe unmeet to deck a mortal frame;
Mild be thy light, and innocent as morning,
And shine on high and humble still the same.
 
 
Bid thy good-will, in bright abundance flowing,
To all around its kindly stream impart;
Thy love the while on One alone bestowing,
The fittest found, the husband of thy heart!
 

THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN

A Tale in Two Parts. – Part II

Chapter III

 
"A deep and mighty shadow
Across my heart is thrown,
Like a cloud on a summer meadow,
Where the thunder wind hath blown!"
 
Barry Cornwall.

At this period of French history, and even up to a period much later, the bridges which crossed the Seine, and connected the two separate parts of the city of Paris, were built over with houses, and formed narrow streets across the stream. These houses, constructed almost entirely of wood, the beams of which were disposed in various directions, so as to form a sort of pattern, and ornamented with carved window-sills and main-beams, were jammed together like figs in a cask, and presented one gable to the confined gangway, the other to the water, which, in many cases, their upper story overhung with a seemingly hazardous spring outward. Towards the river, also, many were adorned with wooden balconies, sheltered by the far-advancing angles of the roofs; whilst beneath, upon the water, the piles of the bridge were encumbered by many water-mills, to the incessant noise of which, habit probably reconciled the inhabitants of the houses above.

In an upper room in one of the houses which, after this fashion, lined the Pont au Change, sat, on the evening of the day on which Philip de la Mole had escaped from the Louvre, three persons, the listlessness of whose attitudes showed that they were all more or less pre-occupied by painful reflections.

The principal personage of this group – a woman between fifty and sixty years of age – lay back on a large wooden chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. Her dress was of simple dark stuff, very full upon the sleeves and below the waist, and relieved by a small white standing collar; a dark coif, of the fashion of the period, covered the grizzled hair, which was drawn back from the forehead and temples, leaving fully exposed a face, the rude features and heavy eyebrows of which gave it a stern character. But in spite of this severity of aspect, there naturally lurked an expression of goodness about the mouth and eyes, which spoke of a kindliness of disposition and tenderness of heart, combined with firmness and almost obstinacy of character. Those eyes, however, were now vacant and haggard in expression; and that mouth was contracted as if by some painful thought.

By her side, upon a low stool, was seated a fair girl, whose attire was as plain as that of the more aged woman; but that lovely form needed no aids of the toilet to enhance its beauty. The fair brown hair brushed off from the white brow, in the graceless mode of the day, hid nothing of a face which had all the purity of some beautiful Madonna; although the cheek was pale, and the lines of the physiognomy were already more sharpened than is usual at years so young. Her head, however, was now bent down over a large book which lay upon her knees, and from which she appeared to have been reading aloud to the elder woman; and, as she sat, a tear dropped into its pages, which she hastily brushed away with her fair hand.

The third person, who completed the group, was a young man scarcely beyond the years of boyhood. His good-looking round face was bronzed and ruddy with fresh colour, and his dark eyes and full mouth were expressive of natural gaiety and vivacity. But he, too, sat leaning his elbows upon his knees, and gazing intently, and with a look of anxiety, upon the fair girl before him; until, as he saw the tear fall from her eye, he turned impatiently upon his stool, and proceeded to polish, with an animation which was not that of industry, the barrel of a gun which lay between his knees.

 

The room which formed the groundwork to the picture composed of these three personages, was dark and gloomy, as was generally the interior of the houses of the time; a large wardrobe of black carved wood filled a great space of one of the walls; presses and chests of the same dark and heavy workmanship occupied considerable portions of the rest of the room. The low casement window, left open to admit the air of a bright May evening, looked out upon the course of the rapid Seine, and gave a cheering relief to the dark scene. The hazy rays from the setting sun streamed into the room; and from below rose up the sound of the rushing waters, and the wheels of the mills, mixed with occasional cries of men upon the river, and the more distant murmur of the city. The scene was one of calmness; and yet the calmness of those within that room was not the calmness of repose and peace.

It was the youth who first spoke.

"Jocelyne," he said in a low tone, approaching his stool nearer to that of the fair girl, and then continuing to polish his gun-barrel without looking her in the face – "if you knew how it grieves me to see you thus! You sit and droop like a bird upon the wintry branch, when I would fain see you lift your head and chirp, as in days gone by, now that summer begins to gladden around us."

The maiden thus addressed looked at him with a languid smile, and then faintly shook her head.

"How would you have me gay, Alayn," she said softly, "when our grandmother continues thus?"

Alayn made a gesture of doubt, as if he would have said, that solicitude for her grandmother was not the only cause of Jocelyne's sadness; but he made no observation to that effect, and, nodding his head towards the older woman, asked in a low tone —

"How is Dame Perrotte to-day? She did not answer my greeting on my entrance; and during your reading from that forbidden book of Scripture, she has uttered not a word."

"You may speak aloud," replied Jocelyne. "When she is in this state, she does not hear us. She is fully absorbed in her sad thoughts. I have seldom seen her more troubled than she has been for some few days past. One would suppose that the return of sunny summer days recalls more fearfully to her mind that epoch of carnage and destruction at the fête of St Bartholomew, when the heavens above were so joyous and bright, whilst below the earth was reeking with blood, and your poor father perished, Alayn, for his religion's sake. I have ever remarked, when the sun shines the cheeriest, her spirit is the darkest."

"Will she not speak to me?" enquired Alayn.

"No," replied his cousin. "When in these deepest moods of melancholy, she will not speak but upon the subject of those fatal days, or if her attention be aroused by the mention of her slaughtered kindred; and Heaven forbid that an unguarded word from me should excite so terrible a crisis as would ensue!"

"And she remains always thus now?" asked the youth.

"Not always," answered Jocelyne. "There are times when she is as of old, and speaks to me with calmness. But at these better hours she makes no mention of the past."

"She never talks, then, of returning to the palace?" continued Alayn, with an evident air of satisfaction upon his round ruddy face.

"Never," replied the girl, with an involuntary sigh.

"And yet her foster-son, the king, has often sent for her."

"Hush!" interrupted Jocelyne. "Let not that name strike upon her ear. Although she hears us not, the very word might, perchance, call up within her recollections I would were banished from her mind for ever. The name of her nursling, whom she once loved as were she his own mother, and he had not worn a crown, is now a sound of horror to her. Often has she cursed him in the bitterness of her heart," she continued in a low tone of mystery, as if fearful lest the very walls should hear her confidence, "as the slayer of the righteous. She never can forgive him the treacherous order given for that murderous deed of slaughter and destruction."

"But he protected her from all harm in that general massacre of our party in religion, from which so few of us escaped," said Alayn.

"She would rather have died, I verily believe," pursued the fair girl shuddering, "than have lived to see her own son fall, so cruelly murdered by the son of her fostering care."

"And she never will return to him again?" enquired the young man with another gleam of satisfaction.

Jocelyne shook her head.

"So much the better. So much the better," pursued Alayn stoutly. "For then I can see you when I will, fair cousin Jocelyne, and come and sit by your side as I do now, to continue my work with the permission of my master the armourer, who, whatever he may say, is as good a Calvinist at heart as ourselves, I am sure. And you will return no more with my grandmother among those villanous popinjays about the court, who are ever for telling you soft tales of love, and swearing that your eyes are the brightest in creation – as, to be sure, they are; and that never such an angel walked the earth – as, to be sure, there never did; but who mean it not well with you, cousin Jocelyne, and would but have their will to desert you and leave you to sorrow, and who, with all their gilded finery, are not worth one inch of the coarse stuff of a stout-hearted honest artisan who loves you, and would see you happy; although I say it, who should not say it."

Jocelyne drew up her head proudly as if about to speak; but, as her melancholy pale hazel eyes met those of her cousin, sparkling with animation and good-humour, she only turned herself away, whilst a bright flush of colour overspread that cheek but a moment before so pale.

"Why, look ye, cousin Jocelyne," continued the youth once more, after a moment's pause; "it will out, in spite of me, all that I have got to say. I cannot see your pale cheek and tearful eye, and hear the sigh that ever and anon breaks so painfully from your bosom, but that, all simple as I be, I can tell it is not only for our poor grandmother you sorrow. Mayhap I have heard what I have heard, and seen what I have seen besides; but never mind that. Believe me, you sorrow for those who love you not truly as there are others who love you – you pain your heart until you will break it, for those who play you false."

"Alayn, I can hear no more of this! You know not what you say!" cried the fair girl hastily; and, laying down upon the table her book, she arose and walked away from him to lean out of the window.

"Nay, pardon me, cousin Jocelyne," exclaimed the youth in a pained tone, also rising and advancing towards the window. "I do but speak as I should and must speak, being your well-wisher – I mean you well, God knows. And the time will come when you too will know how well!"

Jocelyne turned her eyes, which were moist with tears, to her cousin; and, stretching out her hand to him, she said, with all that romantic fervour of the ingenuous girl which almost wears the semblance of inspiration —

"Alayn, I know you love me, and that you mean it well with me. You are a kind and sincere brother to me. But, oh! you cannot read the deep deep feelings of the heart, or judge how little words have the power, like the charms we read of, to heal its wounds and wrench asunder the chains that bind it for ever and ever! The ivy, when torn from the stem to which it clings, may wither and die, but it cannot be attached to another trunk, however skilful the hand of the gardener who would attach it."

The youth took her hand, and, as she again turned to the window to hide her increasing emotion, shook his head sadly and doubtfully; then, returning to his stool, he took the gun-barrel between his knees with a movement of impatience, and continued his occupation of polishing it, although his eyes were constantly fixed askance upon the graceful form of the girl as she leant upon the window sill.

Presently the old woman moved uneasily in her chair, and, placing her hands firmly upon its arms, as if about to rise from her seat, she exclaimed aloud —

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will avenge the blood of the righteous!"

Both Jocelyne and Alayn turned; but, before the fair girl could hurry to her grandmother's side, she had sunk down again into her chair, murmuring —

"No, no! enough of blood! enough of vengeance! God pardon him, and turn the hearts of those who counseled him to this deed."

"Give me my Bible, Jocelyne my girl," said again the old woman after a pause. "It seems I have not read it for many a long hour. God forgive me! But my poor head wanders strangely. Ah! is it you Alayn? Good-day to you," she continued, as if she had then first become aware of the presence of her grandson.

Jocelyne hastily gave her grandmother the volume which she had laid down upon the table; and whispering in her cousin's ear, as she passed, "She has spoken, she will be better now," sat down once more by her side.

A silence again pervaded that still room, when suddenly a noise of steps resounded upon a wooden stair. They approached the door, upon which a hurried knocking was now heard. Before Jocelyne, who, at the sound of these steps, had clasped her hands before her, with an expression of surprise and almost of alarm, had fully risen from her seat, the door was flung open, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and with a jewelled hat sunk low upon his brow, entered hastily.

He closed the door, and then gazed with a rapid glance around him.

Jocelyne had sprung up with a suppressed cry.

"Ah! I am not mistaken," said the man advancing, and removing his hat. "Jocelyne! Dame Perrotte! I am a fugitive, and I seek a shelter at your hands. I could not trust myself to those who call themselves my friends; others who might have protected me, I know not where to find, but I bethought myself of you – of you, Jocelyne – and" —

"Philip! Monseigneur," stammered the astonished girl. "You – here – and a fugitive!"

"Do you not know me?" said the fugitive to Dame Perrotte, who had risen from her chair, and stood staring at him as if with a return of troubled intellect.

"Not know you?" exclaimed the old woman rising. "I know you well, Philip de la Mole! And is it you, the Catholic, who seek a shelter beneath the roof of the proscribed and outlawed Huguenot?"

"But it is in the cause of your religion that I have conspired, my good woman, and that I am now compelled to fly," replied La Mole; "it was for one, who, as chief of your party, would have espoused your quarrel, and re-established your influence in the land."

"Ay, for your master, the shallow Duke of Alençon," responded Perrotte coldly. "False, hollow ambition all! And ye call that the cause of religion – Mockery! Yes, I know you well, Philip de la Mole, who in the hour of bloodshed," she continued, growing more and more excited, "could approve the hellish deed, and who now can babble of sacrifice and self-offering in the cause of our religion."

"You belie me, woman," said La Mole proudly.

"Yes, I know you, Philip de la Mole," pursued the old woman with knitted brows and flashing eyes; "you, who, to amuse your hours of idleness, could talk of love to a poor trusting girl, heedless how you destroyed her peace of mind, had you but your pastime and your jest of it."

"Grandmother!" cried Jocelyne in the bitterest distress.

"It was he, then!" exclaimed Alayn, advancing upon the fugitive nobleman, with the gun-barrel raised in his arm.

"If you love me, forbear!" screamed his cousin, flinging herself before him.

"I had hoped to have found shelter among honest hearts, whom misfortune should have taught pity," said the fugitive proudly, and unmoved; "and I have erred – unjust hate, prejudice, inhospitality, are the only virtues practised beneath this roof. I will again brave the danger, and seek elsewhere that kindly feeling I find not here. Jocelyne, my sweet pretty Jocelyne, farewell!"

With these words La Mole moved towards the door. The old woman regarded him motionless, and with the same cloud of irritation on her brow. Alayn seemed equally inclined to prosecute his first hostile intention; but Jocelyne sprang after the retreating nobleman and caught him by the arm.

"Grandmother," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, and leaning fondly against La Mole – "if any one have erred, it is I, and I alone. It was I chose him forth as the noblest, the brightest, the best among those who glittered about the court, in which we humbly lived. I had given him my heart ere he had deigned to cast a look upon me. If I have loved him – if I love him still – it is because I alone have sought it should be so."

 

"Jocelyne! be still, sweet girl," said La Mole, affected, and moving towards the door.

"And were he our bitterest enemy," continued the excited girl, still clinging to his arm, "he is now a proscribed fugitive – no matter why – God sends him to us – and it is ours to save, not to condemn him."

"But it is said, that the enemy of the righteous shall perish from the earth," said her grandmother sternly; "it is not I condemn or kill him. If it be the will of God that his cause of error cease, let him go forth and die."

"If he die, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne with energy, "I shall die too. I have given him my heart, my life, my soul – punish me as you will – trample me at your feet. But I love him, mother; and, if you drive him forth to be hunted by his enemies to the death, your child will not survive it."

Alayn had turned away in bitterness of heart, and the old Huguenot woman, although giving way more and more to that excitement, which, at times, fully troubled her reason, only wrung her hands, as if moved by the address of the agitated girl.

"Stay! stay, Monseigneur," continued Jocelyne, as La Mole again pressed her hand and turned to depart. "She relents – she has a kind heart; and she would not, surely, deliver up the guest who begs shelter at her threshold, into the hands of those who seek to capture and to kill him."

"Let me go forth, Jocelyne! farewell!" repeated La Mole.

"Mother!" again commenced the unhappy girl, throwing herself down to clasp the knees of her grandmother, who, overcome by the violence of her feelings, had sunk back again into her chair. "Mother! would your husband, or your son, have driven even their deadliest enemy from their door?"

"Speak not of my son, girl; or you will drive me mad!" cried Perrotte, clasping her hands before her face.

Jocelyne sprang up with a look of despair, and returned to detain once more La Mole.

As they thus stood, and before the old woman had again stirred, or Alayn interfered, a rumour from the street formed by the bridge, caught the ear of the excited girl.

"What is that?" she exclaimed, starting in alarm.

"The agents of the Queen-mother sent in my pursuit, probably," replied La Mole coolly, and disengaging himself from the convulsive embrace of Jocelyne. "How they have tracked me, I know not. So be it, then. I had hoped for the sake of others to avoid their hands; but I am prepared to meet my fate."

"No, no," screamed Jocelyne. "It cannot be! Mother – mother, would you see him made a prisoner in your own house – murdered, perhaps, before your very face!"

Alayn moved towards the door; and the girl sprang to intercept him.

"Would you be so base? Would you have me hate you?" cried the poor girl in despair, to her cousin.

Many steps were now heard ascending the lower stair. The old woman, who trembled in every limb, stirred not from her chair; but, removing one hand from her face, she stretched it out towards a corner of the room.

"Ah! I understand you, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne. "That secret closet where our books of religion are deposited, where our old priest, during the massacre, was hid!"

"Whilst my son perished – a victim – a martyr!" groaned the old woman, fearfully agitated.

"Come, come, Monseigneur," pursued the excited girl; and, in spite of the unwillingness of La Mole to profit by a hospitality thus bestowed, she dragged him to one corner of the room, and pushing back the spring of one of those secret recesses then so commonly constructed in all houses, as well of the bourgeois as the nobles, on account of the troubles and dangers of the times, she compelled him by her entreaties to enter a dark nook – then hastily closing the aperture, she exclaimed, "God shield him!" and sank down into the stool by her grandmother's side.

"Alayn!" she said, in a low hurried tone, as the heavy steps still mounted the stairs, "you will be silent, will you not? You will not betray him, and see the poor girl, whom you profess to love, die at your feet!"

The youth shook his head with a gesture of resignation, although the frown upon his brow showed how painful were the feelings that he suppressed.

"Mother!" whispered Jocelyne once more to the old woman. "Calm your agitation – oh! let not a word, a gesture, betray our secret! Stay! I will read to you!" And she seized the Bible, then a dangerous book to produce thus openly before Catholic agents of the court, and took it on her lap.

Perrotte answered not a word, but continued to rock herself with much agitation from side to side in her chair.

The noise of the arquebuses of soldiery was now, in truth, heard on the landing-place. A heavy blow was given on the panels of the door; and, without waiting for permission to enter, a man in the military accoutrements of the period, whose head was crowned with a high hat, adorned with a short red feather, advanced into the room with an air which betrayed at once a strange mixture of effrontery and hypocrisy.

"Landry!" exclaimed together both Jocelyne and Alayn.

"Captain Landry, at your service," said the man; "or, if you will, at the service of her majesty the Queen-mother. Good-day, my gentle cousins both. Good-day to you, my good aunt Perrotte. How goes it with her now? Her head was somewhat ailing as I heard, since she had left the court." And he touched his forehead significantly with his finger.

"She is well!" answered Jocelyne hastily, trembling in spite of her efforts to be calm.

"But this is no visit of ceremony, my good friends," continued Captain Landry, with some haughtiness of manner. "I come upon state affairs. A criminal of rank, who has conspired against the life and person of the king, has escaped; and we are sent in his pursuit. We have contrived to track him of a surety to this neighbourhood; and, as I bethought me that this same delinquent was a friend of my fair cousin Jocelyne, who, although she has received my offers of affection with disdain, could look upon another with more favour, I doubted not that I should find news of him in her company. Know you of none such here, sweet cousin?"

"I know not of whom you speak," said Jocelyne, her colour varying from the flush of emotion to the deadly paleness of fear.

"And you, Alayn, boy, since our fair cousin's memory is so short, can doubtless tell me. Has no one entered here within the last half hour?"

"No one!" answered Alayn sturdily; but he then turned and moved to the window to hide his confusion.

The Queen's agent shrugged his shoulders.

"And my good aunt has had no visitors?" he resumed, advancing towards the old woman.

Perrotte lifted her head, and regarded the captain fixedly, and with a look of scorn, but said not a word.

"Search!" said the officer, turning to the soldiers, who had waited without.

The men entered; and in a few instants the scanty and small rooms attached to the principal apartment were examined. The captain was informed that no one could be found. For a moment he looked disappointed, and paused to reflect.

"Their trouble is evident," he murmured to himself. "He may still be here. The reward for his capture is too great to be given up lightly; and, besides, I hate the fellow for the love she bears him – I will leave no stone unturned."

"Dame Perrotte!" he said returning to the old woman, and speaking to her in a low tone of voice – "A criminal of state has escaped from the king's justice. In spite of the protestations of your grandchildren, I cannot doubt that he is concealed hereabouts; and you must know where. You will not fail, I am sure, to indicate the place of his retreat, when you know that, as the friend of those who have proved the bitterest enemies of your religion, he must also be your deadly enemy."

"And is it Landry, the recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting her head with a haggard expression.

"The necessary policy of the times," whispered the captain, sitting down on the stool by her side, and approaching himself confidentially nearer, "has compelled me, like many others, to be that in seeming which we are not in heart. Has not our chief, Henry of Navarre, yielded also to the pressure of the circumstances in which he lives? Judge me not so harshly, good aunt. But this criminal – he is one of those who have hunted and destroyed, who have cried – 'Down with them; down with the Huguenots – pursue and kill;' and you would withdraw him from the punishment he merits?"

6Sir Walter Raleigh —History of the World, last paragraph.
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