The Project Gutenberg EBook of Prince and Heretic, by Marjorie Bowen This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Prince and Heretic Author: Marjorie Bowen Release Date: July 6, 2016 [EBook #52510] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCE AND HERETIC *** Produced by Richard Tonsing, The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) PRINCE AND HERETIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 1914 CONTENTS PART I THE NETHERLANDERS CHAP. PAGE I. The Alchemist 3 II. Fräulein Anne 13 III. Louis of Nassau 26 IV. The Saint Bartholomew Wedding 36 V. William of Orange 48 VI. The Crystal Gazers 58 VII. Brussels 71 VIII. Margaret of Parma 81 IX. Cardinal Granvelle 91 X. The Rhetoric Play 101 XI. The Jesters and the Rhetoric Players 111 XII. The Grandees 121 XIII. The Departure of the Cardinal 131 XIV. The Regent, the Prince, and the Cardinalist 140 PART II THE HOLY INQUISITION I. The Pigeon 151 II. The Loyalty of Lamoral Egmont 160 III. The Amusements of the Princess of Orange 170 IV. Philip's Mandate 180 V. The Knight-Errant 189 VI. The Edicts 198 v vi VII. The Petition 206 VIII. The Banquet 216 IX. Montigny's Wife 226 X. Antwerp 236 XI. The Prince Resigns 251 XII. Orange and Egmont 260 XIII. The Coming of Alva 270 XIV. Philip's Avengers 279 PART III THE HOUSE OF NASSAU I. Dillenburg 287 II. Juliana of Stolberg 296 III. Heiliger Lee 305 IV. The First Battle 313 V. News from the Netherlands 322 VI. The Prince at Bay 332 VII. The Action on the Geta 341 VIII. The Anabaptist Preacher 350 IX. Winter Time 361 X. The Abbess 369 PRINCE AND HERETIC "Soevis tranquillis in undis" Motto of William of Orange 1 PART I THE NETHERLANDERS "On respondera qu'il est Roi: je dis au contraire que ce nom de Roi m'est incognu. Qu'il le soit en Castille ou Arragon, à Naples, aux Indes et par tout où il commande à plaisir: qu'il le soit s'il veult en Jérusalem, paisible Dominateur en Asie et Afrique, tant y a que je ne cogni en ce pais qu'un Duc et un Comte, duquel la puissance est limitée selon nos privilèges lesquels il a juré à la joyeuse entrée."—Apologie d'Orange 3 M CHAPTER I THE ALCHEMIST agister Gustave Vanderlinden, astrologer and alchemist to that great Protestant Prince, His Highness Augustus, Elector of Saxony, sat somewhat gloomily in the laboratory of his house at Leipsic. It was August, and the sun fell merrily through the diamond panes of the casements on to the dusty and mysterious objects which filled the high and narrow chamber. In one corner stood a large furnace with two ovens, a tripod and pot, and a wide chimney above; on the shelves near, on the ground, and on the fire were all manner of vessels and pots and retorts of glass, of porcelain, and of metal. Near by stood a large quadrant, beautifully engraved, a huge celestial globe swung in a frame of polished ebony, a small telescope of brass and wood, and a little desk or table covered with curious objects such as compasses, a large portion of loadstone, several seals, drawings, diagrams, and charts. The other end of the room was occupied by a large and fine clock of very exact workmanship, and two shelves of rare books and manuscripts in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English, French, German, and High Dutch. Beyond, a door opened into an inner room stored with chemicals, vases, jars, and boxes in considerable confusion. The owner of this apartment was a man in the prime of life, tall and spare, wearing a long, plain, frieze gown and a flat black velvet bonnet, round his neck hung a charm consisting of several Hebrew letters on a fine gold chain; his face was thin, and his expression discontented and weary. He was, indeed, an unsatisfied man; though he held a good position at the Electoral Court, and the Elector never undertook any action without consulting his charts, it was neither in philosophy nor astrology that his interest lay. He was an alchemist, and his life was devoted to the magnum opus—the discovery of the wonderful stone which should heal all diseases, turn all metal to gold fairer than that found in the earth, and confer eternal youth—the secret of secrets of Aristotle, the goal of Hermetic philosophy. He had traversed the greater part of Europe on this quest, and even travelled in the East, gaining much curious knowledge and meeting other Hermetic philosophers, but twenty years of wandering had brought him no nearer his object, and poverty had driven him to his native land and to the protection of the Elector. Within the last few days an experiment which consisted of the combination of the essential mercury, silver, oil of olives, and sulphur—so many times distilled, rectified, dissolved, and fused, that the process had taken three years—had utterly failed in the final projections, and the baffled alchemist was struggling with a despair not unmixed with bitterness, the bitterness of the continued barrenness of his long, earnest, and painful labours. He was roused from his weary, almost apathetic musings by one of his assistants coming to tell him the Elector was below. Vanderlinden rose with a sigh, pulled off his black cap, and went down into the humble parlour where His Highness waited. "The experiment?" asked the Elector, as the philosopher entered his presence. "It has failed, Highness," replied Vanderlinden; he very much disliked discussing with a layman the Great Act, the holy and mysterious science, but could not refuse to do so with the patron who supplied the money for these experiments. To his present relief the Elector made no further comment on the eternal search for the philosopher's stone; he merely shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I did not come to talk of that," he said, "but of the wedding." Vanderlinden repressed a sigh; there was no need to ask whose wedding his master referred to. To all Saxony, nay, to all Germany and the low countries, it was the wedding; it had been in debate for nearly three years, and during that period the Elector had consulted his astrologer so frequently on the likely success, failure, or general results of this union, that he had a whole cabinet of charts and diagrams by which the fortunes of the famous couple had been told according to every possible form of divination, and the chances, good and evil, of the marriage had been expounded in every possible way. Vanderlinden had discussed it, argued it with his master, drawn horoscopes of bride and groom, exhausted his skill in foretelling their future, and, therefore, he was heartily tired of the subject, and his spirits fell when he heard his master again introduce it. He wished the interview over and himself back at his books—he had suddenly recalled that in the works of Raymond Lully he had once seen a good formula for making the famous red and white powder which is the first step towards the stone itself—but he had to conceal his impatience, for the marriage was as important to the Elector as the magnum opus was to the philosopher. "Yes," continued His Highness, "I wish to be further heartened, encouraged, and advised about this marriage." He leant back in his chair and keenly looked at the alchemist. He was a fine knight of great bodily strength and pleasing appearance, his expression and manner conveyed force and dignity and a kind of candid simplicity; he was a strict Protestant according to the Augsburg Confession, and, amid the confusion of creeds that then bewildered men, he stood out clearly as one of the foremost Princes of Germany to defy the Pope and support the Reformed Faith; this was his great, perhaps his only, distinction. "I wish you," he added thoughtfully, "to draw me another chart, and to once more try if the numbers promise good luck or 4 5 6 ill." "Nay," replied Vanderlinden hastily, "I have done all that is possible, Highness; it is but folly to again and again search for an answer to the same question. By no method I tried did I get a result—therefore this marriage will mean confusion, or else the future of it is hid from us." The Elector was not satisfied with this ambiguous answer; he wanted a definite reply from his oracles, a direct announcement from the fates. He sat a little while gloomily, his blunt-featured face overcast, meanwhile the alchemist standing patiently before him, fingering the flat black cap. "You know well enough," remarked the Prince at length, "that if I could send some well-tested augury, some pleasant prophecy to the Landgrave of Hesse, it might overcome some of the bitterness of his opposition." Vanderlinden doubted this; he had himself been sent as an envoy to Cassel with the mission of trying to persuade the old Landgrave to give his consent to this marriage that was so near the Elector's heart, and he had found Philip of Hesse extremely determined and not a little bigoted. He ventured to say as much. "I know," replied the Elector. "He has indeed made such a sturdy opposition that I have been tempted to wish him taken to his rest this last year." "But why does Your Highness still trouble about the obstinacy of the Landgrave Philip when you have decided on the wedding, when the very cakes are being baked, the dresses made, and the groom is already on the road?" asked the alchemist wearily. "I trouble," said His Highness, "because all the responsibility is mine, and it is no light responsibility to wed the daughter of the Elector Maurice to a Papist Prince." Vanderlinden had heard the Elector say this many times before; he certainly thought that this match was about as incongruous as any could well be—an opinion shared by most of the Elector's subjects—for it meant uniting the Lady Anne, daughter of the Great Prince who had checked and humiliated Charles V, with a Romanist noble who had been page to that Emperor and was now high in favour with King Philip, his son; but the alchemist had, as did others, to bow to the reasons, personal and political, which had caused the Elector to urge on this marriage in face of the equally stern opposition of the Romish King of Spain and the Protestant Landgrave of Hesse—the grandfather and part guardian of the bride. He therefore took refuge in a vague answer— "Your Highness has successfully overcome all difficulties, and there is little use in repenting at the last minute——" "I do not repent," interrupted the Elector, rising and frowning, "but I have taken a great deal on myself, and in such matters it is ill to stand alone." The alchemist had no consolation to offer, no advice to give, since both advice and consolation had long ago been exhausted. It seemed, too, mere weakness on the part of the Elector to still be torturing himself with doubts as to the wisdom of a marriage which could not now be prevented. "Have you ready the talisman for the bride?" asked the Elector abruptly. Vanderlinden drew from the pocket of his robe a box-wood case about an inch square, and gave it to his master. The Prince opened it and took out the jewel it contained: this was a triangle of gold to represent the Trinity, inter-clasped by a green enamel serpent, symbol of eternity (since it had its tail in its mouth and therefore neither beginning nor end), in the middle of the convolutions of the reptile was a clear diamond (for purity) set on a little square of virgin gold which bore the Hebrew letters signifying "God Guard Thee." The Elector turned the curious little jewel, which was carefully and beautifully fashioned, about in his strong soldier's fingers and examined it with an air of approval. "God grant," he said, in a tone of sincerity, "that this keep her from Popish errors and follies; but it is difficult for a young maid to stand alone in a foreign country and not follow the ways of it, eh, Vanderlinden?" He placed the little case in the embroidered purse that hung at his waist, gave the alchemist a preoccupied farewell, and left the house with a heavy step and a little click of his long gilded spurs. Vanderlinden waited until he heard the clang of His Highness's horse's hoofs over the cobbles, then he returned to his laboratory. One of his assistants, young Hans Gottman, was leaning from the window watching the departure of the Elector, another was heating over the clear furnace some clay vases sealed with lead. Vanderlinden caught Hans Gottman by the white apron. "Fetch me the manuscripts of Rhasis, Alfarabi and Geber," he said. "They are locked in the chest in the still-room." Young Hans withdrew his head and shoulders from the window. "You know those sages by heart, master," he replied, half in irony, half in flattery. "True," replied Vanderlinden, "but there may be something the meaning of which I have not completely understood, and it is very necessary that we start another experiment at once." 7 8 "The last cost thirteen thousand thalers," remarked the young man doubtfully. The alchemist frowned away this unpleasant truth. "Bring me also," he said, "Le livre de la Philosophie Naturelle des Métaux of Bernard Trévisan, and the works of Raymond Lully." But the young man still lingered; he was more interested in the world about him than in the science of his master. "Did His Highness come about the marriage?" he asked. The alchemist vented on his assistant the impatience he had concealed from the Prince. "Am I never to hear the last of this marriage?" he cried. "I would the maid was wedded and gone, then maybe we should have a little peace in Leipsic." "But it is a wicked thing," cried Hans, "to marry a Princess of the true faith to a Popish noble—a friend of King Philip, a friend of the Bishop of Arras—one who hates the Reformed Religion. I have some right to talk, master, for my father fought under the Elector Maurice against the late Emperor. Who thought then that the only child of the Elector would wed with the minion of the Emperor? A shame and a scandal it is to the country, and His Highness should be above sacrificing a young maid to the idolaters——" Thus grumbling he went into the still-room to search for the manuscripts his master required. The other assistant, a stout young Burgundian, by name Walter de la Barre, had now brought his pots to the right heat and set them aside to cool. He came forward, wiping his hands which were stained with clay and lead. "Did the Elector command you to the feast, Magister?" he asked. "I heard to-day it was to be in the town hall, for the palace is not large enough—and all attending are to bring their own butlers and cooks and plate, and there is to be a three days' tourney——" "Walter! Walter!" interrupted Vanderlinden sternly. "Is it a wonder that your metals will not fuse, your minerals dissolve, that your liquids turn, and your furnaces fall out when your head is full of such idleness as this? "How often have I told you that it is the spirit and not the mind shall conquer in this pursuit of ours? Leave these worldly, silly things and fix your thoughts on the great mystery, the awful secret which God is pleased to withhold from us." The young man flushed, and turned again to his furnace which he was keeping at white heat for the melting of more lead wherewith to seal a further row of pots containing a strange solution with which Vanderlinden was experimenting. Hans returned with the three rolls of manuscript and the book. The alchemist, with a severe injunction to them to keep up the furnace and refrain from idle speech, withdrew to his private chamber in the roof or gables, where he usually meditated and struggled with the problems he discovered in the mystical writings and oblique instructions, veiled hints and tortuous references of the ancient sages and masters. The two young men, as soon as they were alone, at once went to the window and leant out, squeezing themselves together with some difficulty, for the casement was narrow. The furnace made the chamber intolerably hot, and both sighed with relief at the comparative coolness of the summer breeze on their flushed faces. Leipsic—roofs, gables, towers, spires—spread before them, pleasantly glimmering in the gold dust of the heat and softly outlined against the rich blue of the August sky. There was an air of festival, of languor, of midsummer joyousness abroad, the little figures below in the street all looked as if they were making holiday; it seemed as if no one in the city was working, troubling, or grieving. The two youths at the window sighed with contentment, rested the elbows of their stained sleeves on the warm sill, and forgot the furnace, the chemicals, the minerals, and all the materials of the vases, pots, and bottles in the chambers behind them. "If I were a knight," said Hans, "I would offer myself as a champion to the Lady Anne to challenge this Romanist and rescue her from him. What would she be doing now, Walter—weeping perhaps?" "Have you ever seen her?" asked the Burgundian. "Never; she is kept close in the castle, poor soul." "Well, it is a cruel thing," agreed Walter, "to exile a young girl from her home and her faith for some whim of policy no one understands." "Nay, the reason is simple," replied Hans. "If the Lady Anne were to marry a German Prince who might put forward some claims, what of the Elector's position? whereas wedded to a great foreign noble she will give her uncle no trouble at all, at least so said Graf von Gebers to the master the other day, and he added he would not marry his daughter to a Papist to save his head, but then, as I said, the Elector is afraid——If the Lady Anne had been a man she would have had Saxony." "But these great ones," remarked Walter, "they marry regardless of their faith." "As to that," said Hans wisely, "all is confusion. A king will burn at the stake a subject who is of the true faith, yet take a Protestant to wife if it suits him. Who shall explain these great ones? But it is an ill thing," added the young man earnestly, "to ask a man to die for what he believes and then to wed his Princess to one of those who are his executioners. King Philip burns the Protestants whenever the Holy Inquisition can seize them, yet our Protestant Princess is to be wed to the 9 10 11 friend of King Philip!" "A question of policy," said the young Burgundian vaguely. "They always say that—State reasons—policy." "I say it is a cursed marriage and one which God will not bless," returned the Lutheran with some heat. "So declares the old Landgrave Philip," remarked Walter, "but what is the use? And we may as well see the festivities, I hear they are to cost a hundred thousand thalers—and a three days' tourney——" "For the great ones—where will there be a place for you or I?" "Oh, like enough we shall get on behind the rope as well as another. It would be a gracious thing to see the Elector tilt, and the Princess will be there in her grand dress—we must go——" "The furnace!" cried the other with a start. "If we let that out we are not like to see much of the Lady Anne's wedding." They withdrew their heads hastily from the window and applied themselves to the furnace, which was already beginning to turn a dead colour at the outside. While these two young men bent their perspiring faces over the fire that was to be the womb (they hoped) of the philosopher's stone, and discussed the marriage of the Elector's ward, Philip of Spain in the Escorial, Margaret of Parma and the Bishop of Arras in Brussels, the old Landgrave of Hesse in Cassel, the Emperor in Vienna, and the King of France at the Louvre were all occupied, more or less completely, with this same marriage, for the groom was one of King Philip's most important subjects—his father's most intimate page and confidant, and also, in his own right, a person of unusual riches, power, and position, one of the first cavaliers of his age, an extremely popular noble, and a man already, in his first youth, distinguished as soldier and governor; therefore all these rulers and statesmen were so keenly considering his marriage. The name of the bridegroom—a name obnoxious to the Lutherans of Germany as belonging to a great Papist noble—was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. 12 13 W CHAPTER II FRÄULEIN ANNE hen the Elector returned to the palace occupied by the Saxon Court during this stay in Leipsic, he was still engaged in considering the wisdom of this marriage of his ward. He had striven for it during three years, and he had accomplished it in spite of King Philip, in spite of the Landgrave of Hesse, but now, on the eve of success, his heart misgave him. True, there was no possible objection to the marriage from any worldly point of view. Anne of Saxony could not hope for any better match, and so the Elector had always argued. There remained also his strong personal reasons for getting the girl—whose sex alone prevented her from filling his place—out of the country with a husband whose interests did not lie in Germany. But there was always the one fact that troubled the conscience and vexed the repose of Augustus—the fact that had caused the old Landgrave Philip to withhold his consent and only bestow a very chary blessing on his granddaughter— she was to marry a Roman Catholic Prince, a friend of Philip, a one-time favourite of Charles; and the bridegroom's assurances that she should be allowed to practise according to the Augsburg Confession were extremely vague and unsatisfactory—indeed, he had stated that the Lutheran Princess would be expected to 'live Catholicly' when she took up her residence in the dominions of Philip of Spain. However, it was a fine marriage, a brilliant marriage, a marriage eminently convenient to the Elector, and he endeavoured to stifle these late doubts and scruples. As soon as he reached the palace he went in search of his niece that he might at once present her with the protective amulet, which was to preserve her from the snares and lures of Popery. The rooms were overcrowded with people; everywhere was confusion and excitement. No one, from the scullions to the Electress, talked of anything but the wedding; preparations for receiving the guests, the coming and going of armourers, tailors, cooks, confectioners, filled the air with noise and bustle; the stewards and heralds were overwhelmed with work; loud disputes as to the arrangements for the feasts and tourneys echoed in the corridors; the pages and valets were too excited to be useful; and the women did nothing but chatter about clothes. As the Elector made his way through the confusion and thought of the cost of his share in all this elaborate merry-making, he, too, began to be sick of this wedding, to wish it well over and his niece safely in the Netherlands. He found the Lady Anne in the dark, lofty, antechamber of her apartments. Here the confusion of the palace had culminated, the whole room was strewn with dresses, hats, cloaks, and bales of stuff; waiting-women, serving-women, and tailors were running here and there displaying, explaining, and arranging their wares. Near the tall, pointed Gothic window stood a structure of polished wood the shape of a gallows, and on this elegant gibbet hung several brilliantly dressed dolls, swinging by their necks like so many gay little corpses. They were the models showing the bride the completed splendours of some of her bridal gowns, and she stood near them, pulling them out on their strings and examining them; the strong sunlight was over her and them and lying in a pool of gold at her feet. Anne of Saxony, the heroine of this important and long-debated marriage, whose name was now in every one's mouth, and whose approaching union to a Papist noble had roused the compassionate chivalry of others beside Vanderlinden's two apprentices, was now sixteen years of age. Being the sole child of the great Elector Maurice, she would, if a boy, have been in the place her uncle now held. Connected by her mother's side with the Hesses, she was of the finest blood in Germany, and numbered most of the great families among her kinsmen; and her early orphanage, her high rank, the glory of her father's fame, and this famous marriage project had made of her a heroine in the eyes of Lutheran Germany. The maiden who stood turning over the dressmaker's dolls looked, however, far from a heroine of any manner of romance. She was of medium height, and her whole body was twisted, crooked in shoulder and hip; when she walked she halted in the fashion known in her country as the devil's limp; her figure was thin, undeveloped; her face pale, her features commonplace, save for the mouth, which was abnormally wide and loose though closed with a certain firmness; her eyes were light, large, and expressive; her hair dull, between brown and flaxen, and growing in a straight ugly fashion from her high brows. In her whole person there was not one charm nor grace, ill-health had robbed her even of the bloom of her early youth, nor did her manners or her expression compensate for her defects; her gestures were awkward and ungraceful, her voice shrill, and her look conveyed the utmost arrogance and unbridled temper. She was indeed both so unattractive and so unamiable, that the Elector had used her defects with the Landgrave as an argument to induce him to consent to her marriage. "There will not be too many suitors for one crooked in mind and body," he had said, and, looking at her now as she stood eagerly snatching at the swinging dolls, his scruples and regrets at having found her a Papist husband banished in satisfaction at having found her any husband at all. "Gracious uncle," said Anne, giving him a quick glance, "I am very much occupied." Augustus took no notice of this rebuke, he was used to her curtness. She considered herself his superior, and her 14 15 16 haughtiness, her tempers, and her unreasonableness had often caused the Electress to beseech her husband to hasten, at any cost, the marriage which would relieve them of her. "I have brought you the jewel which Vanderlinden made for you," he said, and held out the little box-wood case. Anne turned from the dolls and came forward with some interest. She wore a long gown of tawny coloured cloth, and a white lawn wimple; the heaviness of her attire added to her years but hardly disguised her deformity. She took the jewel-case with hands that trembled a little, her lips were dry, her eyes bright, in her cheeks an unusual flush showed; excitement burnt her like a fever, her whole poor distorted body was quivering. The Elector saw this, and a strange sort of pity for his brother's only child touched him; after all she was but a girl, and this was three days before her wedding. "Dear niece," he said, putting his great hand gently on her crooked shoulder, "may that amulet preserve your faith pure in the strange land and keep you safe in body and spirit." Anne laughed affectedly and gazed critically at the jewel in her palm. "It is not very beautiful," she remarked. "It is very potent, and I hope you will always wear it," replied her uncle anxiously. "And every time you look at it, remember you were born and bred in the Reformed Faith." "As to that," said Anne, "His Highness himself said I was to read Amadis de Gaul and play the lute and enjoy such diversions as were fitted to one of my station, and not trouble my head about matters of religion." Anne had often quoted this remark of her future husband, and the Elector frowned to hear it again on her lips. "The Prince spoke as a man to a child," he returned, "but you are no longer a child and cannot reason as one. His Highness has promised to respect your faith, and you must respect it also in heart and in spirit, Anne." The girl carelessly placed the amulet round her neck. "Oh, I shall do very well, dear uncle," she replied. "I am quite content to trust to His Highness." "But it is you yourself who must keep the faith alive within you when in the midst of idolaters," said the Lutheran Prince sternly. "You speak like Grandfather Hesse!" cried the girl peevishly. "I believe you regret my marriage already, but, as I wrote His Highness, God wills it, and the Devil shall not hinder it!" His frown deepened and a flush of anger mounted to his cheek. "I shall regret it if you behave like a wilful child, dear niece." "I have put on your amulet," returned Anne ungraciously. "What else would you? And my serving-women wait——" "I shall not keep you from them," interrupted the Elector, "but remember that there are more serious matters than gowns and chains appertaining to this marriage." With that he turned away, for he saw that to argue further with the bride was useless, since her natural pride and vanity had been augmented past reason by the excitement and importance of her present position. Anne was, indeed, almost beside herself. For three years she had been bent on this marriage with all the passion of which she was capable. She wanted her freedom, she wanted increased grandeur, she wanted the enjoyments of the gay court of Brussels—of which she had heard so much—and she believed herself violently enamoured of the gorgeous cavalier whom she had seen once on the occasion of his visit to Dresden and who was to be her husband. She watched with pleasure the departure of her uncle, and impatiently called the tailor who was responsible for the dolls. She had some fault to find with each of them: one model had the skirt too long, in another the colour was hideous, the gold lacing of a third did not please her. These objections were taken at random, for she was far too overwrought to consider or even notice the details of the beautiful little dresses. When the man had bowed himself out with his small gallows full of puppets, Anne sank into one of the deep chairs of blue- and-yellow velvet; her back ached from standing, her head throbbed, her heavy gown dragged at her shoulders, she had not slept for several nights and her whole feeble body was fatigued, but she would spare neither herself nor those who had to please her humour. Gowns, petticoats, mantles, caps, hoods, gloves, shoes, jewels, every ornament or trinket luxury could devise was brought before her for her inspection. She had been most extravagant in her purchases, and it was already said that when her debts and the feasts had been paid, there would not be anything left of the hundred thousand thalers that formed her dowry. Her thin, feverish fingers handled the brocades and velvets, the silks and lawns, the girdles and chains with a kind of eager energy, as if these things were so many weapons she was piling up against fate. And so unconsciously she regarded them, she meant to be the grandest lady at the Court of the Regent; her whole small soul was centred on this childish ambition and had no room for any other emotion save a fierce, jealous, but inchoate desire that her brilliant husband should love her. She thought all this bravery would help her accomplish both ends, and therefore devoted all her passionate interest to these splendours of silvered silk, Venetian velvet, cloaks of miniver and red fox, skirts of many coloured brocade, doeskin fringed gloves and shoes sewn with gold thread. 17 18 19 At last her weakness could endure no more; with an hysteric petulance that bordered on tears she dismissed every one, and, taking the arm of her favourite waiting-woman, she limped through the bowing ranks of tailors, jewellers, and sewing- maids into her inner and private chamber. There she dropped into the cushion-piled chair near the window that stood open on the sunshine, and so sat, looking huddled and dwarfish, her right hand, sparkling with the hard brilliance of an emerald ring, supporting her aching head, her feet resting on a great footstool, her knees drawn up. The waiting-woman stood at the end of the huge crimson-curtained bed, waiting the pleasure of her mistress. She was a tall girl, subdued, quiet, patient—qualities to which she owned the dangerous favour of capricious Anne's preference. Her father had served under the Elector Maurice, but returning to his native city, Ghent in the Netherlands, he had been executed as a heretic under the rule of the late Regent, and his entire property confiscated. His wife had fled with her child to the Saxon Court, where she had soon after died of her miseries, leaving her daughter under the protection of the Electress. Such was the short, sad experience of Rénèe le Meung, which had left her reliant, reserved, self-effacing, humble, but passionately attached to the faith for which her parents and her happiness had been sacrificed, and of an earnest gravity beyond her years. She endured the whims and caprices, the tempers and tyrannies of Anne with more than the usual submission of the dependant, and her lack of vanity and her indifference made her a foil that was precious to the arrogance of her mistress. Rénèe was beautiful with the opulent beauty of her country, but she ignored it, and she had no lover, so Anne was content to ignore it too. Besides, her own vanity was too great for her to be aware how her own unattractiveness was heightened by the loveliness of the graceful Fleming, with her crimson-brown hair and eyes, her rose complexion, her white skin, and exact features, though she was so plain in her dress, so grave in her manner, so always and completely in the background that many besides her mistress might have discounted this beauty that lacked all flash and allure. As she stood now, outwardly patiently at attention, her thoughts were far away, returning, as always, to the dear past when she had had a home and those who loved her, the times when she had heard her father laugh, her mother sing, when she had herself been full of life and hope and all pleasantness; her present situation, that of an exile employed by charity, she forgot—she seemed for a moment free, as she had once been behind the loved walls of Ghent—— "Rénèe," said Anne, opening her eyes, "the Prince wrote to know what my colours were. When he enters Leipsic he will have a thousand knights and gentlemen with him—is it not magnificent?" The waiting-woman closed her thoughts. "Indeed, Your Grace is very fortunate," she answered quietly, taking up her wearisome part of confidante. She endured Anne's futile vanities not so much from good humour as from sheer indifference; her disinterest in her present life was her surest buckler against what she had to endure. "He is indeed a very splendid cavalier," said Anne, with vast satisfaction, "and he made me such fine speeches and compliments. I wish you had seen him when he came to Dresden, but you will soon see him now. And I am higher born than he, for he is only a Count in Germany. Yet he is a sovereign Prince too, and I shall give way to no one at the Court of Brussels. Is it not all very pleasant?" So the girl chattered on in her shrill, high voice, and the waiting-woman dutifully assented to all she said; but Rénèe's calm, Rénèe's self-effacement, usually so grateful to Anne, to-day offended her. She wanted a more human interest shown in her affairs, some excitement, some envy, some jealousy. "You talk as if you were sick!" she cried fretfully. "Do you not care at all about my wedding?" Rénèe flushed at the rare personal address; it was seldom Anne spoke to her as to another human being. "Of course I care," she answered gravely, "but how can I comment on matters so much above me?" Anne was mollified. "Would you not like a husband, rich and handsome?" she asked, trying to provoke the flattery of the other's envy. "I?" asked Rénèe, in genuine surprise. "Who will ever marry me?" Anne smiled. "Perhaps some day I shall find some one for you. How old are you?" "Twenty-five, Your Grace." "That is not very young! Nearly ten years older than I am! Is it not very fine to be married at sixteen? Would you not like to be married soon?" "I would never marry any but a Lutheran," replied Rénèe calmly. Anne flushed, and her bright eyes flashed with amazing fury. "Ah! You, too, dare to blame me because the Prince is a Papist!" she exclaimed. "Nay," said Rénèe gently. "I know there are reasons of State." 20 21 22 "Reasons of State?" shrieked Anne. "I love him and he loves me! You are jealous because you will never have such a knight!" "Never, truly," replied the waiting-woman with undiminished sweetness. "It is only great ladies like Your Grace who can wed with such as the Prince of Orange." "You would not marry save with a Lutheran," said Anne. "Then you would not marry the Prince?" "That is a jest—to suppose such a thing." "Ay, but would you?" insisted Anne. Rénèe's native courage and honesty flashed through her long reserve, her self-effacement. "I would not wed with a Papist were he the Emperor himself," she replied firmly. "You proud hard creature!" cried Anne, vexed to tears. "But it is all a lie—a jealous lie, you would wed the first Papist who asked you." Rénèe was silent. "Wait until you see the Prince," insisted Anne childishly. "There is no one like him—no one." "So I have always heard," said Rénèe sincerely. "Did you ever see his first wife?" asked Anne abruptly. "Was she pretty? Did he care for her?" "I never saw the first Princess, Your Grace. They were very young when they married, and she died very soon." "Well, I am sure he has forgotten her. If you are so afraid of the Papists and hate them so, why do you come with me to Brussels?" she added maliciously. The bitter truth, "I must go where I can earn my bread," rose to Rénèe's lips, but she suppressed it and merely replied, "I am not afraid of any one corrupting my faith, Your Grace, and I shall be with a Protestant mistress." "I suppose you would rather stay here," said Anne, "if you could find some Lutheran to marry, but you are not very young and you have red hair, therefore you must make the best of it and come to Brussels." Rénèe was absolutely unmoved by her mistress's rudeness; she hardly heard the words. "Have you any relations in Brussels?" asked Anne. "No," replied the waiting-woman, "nor any in the Netherlands. I think—we are all scattered—wandering, or still for ever in the grave;" then quickly changing a subject on which she had been betrayed into speaking with feeling, she asked, "Has His Grace's alchemist's experiment succeeded? It was to be known whether or no this week." "The Elector said nothing to me of it," replied Anne fretfully. "He gave me a silly little jewel Vanderlinden made. Of course the experiment has failed." "Poor alchemist!" said Rénèe. A vast pity for all endeavour, all disappointment, was now her strongest feeling; the grief of others had more power to move her than her own distress. Anne began to moan that her head was aching beyond bearing; she indeed looked ill. There was something tragic in her frailty and her excitement, her deformity and her vanity. Rénèe went to fetch the sweet wine and comfits for which she called and which were her usual medicine; as always, she drank greedily and soon fell heavily asleep. The waiting-woman put back the engraved silver plate and tankard on the black sideboard, and crept softly to the window where the August sun might fall on her face. She turned her full gentle eyes with a great pity on the wretched little figure of her mistress, whose thin hands were nervously twitching, even in her sleep. What could this marriage promise?—the groom one of King Philip's courtiers, worldly, handsome, able; the bride this miserable, fretful, ignorant child, mad with vanity, sick with excitement, diseased in body, unbalanced in mind. Rénèe, who knew Anne as few did, was almost sorry for the Papist Prince who could not know her at all. "And for such a union they rejoice and dance and hold their jousts!" thought the waiting-woman wearily. She gazed out into the sunny air, it was near late afternoon and very peaceful. Rénèe did not see the towers of Leipsic; her mind spread the world before her like a great map painted with bright pictures —great tyrants slaughtering, burning, oppressing; poor people flying homeless, dying unnoticed—everywhere wrong, violence, cruelty—and no one to rise against it, no one to defy such a man as King Philip. Every one was for himself, his private gain; even the Protestant Princes of Germany who had stood for the faith of Martin Luther, they put their own convenience first, as in this marriage which the Elector had urged forward for his personal interest. There was a Protestant monarch on the throne of England, but she remained friendly with Catholic potentates and raised no finger to help those of her faith so horribly persecuted. "Always policy, ambition, self-seeking," thought Rénèe wearily. "Is there not one in all the world would stand for his God, his country only? Not one to be the champion of liberty of faith?" 23 24 Not one, she believed; they kept the gaudy show of chivalry in the tourneys and jousts, but the spirit of it was long since lost. There were no more knights, there was no one to stand forward for the weak and the miserable, the humble and the helpless; the Reformed Faith had produced saints and martyrs but not yet a champion or a protector. "They all bow to circumstance, these great princes and nobles," thought Rénèe; "there is not one of them who would endanger the tenth part of his possessions for the cause of the poor Protestants, for liberty, for country—not one." She leant her sick head against the mullions and closed her eyes; life seemed so long, so futile, the world so wrong, so ugly. "There have been heroes," the eternal romance of youth whispered in her heart. "Why should not one come now when he is so needed, ah, so sorely needed?" She opened her eyes on the sun, on the hot, silent city with the languorous air of festival and holiday. "If I ever met such an one, or knew of him, how I would worship him!" Love she never thought of; she did not believe that it was possible for her to ever love, but she knew that she would gladly die for one who would champion her persecuted faith, her oppressed country—very gladly die, or live, in happy abnegation in his service. The clock struck six; the tire-women entered to rouse Anne and dress her for supper; it was René's one time of freedom. She hastened away before her mistress's peevish caprice should have decided to detain her, and went forth into the clean, bright streets. 25 26 L CHAPTER III LOUIS OF NASSAU eipsic was unfamiliar to Rénèe le Meung, she did not know where the sunny streets she chose would lead her, but as she knew no one and had no object in her walk, this did not trouble her. She walked slowly, enjoying the sun, which was the only thing left her to enjoy. She did not seem a lady of the court, so simple and even poor was her dark green kirtle and mantle, so unpretentious her whole appearance; even if she had wished to follow some degree of fashion she was unable to, for her sole resource was what was given her as waiting-woman to the Elector's niece, and that was little enough. But she was utterly unconscious of her plainness of attire as she walked unnoticed by the hurrying crowd that now and then pushed her against the wall or the street posts in their haste. Every one was full of the wedding and the subsequent festivities; the name of Anne and of her groom was on every lip; there seemed no room in Leipsic for anything but rejoicing. The air of gaiety, of idleness, and holiday was accentuated by the great glory of the late afternoon sun which filled the air with golden motes, blazed in golden flame in the casement windows, gleamed on the weathercocks, and filled the upper boughs of the elms and chestnuts in the squares and gardens. As Rénèe was turning into one of these squares she met the Elector's alchemist walking thoughtfully under the shade of the trees with a small brass-covered book in his hand. She would have passed and left him to his meditations, but he chanced to see her and instantly paused and saluted her. He had a kindness for her; she had always been gentle and interested in his work when they had chanced to meet. "This may remind you," he said, holding out the little volume, "of that wonderful Book given by a Jew to the great Nicolas Flamel by which he finally discovered the secret of secrets. Does he not describe it as with brass covers, leaves of bark engraved with an iron pencil, and symbolic pictures finely coloured?" "And he discovered the stone?" asked Rénèe. "Ay," answered Vanderlinden wistfully, "and in evidence of it may be seen his statue to this day in Paris, together with fourteen churches and seven hospitals that he founded with the gold he manufactured." "And the secret died with him?" "He disclosed it to no one," admitted the alchemist. "I bought this book in memory of his—it cost but two florins and I doubt it is worth more." He put the book under his arm and asked Rénèe if she would see his house, which was but a few yards away; he had taken, he said, for his stay in Leipsic, the dwelling of another alchemistral philosopher who had lately gone travelling; this man had had a shop for perfumery, soaps, and engraved gems which he—Vanderlinden—was continuing to hold open, and where he did some little trade among those gathered in Leipsic for the wedding. "I would rather have stayed in Dresden," he added, "and concluded my experiment there, but His Princely Grace insisting on my coming hither, though not paying my expenses of the road, so I am obliged to make what I can with these washes and unguents." "I am sorry the experiment failed," said Rénèe gently. The occupation of the alchemist seemed to her more worthy than that of most other men; at least he had set his aim high, and was searching for what would benefit mankind as much as it would himself. "Perhaps the next may succeed," answered the alchemist diffidently, "but I doubt if God hath reserved this great honour for me—this high favour." They turned towards the house, which was situated at the corner of the square, and entered the shop—a room which was opposite the parlour where Vanderlinden had received the Elector. This room faced west, and the full light of the setting sun poured through the broad low window on to the shelves where stood the pots, bottles, cases, boxes, vases containing the alchemist's wares, and on to the long smooth counter where the glittering scales gleamed, and where two men were leaning over a tray of engraved gems such as are used for signet rings. He behind the counter was the alchemist's foremost assistant, the companion of all his wanderings, and the sharer of his fortunes—a lean, silent Frenchman, named Duprès, who was a noted spirit raiser, and possessed a mother-of-pearl table on which he could bring the angels to discourse with him, and a tablet of polished jet in which he could foresee future events. He was now engaged in holding a violet stone, clear and pure as crystal and engraved with the first labour of Hercules, against the strong sunlight, which flashed through it, giving a glorious strength of colour to the little square gem. The customer was a young cavalier, not much over twenty, splendidly vested in black velvet cross cut over stiff white satin; a cloak of orange cloth hung from one shoulder, fastened across the breast with cords of gold, three ruffs encircled his throat, the topmost or master ruff being edged with silver lace and touching his ears. His appearance was singularly charming; though rather below the average height, he was extremely graceful, and he carried his small, well-shaped head with the noble carriage of a fine stag; his features were aristocratic and aquiline, and expressed 27 28 29