Ami Berthelier had gone forth from Geneva a solitary, broken man, sad and bitter of heart, and well-nigh friendless. It was a striking proof of his isolation that, in the city of his birth, where everyone knew everyone else, and bonds both of kindred and association were so closely drawn, he had no one to whom he could turn when he happened to need a loan of moderate amount. He had to apply to his own proscribed and exiled kinsmen; and even that very application might well have seemed to his fellow-citizens an offense, and a proof of complicity in treasonable designs.
Moreover, it had failed; he was coming back wounded in body and in soul. He had endured mockery, insult, violence even, from those who bore his name, and whose fathers were the friends and companions of his youth. Yet, strange to say, his return was a triumph. The men of Geneva, — hot of heart, prompt to reward friends or to punish foes, and never doing either by halves — took a strong view of the service he had rendered them. Every one present at the Great Council believed that Master Berthelier had discovered an infamous plot of the Libertines, and sent information of it to the city, which was true; but the majority believed also that he had gone to Pregny and obtained the confidence of his cousin for that very purpose, which was not true, but added by romance as the story passed from lip to lip. Therefore, when that evening the stout guard, sent by the syndics, brought home the wounded citizen by way of the Porte de Rive, the whole population of the Rue de Rive and the other streets through which he had to pass, turned out to bid him welcome and to do him honor. Applauding shouts and cries filled the air. “Long live all good citizens!”
“Long live a Berthelier who has a true heart to Geneva!”
“God send you health and cure, good Master Berthelier; you have redeemed the old name.” Sometimes, indeed, it was not “good Master Berthelier,” but “spectable Master Ami Berthelier,” and there were voices which gave him higher honor still, hailing him as “Egrège Ami Berthelier,” for with the Genevans of the sixteenth century, “Egregious” was a title of singular honor.
As he was crossing the Pont Pâti, with its high houses on either side, a dark-robed figure, not tall, but with the air of one accustomed to command,” came forth from a house. There was a murmur of reverence and a doffing of caps, for it was Master John Calvin. At a sign from him the bearers of the litter stopped, and the crowd made way. Berthelier, looking white and very weary, tried to raise himself, but Calvin stayed him by a gesture, and with grave courtesy wished him health and cure. Then, solemnly raising his hand, he pronounced over him the words of ancient benediction which had sounded first over the embattled hosts of Israel. It was the first time those two had met face to face. Ami Berthelier said softly, “Amen.” The great man turned to go, and as he did so he raised his eyes and fixed them on Norbert, who was riding close to the litter. Lower and lower the boy’s head drooped beneath that piercing, penetrating gaze; he only wished his whole body could sink with it, off the horse, through the bridge, down into the water beneath. And yet Master Calvin did him no harm; to his intense relief, he did not even speak to him.
At last Berthelier came to his own door, where De Caulaincourt, Antoine Calvin and two of his sons, stood ready with the help of their strong arms to lay him in his own bed. But Gabrielle’s bright face was his best welcome. Claudine stood beside her, for the news of his coming had lent her strength to rise and meet him at the door. Marguerite only did not greet her master, she was too busy assisting and directing the bearers, and showing them the way to the chamber she had made ready. She scarcely spoke, or even seemed to look at him, until at last he was comfortably laid on the soft feather bed, with its fine and snowy linen, which she had so carefully prepared. Then she went out, and said to Sister Claudine, “Damoiselle, you must get well quickly. He cannot spare you yet. But he will not need you long.”
“Then you think — ” Claudine faltered.
“I think nothing. The time for thinking will come soon enough. It is now the time for doing and praying, my damoiselle. Be very earnest with the Lord, that He may reveal Himself to Master Berthelier.”
Marguerite desiring the prayers of a Catholic! That indeed was a wonder. Before that morning she could not have done it; perhaps she would not have done it now, if there had been time to think. But what would become of us all if we were not sometimes happily inconsistent?
“Of a surety I pray for my brother,” Claudine answered; “and moreover he has done a good deed in separating himself from his ungodly kinsfolk, and revealing their plots.”
“All our good deeds are but filthy rags,” returned Marguerite, who was nothing if not polemical. “But there — he is calling.”
What Berthelier wanted was, that she should ask M. de Caulaincourt to come to him for a few moments. So weak and ill did he seem that she hesitated, fearing the exertion would be too much for him — yet she could not find it in her heart to deny him anything. Presently the two friends were looking into each other’s eyes, and exchanging the strong hand-grasp man gives to man when he trusts him from the bottom of his soul.
“I cannot forget, while I live, or after it,” said De Caulaincourt, “that for my sake you offered up your one ewe lamb.”
“And for her sake,” Berthelier answered, “your son offered up his life. That neither sacrifice was demanded was not their doing or ours. “But monsieur my friend, I have sent for you — seeing I am like to grow fevered, and my mind may wander — to tell you, whilst yet I am myself, that in that hovel by the wayside I met — a Friend of yours.”
“What friend? Some Savoyard to whom I spoke of the Gospel ere the prior’s men laid hold on me?”
“No. Not one you helped, but One who helps you. One you have often urged me to seek. But I did not understand.”
De Caulaincourt understood now, and his face lit up with strange and sudden joy. “O God, I thank Thee!” he said.
But Berthelier had to say, “Now go, my friend, for I am very weary, and I fain would sleep. Thank that brave boy of yours for me. I think that when he grows to be a, man he will put us all to shame. Goodnight; God be with thee and him.”
The next day, and for many days after, little was thought of in Geneva save the trial and condemnation of Daniel Berthelier and his accomplices. Ami Berthelier’s fresh evidence made an absolute end of all hope for them, little as there had been without it. In vain the aged and venerable mother of Daniel Berthelier came to Geneva, to implore upon her knees the life of her son, for the sake of his martyred father. The council was inexorable; he was doomed to the scaffold, with three of the most guilty of his associates. Philibert Berthelier, Ami Perrin and the other expatriated Libertines were condemned to perpetual banishment, and their accomplices to minor penalties.
This crisis in the fate of the city diverted general attention from the affair of Gabrielle and the Count of Lormayeur; although in some quarters a good deal of apprehension was felt about the retribution the irascible Savoyard would inflict for what was an undeniable, though on the part of the citizens an unintentional, cheat.
“You had better take care,” said Ami Berthelier to Syndic Aubert, who visited him in his private capacity of a well-skilled apothecary. “Ere you can look about you, the old count will be thundering at our gates, and cursing us by all his gods.”
“What can he do,” said Aubert, “that he has not been doing for twenty years? Whatever he does, you may make your mind easy, for we will not go about the second time to give him the girl.”
“No. But we ought to pay the ransom of the prisoners in good Geneva crowns, like honorable men.”
Aubert did not see matters exactly in this light; but he held his peace, unwilling to excite his patient by an argument. There was reason for his caution, for Berthelier was very ill. As time passed on there was no improvement, but the contrary. Inflammation of the wound set in, bringing with it a constant fever, which, though it never ran very high, never quite left him, and gradually exhausted his small reserve of strength. All that the tenderest care could do for him was done. Marguerite and Gabrielle nursed him devotedly, aided by Sister Claudine as far as her strength permitted. The best medical skill of the town was at his command. Benoit Dexter, Calvin’s own physician and devoted friend, was in constant attendance, and often took counsel with his colleagues. Aubert supplied the medicines, which were much more severe, and given in much larger quantities than would now be tolerated.
Often his mind wandered, and his unconscious utterances showed his bitter sense of isolation, on the one hand from the mass of his fellow-citizens, on the other, from his own relatives and early friends. One thing which gave him keen distress was the refusal of Dame Amblarde Berthelier, while in Geneva, to see him, since she looked upon him as the betrayer of her sons.
“Do not grieve over this,” had De Caulaincourt said to him. “You have now every man in Geneva for your friend.”
It was no wonder, when the Genevans had so much to think of, that the affairs of a person so unimportant as Norbert de Caulaincourt should stand over indefinitely. He was “bound over” to appear when called upon, but otherwise not interfered with. By his father’s desire he resumed his attendance at school. It did him no good. He had never accommodated himself very well to “the trivial round, the common task” of the schoolboy, and the taste he had had of peril and adventure completed his disdain, not to say his detestation. He did little, and probably would have done nothing at all, but for his determination to avoid punishment. He felt and considered himself a man, though he sometimes behaved like a froward child.
It was his greatest grievance that Gabrielle, more than anyone else, made him feel that she thought him a child. He had meant to be, and had considered himself, all through his strange adventure for Gabrielle’s sake, thoroughly loyal to Louis de Marsac. Yet all the while there had slipped into his heart an unbidden, unacknowledged hope that he would be a hero in the eyes of Gabrielle — and who knew what might happen next?
But instead of being a hero, a knight-errant, a victorious paladin, he found himself regarded as a brave boy, a kind, unselfish young brother, who had cared for her and helped her as a brother might. In the sixteenth century, far more than now, a boy was a child until, early enough indeed, he became a man. Perhaps it was not wonderful that Norbert resented being sent back to the slate, the satchel, and the rod, after personating fair ladies and confronting Savoyard knights in their own domains.
At last a gleam of notoriety came to him, but in a form with which he could very well have dispensed. His affair had been relegated to, the consistory, which had in charge, as well as the religion, the manners and morals of the community. For a while that reverend body had abundant occupation in dealing with the condemned Libertines and arranging their concerns; but at last it found time, in a kind of parenthesis, to remember young Norbert de Caulaincourt, not greatly to his advantage.
The syndics were always represented at the consistory by one of their number, who happened at this time to be Aubert. On the day Norbert’s affair came up he visited Berthelier, and brought the news to De Caulaincourt, whom he told with his friend.
You may as well be prepared,” he said (not, however, in the chamber of Berthelier), though I do not think, for my own part, anything serious will come of it. In fact, I know to the contrary. Pastor Michel Cop introduced the matter, saying that the young man Norbert de Caulaincourt ought to be severely punished, both for his own amendment and as an example to others. Though as to the latter, I do not see much reason, as no one else is like to do the same trick, there being no incitement thereto. Most of those present agreed with him, the lay elders dwelling much on the fact that he had brought the honorable council, and the whole city, into contempt, making them appear as parties to a fraud and imposture. But the pastors — three at least out of the five who were present — insisted warmly that this was not the worst of the young man’s offenses. He was guilty of a manifest breach of the Law of God, as given us in Holy Scripture — and plainly written in the fifth book of Moses, commonly called Deuteronomy, and the two and twentieth chapter of the same, — concerning the garments made and appropriated to the use respectively of the man and of the woman.”
“That never for one moment occurred to me,” said De Caulaincourt, dismayed. Then, after a pause, “But go on, Master Syndic. Was there no one to take the part of the poor boy, and suggest that, if he sinned, it was done in ignorance?”
“I did. I ventured to observe that in all probability the young man had never even heard of the prohibition, so far from intending to disregard it. But the pastors insisted that he ought to have heard of it, and one of them made bold to add that you, sir, should have taught him better.”
“Perhaps I ought,” admitted De Caulaincourt, humbly. “Though I never dreamed of his taking such a thing into his head, so how could I think of forbidding him?”
Aubert went on. “There followed a lively discussion. The pastors — I mean the three of them who took part in it — thought this the worst of your son’s misdoings, and some of the laymen agreed with them; but the major part opined that the contempt of the council, and the hurt done to the honor of the city, was a more serious affair. But at length all agreed that he should make the amende honorable bareheaded and barefooted, in the apparel of a penitent and carrying a lighted candle, and thus beg pardon of God Almighty, of the honorable council, and of the citizens in general, for the harm and scandal he had caused.”
De Caulaincourt grew visibly pale. This was terrible! Norbert would never endure it. He would run away, he would kill himself even — anything to avoid the disgrace. He scarcely heard Aubert’s words, as he added that some were for giving him in addition a term of imprisonment. “I will go to them myself; I will plead for mercy,” he said.
“Well — no, Monsieur de Caulaincourt. Such a step as that will not, in my opinion, be necessary, because of an intervention, to all of us who were present very unexpected. Master Calvin, who during all the time had sat in silence, as one whose thoughts were elsewhere, suddenly took up the word. “There hath been too much ado about this matter, to my thinking,” he said. “Certes, the boy hath done wrong; still, it is but a boy’s offense, more meet for fatherly rebuke and chastisement than for public process of judgment. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the maiden hath been saved.” Master Calvin’s words of course commanded a respectful hearing, and most of those present went with him. One layman, however — but I will not divulge his name, lest it should injure him in his business — was malapert enough to say that Master Calvin had good reason for not bearing hard upon young Caulaincourt, since his own brother was mixed up with the matter. Two or three others made bold to agree with him, and to say that the conduct of Master Antoine Calvin required investigation. To these things Master Calvin made no answer, as his use and wont is with regard to personal accusations. But Pastor Abel Poupin spoke out, saying that Antoine Calvin was like unto the men that followed Absalom in their simplicity, for he knew nothing of the plan. There were a few gibes, not ill-natured, at that same simplicity of Master Antoine’s, who certainly has not got his brother’s keen eyes in that honest head of his. And I ventured to remind the consistory that my own colleague, respectable Master Come, had been deceived also, and led into swearing falsely. Then Master Poupin went on to say, that the Count of Lormayeur ought to receive from the city the fair ransom, in gold or silver, of the three captives, out of which he had undoubtedly been cheated. As saith the Holy Scripture, “Provide things honest in the sight of all men!”
“But my son! “interrupted De Caulaincourt, anxiously. “Tell me, I pray thee, what is determined concerning him?”
“I am coming to him. But I must explain first that respectable Master Baudichon, of Maisonneuve, who is kin to one of the prisoners, took up seriously the subject of the ransom, offering to open his own purse, unto which, to do him justice, he is ever ready. Then said that skilled doctor and good friend of mine, Benoit Dexter — and “twas the first word we heard from him: “But what about young De Caulaincourt?” Meanwhile most of us were thinking of our dinners, for it was past eleven of the clock. “I own I was sharp-set myself, for my morning soup I could not drink. Our cook is in distraction about her betrothed, a fisherman who took part in the riots, and is like to suffer for it, so she emptied the salt-box into the pot all feu.”
De Caulaincourt’s impatience at these irrelevant details nearly overcame his courtesy, but, mastering himself with a strong effort, he only asked: “What then did they do?” Some said one thing, and some another. But Master Calvin cut short the debate, and — I doubt not to every one’s relief — settled the matter in a few words. “It is not well,” he said, “to give this thing public importance and notoriety. As I have observed before, it calls rather for private admonition, with fatherly rebuke and correction, which, if our brethren here present so desire, I am willing myself to administer. With the leave of the honorable consistory, I will undertake so to deal with the young man that he shall truly humble himself, ask forgiveness for his transgression, and promise to observe for the future the laws of the commonwealth, and the Commandments of Holy Scripture.” That was his purport, though I cannot stand over each of the words, as to their order and fashion. All agreed to leave the matter in his hands, — and there, Monsieur de Caulaincourt, it rests at this present. Your son will get off with a lecture from Master Calvin, and a promise of modest and orderly behavior for the future. And allow me to say that I think he is very fortunate.”
De Caulaincourt thought so too; but Norbert, when told what had passed, did not at all share his opinion.