The Scourge of God: A Romance of Religious Persecution

AWAITING THE TRAVELLER. With all the pomp and ceremony that should accompany the dying hours of a great lady of France, the Princesse de Rochebazon--Marquise du Gast d'Ançilly, Co...

THE TRAVELLER FROM ENGLAND. A great _Berline à quatre chevaux_ halted at the North Gate outside Paris, and the young man seated within the carriage let down the window and prepare...

A PARTING SOUL. Looking down upon her as she lay in the great bed whereon had reposed so many of the de Rochebazons for generations--when they had been the head of the house--Mart...

LES ATTROUPÉS. It was October in the year 1701 when she who had borne the title for so long of Princesse de Rochebazon was laid in the family vault in the Church of St. Sépulcre. ...

'TWIXT THEN AND NOW. When Martin Ashurst bent over her who had borne for over forty years the title of Princesse de Rochebazon, and saw that, at last, the light had gone out of he...

"LA FEMME, MALHEUREUSEMENT SI FAMEUSE, FUNESTE ET TERRIBLE."--ST. SIMON. Once past Versailles, and St. Cyr was almost reached, the horse which Martin Ashurst had ordered to be mad...

THE HOUSE BY THE BRIDGE. "Come," said Martin to the trembling pastor, "come. We may do something, avert some awful calamity. You are of their faith. They will listen to you," and ...

AN EXODUS. In the coming dawn, when the stars had paled and died away, and when far off, where the Basses Alpes lifted their heads eastward, the gray light turned into daffodil an...

"BAVILLE! UN MAGISTRAT DONT LES EPOUVANTABLES RIGUEURS DOIVENT ÊTRE SIGNALÉES À L'HORREUR DE LA POSTÉRITÉ."--SISMONDI. Night was near at hand again and all were gone--all except M...

THE LIGHTED TORCH. The night had come, and, with the exception of one troop of dragoons and one company of the _milices_, also with the exception of the Marquis du Chaila, who had...

"CONSORTING WITH HERETICS." It was midnight when all rode into Alais, and the iron shoes of the horses clattering on the cobble-stones of the street woke from their beds the few w...

"I AM A PROTESTANT." An hour later the meeting in the Hôtel de Ville had broken up, yet not before Buscarlet had said words such as he had better have bitten out his tongue than h...

URBAINE. From the Mediterranean the warm, luscious breezes of the south sweep up to where Montpellier stands ere they pass the city and waft to the summits of the Cévennes the per...

THE ATTACK. Between where the mountains of the Cévennes rise in tumultuous confusion, with, towering above them all, the gigantic Lozère and La Manzerre whence springs the beauteo...

SHELTER AND REFUGE. That night as darkness fell upon the earth, and while, high up in the heavens, the bonfires burned which the _attroupés_ lit regularly on the tops of the Céven...

SUCCOUR. Once more the day was drawing to a close. Already across the plain the sun's rays were slanting horizontally. Soon the sun itself would have dipped behind the mountains a...

THE RUSE. Nevertheless he was convinced that he was not mistaken. Yet where--where had he seen this nephew of De Broglie before? As one racks his brain to call up some circumstan...

LA DIVINÉRESSE. The violets and the primroses grow in the chestnut woods that fringe the base of La Lozère, yet disappear as the roads wind up to the summit, giving place to the w...

LEX TALIONIS. Over all Languedoc there was an awful terror at this time--the terror that is born of successful rebellion, and that rebellion the outcome of a religious strife. An...

WHAT IS THIS MYSTERY? The swallows were gone--a month earlier in this mountainous region than in the rest of the golden south of France. Below, the corn had fallen ungathered from...

"YOU WILL NEVER FIND HIM." "When you and your charge, Mademoiselle Ducaire, have left us you will betray no secrets," Cavalier had said to Martin, as they stood side by side watch...

I LOVE YOU. Urbaine and Martin sat together on that night which followed the sunny afternoon when they had been alone together on the promontory, in one of the smaller caverns tha...

"LOVE HER! BEYOND ALL THOUGHT! AND SHE IS THERE." With the rapidity of wildfire the news had run over all Languedoc at this time--was known, too, and shared by Catholics as well a...

"AN ERRAND OF LIFE OR DEATH." Through the fair, sweet land known as the _Département Hérault_ Martin rode north, toward where the mountains lay, in the darkness of the autumn nigh...

PAR LE FER ET PAR LE FEU. He made his way in. Entered by the Porte des Carmes, to find himself in the midst of a seething mass of people who shouted and gesticulated while pushin...

DOOMED. Remembering that his horse (which he would require ere long to carry him to the mountains, since although, as he had thanked God again and again, Urbaine was in no danger,...

HER FATHER, URBAIN DUCAIRE. It was in a great hall, or chamber, of the Hôtel de Ville that Baville now sat, splendidly apparelled, as was ever his custom when assisting at any gre...

BAVILLE--SUPERB! There was a hush over the Court. Yet a hush broken and disturbed by many sounds. By the sobs of more than one woman, by the shuffling of many feet, by muttered ej...

"HER FATHER'S MURDERER." "I have not yet decided," Baville said that night to Beauplan as they sat together in the new citadel, "when the sentence will be carried out. Have my dou...

FREE. The mountains again! And Martin free! Happy, too, because, as the cold blast swept down from their summits to him as he rode swiftly through the valley toward the commenceme...

BETRAYED. They had met again. Were together, never more to part unless parted by one thing, Death! Death that was imminent at any moment, that might overtake them that very night,...

THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH. From that old, dismantled farmhouse, built on to the tower, there sloped down, toward where a small stream ran some four hundred yards away, a long stretc...

TOUT SAVOIR, C'EST TOUT PARDOXNER. Coming to himself, Martin, lying there, wondered where he was. He felt no pain in the wounded shoulder, only, instead, an awful weakness. Also h...