CHAPTER XIII.

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 perfume of the flowers and the odours of

the rich fruits which grow upon the shores of the beauteous sea. And

from Montpellier itself, from the old _Place de Peyrou_, may be

obtained a view that is unsurpassed both in its beauty and in its

power of recalling to the memory the loathsome cruelties which,

perpetrated in the days of Louis the Great King, have smirched forever

that beauty. Far away, too, where rise the tips of the mountains of

Ventoux on the confines of fair Provence, the Alps begin to

show--those Alps over which the weary feet of escaping Protestants had

been dragged as their owners sought the sanctuary of a more free land.

Below lies a beautiful valley watered on one side by the Loire and on

another by the Rhône, watered once also by the blood and the tears of

the heartbroken dwellers therein. A valley teeming once again with the

fruits of the earth, and with now all signs erased of the devastation

which he, whose statue stands in that _Place de Peyrou_, caused to be

spread around; erased from human sight, but not from human

recollection.

Upon the other side lies Cette, of scant importance in these times as

seacoast towns and harbours are reckoned, and dead and done with--lies

there basking and smiling beneath the warm sun that shines alike in

winter as in summer. Cette, the place which, in the minds of the

forefathers of those who now dwell there, bore the blackest, most

hated name of all the villages bordering the blue sea. For here the

galleys harboured, here fathers and husbands, brothers and sons, were

flung to horrors and miseries and the life of an earthly hell--a hell

whose pangs knew no assuagement till death, most welcome, brought

release.

From where Baville sat in his open window Cette could be seen; the

harbour in which half a dozen of those galleys lay waiting for their

victims. On a table before him were papers for the sending of other

victims to the prisons of the surrounding towns; also the sentences of

death allotted to many rebels, death in hideous forms. Some to be hung

upon the bridges of their own town, some to be broken on the wheel,

some to be burned in market places, some to have their forefingers

struck off (a form of punishment peculiar to the neighbourhood and to

those who had been captured in the present uprisings), and afterward

to be hanged.

Also on tables at either side of him were orders to the colonels of

local regiments to place themselves under direction of Julien; orders

to others to provide forage and stabling for so many horses and

accommodation for so many men; orders, too, for provisions and forage

to be sent in to Montpellier and Nîmes for the victualling of the

forces quartered there. And to all and every one of these he had

already affixed his signature, "Baville"--a signature which here

carried as much authority as if, instead, it had been "Louis."

Yet it was not about these papers that Nicholas de Lamoignon de

Baville, Comte de Launai-Courson, Seigneur de Bris, Vaugrigneuse,

Chavagne, Lamothe-Chaudemier, Beuxes and other places, as well as

Conseiller d'Etat, Intendant de Justice, polices et finances--to give

him his full names and titles--was thinking on this bright morning,

nor on them that his eyes rested. Instead, upon a far smaller thing--a

thing on which one would scarcely have thought he would have wasted a

moment's attention--a little plain cornelian seal which he was turning

over and over in his hands and regarding carefully through a small

magnifying glass.

"Strange," he muttered to himself, "strange if, after all, after years

of meditation and inquiry, I should thus have lit upon the clew!

Strange, strange!"

He struck, as thus he mused, upon a little bronze gong that stood by

his side and ready to his hand, and a moment later the door was opened

and a man of about his own age came into the room in answer to the

summons; a man whose plain garb, made of the local Nîmes serge, and

wig _à trois marteaux_, proclaimed almost with certainty that he was a

clerk or secretary.

"Casalis," the Intendant said, he having put the seal beneath some

papers ere the other entered, "there is in the library a book

entitled, _Devises et blasons de la Noblesse Française_, is there

not?"

"There is, your Excellency. Prepared a year ago by Monsieur le

Comte----"

"Precisely. Fetch it, if you please."

The man retired, and, after being absent some few moments, came back,

bearing in his hand a large, handsome volume bound in pale brown

morocco, the back and sides covered with fine gold tooling and with

Baville's crest stamped also on each side--a splendid book, if its

contents corresponded with its exterior.

"Shall I find any particular entry for your Excellency?" the man

asked, pausing with the volume in his hand.

"No, leave it. I may desire to look into it presently."

Left alone, however, Baville looked into it at once, pausing at the

names under "B" to regard with some complacency his own crest and arms

beautifully reproduced in colours on vellum.

Then he turned over a vast number of leaves in a mass, arriving at the

letter "T," and re-turning back to "R," finding thereby the page which

was headed "De Rochebazon." And emblazoned in the middle of the vellum

in red, gold, and blue was the coat of arms of that great family;

above it was the crest of the house, on a rock proper a hawk with

wings elevated--the motto "Gare."

"So," said Baville to himself, "he was of noble family, was a de

Rochebazon. Had I looked at this book when the Comte de Paysac sent it

to me, compared it with the seal, I should have known such was the

case a year ago. Yet what use even if I had done so? What use? One can

not recall--undo the past."

And Baville--even Baville, the "tiger of Languedoc," as he had been

termed--sighed.

He took next the seal from the papers where he had pushed it and

compared it with the Comte de Paysac's book, though even as he did so

he knew there was no need for such comparison; the crest upon it was

as familiar to him as his own. Then he muttered:

"It is pity Monsieur le Comte did not make his work even more

complete. Some information would be useful. As to whom he married, to

wit, as to whom this young man may be, who is related to the late

princess. Also as to the family of the princess--I should know that. I

would the count were still alive."

As thus he mused a shadow fell across the path that wound before his

open window. From behind the orange tubs which formed a grove in front

of that window there stepped out a girl who, seeing him there, smiled

and said, "_Bon jour, mon père_." Then came on to the window and,

leaning against the open frame, asked if she might come in, might

bring him some flowers she had plucked to decorate his cabinet.

"Always, Urbaine," he said, "always," and he put out his hand as

though to draw her to him. "Come in, come in."

Had this been a darkened room, a sombre cabinet into which no ray of

sunlight ever stole, instead of being, in truth, a bright, gay

apartment, the presence of the girl whom he addressed as Urbaine would

have made it cheerful, have seemed to bring the needed sunlight to it;

for, as she stood there, her long white dress giving fresh radiance to

the room, her fair hair irradiated by the beams of light that glinted

in through the dark-green leaves of the orange trees, she seemed to

cast even more lustre around, making even the grave, serious face of

the Intendant look less severe. In her hands she carried a mass of

roses and ferns on which the dew sparkled, also some large white

lilies.

"Come, Urbaine," he said to her, "come, sit on your accustomed seat.

When you are at Versailles you will have no father's knee to sit

upon," and, caressingly, he drew her toward him, while she, sitting

there, arranged the flowers into bunches.

As he mentioned Versailles she sighed and turned her eyes on him, then

said:

"Why send me away, father? I do not wish to go. I desire to stay here

by your side. By my mother's, too. Let me remain," and she bent

forward and kissed his forehead.

"Nay," he answered, "nay, Montpellier is no place for you now. You are

best away from it. At present all is not well. Urbaine, these rebels

are stronger than we thought. Julien has been here a month, and what

has he done? Nothing, except sustain defeat. Now we must have more

troops from Paris. Montrevel, they say, will come; yet ere he does so

much may happen. Nîmes, even Montpellier, may fall into their hands.

Urbaine, I will not have you here to--to--fall into their hands also."

"Surely they will not hurt women. They say they attack none but

soldiers--and--and priests; that, rough and fierce as they are, no

woman has ever suffered at their hands. We of our side," and she

sighed, "can scarcely say as much."

"Who has told you this, child? Perhaps your new friend, Monsieur

Martin. Nay, I see by your blush it is so. Urbaine, you must not

believe all he says. Remember, he is a Huguenot too."

"He has never spoken to me on such themes, or, speaking, has said

nothing you could disapprove of. He says this uprising is wicked,

unlawful; is not the way to gain their ends. Also he has told me that

the murder of the Abbé Du Chaila was revolting to him; that he would

have saved him had he not been powerless."

"Where is he now?" Baville asked, without making any remark on what

she told him as to Martin Ashurst's sentiments. "I have not seen him

for some days."

"I do not know," the girl said; "neither have I seen him. Yet he spoke

of going to Alais to see his friend the pastor."

"Urbaine," Baville said, "you must speak to him before you set out for

Paris. He may listen to words from you which he will not hear from me.

You must warn him to leave Languedoc, to return to the north."

"To leave Languedoc! Return to the north!" she repeated. And it seemed

to the sharp eyes of the Intendant as though her colour changed again.

"Ay, child, he is in deadly peril here. Can you not understand?"

"No," Urbaine replied, "no. What has he done?"

"Actively, he has done nothing. Yet he is a doomed man, because of his

religion. My dear one, ere long the king will be roused to awful fury

by this rebellion; there will not be a _réformé_ left in France. And

those who are passive will suffer the same as those who take up

arms--in the Midi--here--at least. Even I shall not be able to shield

him. Nay, more, how can I shield one and destroy all the rest?"

"Can there be no peace?"

"None! Peace! How can there be peace when none will make it? These

Protestant rebels are the aggressors this time. Ask for no peace. It

is war, a war which means extermination. A month ago I should have

said extermination of them alone; now God knows who, which side, is to

be exterminated. Louis is weakened by these attacks from without, from

every side; all over Europe there is a coalition against France. And

half her enemies are of the Reformed faith, as they term it. It is

said that the old religion is to be destroyed, abolished. Yet Louis,

France, will not fail without one effort; dying, we shall drag to

destruction numberless foes. Urbaine, if we do not suppress these

Camisards we have an internal foe to deal with as well. Do you think

one Protestant will be spared?"

"I may not see him again ere I set out for Versailles," the girl

whispered, terrified at his words.

"Then he must take his chance. At best he is but a quixotic fool."

"Let me remain here; if there is danger let me share it."

"Never!" Baville said. "The nobility are threatened, the 'Intendant'

above all. Your place must be in safety. Oh, that your mother would go

too! Yet," he added reflectively, "her place is by my side."

"And mine is not? Do you say that?" And she touched his face

caressingly with her hand.

"Your place is where I can best shield you from the least threat of

danger, my loved one; where danger can never come near you." And

beneath his breath he added the word "again."

Speaking thus to the girl upon his knee, a girl scarce better than a

child, seeing she was now but seventeen years old, Baville--of whom

the greatest of French diarists has said that _il en étoit la terreur

er l'horreur de Languedoc_--was at his best. For if he loved any

creature more than another on this earth--more than Madame

l'Intendante, more even than his own son--that creature was Urbaine.

She was not in truth his daughter, was of no blood relationship to

him, yet he cared for her dearly and fondly and the love was returned.

As the history of this girl was known to many in the province, so it

shall be told here.

Early in his Intendancy, when Baville (already known as an _esprit

fort_ by the ministers round Louis) had been appointed to this distant

Government, with, to console him, an absolute authority, he had

returned one winter night from a raid that he had been making on a

village in the Cévennes which, to use his own words, "reeked of

Calvinism" and was full of persons who refused to comply with the new

orders that were brought into force by the Revocation of the Edict of

Nantes. He was then but newly married to a sister of Gourville, the

colonel of a local regiment of dragoons, and his wife's welcome to him

was somewhat cooled by the announcement which he made to her that an

intimate friend of his had perished in the raid, leaving behind a

motherless child of whom he proposed to constitute himself the

guardian.

Apprised of the fact that Ducaire was the name of the intimate friend,

Madame l'Intendante shrugged her shoulders and contented herself with

saying that it was the first time she had ever heard of him.

Later, after reflection, she laughed a little, quoted some words of M.

de Voiture as to _les secrets de la comédie_ which were no secrets

either to actors or audience, and, in the course of the next two or

three days, uttered pointed remarks to the effect that if politics

failed at any future time, doubtless M. l'Intendant might earn a

pleasant livelihood as a weaver of romances and of plots for plays.

"_En vérité_" she said, with her little laugh, "Jean de la Fontaine is

old, also _Racine; profitez vous de l'occasion, mon ami. Profitez

vous_."

Then, because they were alone in Madame's boudoir, Baville rose and

stood before his wife and, speaking seriously, bade her cease her

badinage forever.

And after the conversation which ensued, after, also, the story which

Baville told her, Madame did cease her flippancy, and henceforth had

no further qualms of jealousy.

In truth, as the child grew up, she too came to love it, to pet it as

much as her husband did, to--because she was an honest, tender-hearted

woman who, beneath all her pride for Baville's great position, had

still many feminine qualities in her breast--weep over it.

"_Pauvrette!_" she would sometimes whisper to little Urbaine, long ere

the child had come to understanding, "_pauvre petite_. Neither mother

nor father either. Ah, well! Ah, well! they shall never be wanting

while we live--say, Baville, shall they?"

And the Intendant, the man of "horror and terror" to all around,

looking down upon the babe as she slept in her little bed, would

answer before God that they should never be wanting.

Both kept their word. Urbaine Ducaire grew up, petted, caressed,

beloved, the light of the Intendant's home, the flower, as he told her

sometimes, of his life; a thing far, far more precious to him than the

son, who, instead of being any comfort to them, was revelling in the

impurities of Paris.