Thou sendest forth, and dost not spare
Thy best to meet the tyrant’s worst,
Thou sowest lives for seed of life —
Oh, starry stern through all despair.
Where is thine anguish in the strife?”
H. Hamilton King.
Almost all that Norbert remembered afterward of the rest of that gloomy winter was the cold — cold within and cold without. In the dark, every morning, before the church clock struck six, he rose from his truckle bed, and threw on his clothes, which might with advantage have been warmer. Then he hurried to the kitchen, took his morning soup with the rest, and received from Mistress Calvin a piece of bread, with a slice of cheese or a handful of figs or raisins, for the gouté or luncheon eaten by the scholars in class while they studied their lessons. Book and tablet in hand, he hastened through the dark streets, exchanging with his school-fellows remarks and greetings, which were bound to be in Latin, though its quality was very indifferent. When he reached the school, he took his place in the great, bare, dimly-lighted hall, and stood or knelt at the opening exercises, shivering with cold, and casting rueful glances toward the place Louis de Marsac used to occupy. In the lessons and recitations which followed — mainly in Greek and Latin, which were admirably taught — his interest was absolutely nil. But, having a good memory, and what were called “excellent parts,” he always contrived to know enough to pass muster and escape punishment. There was an interval of two hours for dinner and recreation, then an hour of sacred music, which he, liked. At four o”clock all the classes, assembled in the great hall, where three of the scholars in turn recited the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in French, the principal pronounced the Benediction, and everyone went home — Norbert all the more gladly when his father chanced to be there. Wednesdays and Saturdays were half-holidays, though Norbert thought the former dearly bought by having to attend a long sermon at the cathedral. Most of his spare time he gave willingly to manly sports and exercises on the Plain-palais. Here he won far more praise than he did in the school. Though small for his age, and remarkably childish in appearance, he was strong and dexterous, and “soon learned to handle with skill the arbalist or cross-bow, and the arquebus.
His father’s influence only excepted (and his father was constantly absent), everything at this time contributed to harden him. He had lost the friend and comrade whom he looked up to and admired, and who, without any assumption of superiority, had contrived to keep him within the bounds of good and orderly behavior. At the same time he had lost his cherished dream, his one private and particular ray of romance, which lit up the dark, waste places of his daily life. For it never even occurred to him that he might be false to his friend, or dispute with him the prize they both desired. Louis was the best man; and of course the best man must win. It was just his luck, and he must put up with it. Here, in this cold, gloomy, joyless Geneva, everything went against him. How he hated it; how earnestly he wished himself back in La Belle “France! Had he but the good fortune to have stayed there and finished his education, then he might have gone to Paris, seen the king and the court, danced at balls and masquerades, fought in the king’s wars, and won renown and glory. Well-perhaps, one day. Who could tell?
When his father was at home things were better. He would tell himself he was glad to have come to Geneva with him. They used to walk together on the Crets, or go together to the cercles frequented by the French exiles, to hear the news of the day, which meant for them the news of the progress of Protestantism; and the father used to witness with pleasure the feats of the son in the games on the Plain-palais.
Germain de Caulaincourt was one of the fifty prominent French exiles who about this time had the freedom of the city of Geneva conferred upon them. His work was approved, and he grew more and more to love and to delight in it. It developed in him powers and capacities of which he had never known before. God is making me fruitful in the land of my exile,” he often thought with thankfulness.
A long absence of his in early spring did not prove a happy time to his son. Hitherto, in the school, Norbert had been looked on rather indulgently. He was thought younger than he really was; no serious wrong-doings were suspected in the gentle-looking boy with the beautiful girlish face. Everyone was surprised when “M. de Caulaincourt’s child,” as they called him, fell into a rather serious scrape. Disputing with another lad over a game of chance, in itself unlawful, he lost his temper, and swore by the sacred Name, which in France he had been wont to hear too lightly used. This being overheard and reported to the dizainier of his quarter, he was called up for punishment, not in the school, but before a magistrate.
According to the new law of Geneva, the profane swearer, for the first offense, had to pay a small fine and to ask pardon publicly of God and the city, kneeling and kissing the ground. Norbert offered to pay the fine, selling for the purpose one of his school books, but he positively refused to perform the amende honorable. Having heard that a second offense would be punished by a day’s imprisonment, he committed it on the spot, by swearing that he would never submit to such degradation. He earned thereby twenty-four long hours — very long hours indeed — in the thick darkness of an underground cell of the Evêché. Nor would he have been released even then, as his insolence was an added offense, but for the compassion felt for the poor child,” whose father was even then periling his life for the cause of the Gospel in Savoy. He was sent back to school, with an injunction to the authorities to keep a strict eye upon him; which they did, reporting as the result of their observation that he showed not the slightest interest in spiritual exercises, that his school work was carelessly done, that his temper was violent, and that more than once he had “fought with fists,” the old Genevan method of settling disputes, which was strongly discouraged in the new Geneva.
At last the winter passed away, and the earth entered again into the possession of her golden heritage of spring. Norbert, quite unconsciously to himself, felt the influence of the time. One bright April afternoon he came bounding home from school as if he thought the world, and even the world of Geneva, no bad place to live in.
Antoine Calvin stood at his door in earnest conversation with three others — Pastor Poupin, Ami Berthelier, and a blue-coated messenger from the town council. Norbert felt a sudden chill, for the certainty came upon him that they were talking about him. What had they found out now? he began to ask a conscience that was not too clear — his fight with Jean Amblarde, his breaking Syndic Ambard’s window, his surreptitious meetings with that profligate young libertine, Ami Perrin? Something, surely, for as he drew near the pastor looked at him mournfully, and Berthelier and Antoine Calvin whispered together. They did not look angry, only sad and perplexed. He heard Antoine say “Do it you, Master Berthelier, I cannot.”
He turned into his own house. Poupin went with him, and the messenger withdrew.
“Come with me,” said Berthelier to Norbert.
He obeyed, wondering. Gabrielle was in the room they entered, but withdrew at a sign from her father.
Berthelier leant against the mantel-shelf, and turned his face away.
“What is it, sir?” asked Norbert, beginning for the first time to forebode something worse than blame for a boyish fault. Then, with a sudden thrill of terror, “Is it — my father?”
“Yes, my poor boy.”
“What? Oh, what?” Norbert asked, breathless.
“What was too likely. What we feared.”
“He is not — dead?”
“Nay, he is a prisoner.”
“Ah! there is hope, then?”
“I dare say not so. Be a man, Norbert, and face the truth. That is best, is it not?”
Norbert’s lips just breathed a “Yes.” Then, rallying himself —
“How do you know? Who told you? Perhaps — perhaps it is not true?”
Berthelier shook his head. “A Gray-foot, from beyond the Liberties, going on his own business to Chambery, saw him bound, on a horse, in the midst of a band of armed men who wore the colors of the Count of Lormayeur.”
A cry of despair broke from Norbert. He knew the fate of heretics who fell into the hands of the cruel and fanatical nobles of Savoy. And he knew the Count of Lormayeur as the most cruel and most fanatical of them all.
Berthelier’s kind hand was on his shoulder. “Be brave, my son. Bear it — as he would have you.”
“I can’t!” cried Norbert. “Were it death even, death in battle; that is fair — one is bound to face it. But this — the torture, the ignominy — Oh God! “ — the boy’s voice rose to a cry of passion. Why did we ever come to this hateful place, when men are sent forth for such things?”
“God has little to do with it, to my thinking,” said Berthelier bitterly. ‘Tis breath wasted to cry to Him, or to complain. There is no help, but there is still patience. That is a hard lesson, specially for the young, like thee. But think, thy father would have thee learn it. He would be proud to see thee bear thy sorrow as a brave man should.”
There was a pause; then Norbert broke out impetuously “I will not bear it! I will have justice!”
“Justice, poor boy? Thou wilt have to go far to get that.”
“I will go — I will appeal — I will pray, on bended knees, with strong crying and tears.”
“To whom? To the Savoyard? Thou can’t not reach him. And if thou couldest, such as he will only accept one ransom for a heretic — a ransom none can pay save himself, and thy father would account it far too high. To the syndics or the council? They are powerless as ourselves.”
“One man rules them all.”
“But his power ceases at the Pont de L’Arve. Nobert — Norbert! What wouldest thou? Whither goest?”
For Norbert turned quickly, dashed down the stairs, and was in the street before Berthelier finished speaking.
One man had done it all. Once man reigned over Geneva, and sent his father out to suffer and to die. Norbert, in his boyish heart, believed that man omnipotent. He was destiny, fate — stern, strong, resistless, all-conquering fate. Let him save his father now!
All Norbert’s fear of him was gone. An hour ago, had the great man spoken to him, he would scarce have dared to answer. Now he only longed to see him face to face, and pour forth all his soul.
He flew down the Rue Cornavin, across the bridge, by the Rue de La Cite and the Grande Rue into the Rue des. Chanoines. His knock at the well-known door was answered by a female servant, who told him every one knew Master Calvin was in the Franciscan Hall, delivering his lecture to the students of theology. Two minutes more brought Norbert to the old Franciscan monastery behind the cathedral, up the nearest staircase, to one of the closed doors of the vast pillared hall where the Great Council of Geneva was wont to meet. Now instead of eager voices and tumultuous interruptions, one calm, even unimpassioned voice reached his ear. He pushed the door gently, it yielded to his touch, and he went in.
Any wild thoughts of interrupting the speaker died in him instantly, slain by the spirit of the place. The great hall was crammed, each manly face turned to the chair at the upper end, and the slight dark figure with upraised hand, and lips from which issued the words that were as a sentence of life or death. For John Calvin, in his luminous, style, and with his matchless command of his native French, was expounding the doctrine of Justification by Faith. To the strong deep-hearted men who listened, this was a question of life or death, the question of all others.
“How shall I stand acquitted before the bar of the living God?” each one had asked himself, and each one was, hearing the answer now.
Norbert, though he could not listen, was awed into silence. The speaker held him like a hound in leash, hating the bond, yet unable to break it, for the master’s hand was there. But his eyes were free, and they took note of things with which the brain had no concern. On a window near him was a great gray spider with a hapless fly in his web. No, he would not look at that — it was too horribly suggestive. A student just before him had his wide sleeve all torn, and the notes he had put into it dropping out one by one. Another wore spectacles, just like a notary or a doctor — what could a young fellow like that want with spectacles? Not that all were young; yonder tall, stout man looked forty at least. And there was one with his beard absolutely gray; while another was as bald as old Fléchier, who taught Latin in the school. Most, however, were young men in the very prime and vigor of their strength. But who was that little red-haired man, with the bold look and the burning eyes, honored with a chair by Master Calvin himself, as a visitor of distinction? Oh, of course that was Master William Farel, come from Neufchatel, where he was pastor, to visit his dear friend Master Calvin.
But the lecture was over at last. All stood up for the concluding prayer and blessing. Then, from the different doors the crowd poured out. Not noisily, as students might to-day in reaction after the strain of a long attention, but gravely, thoughtfully, as if the voice they had been hearing was still sounding in their ears.
Norbert pushed his way up the hall, and stood — realizing with angry impatience that he might have to stand a long time. For a dense, eager throng pressed round Calvin. Everyone wanted something of him, were it but the answer to a question, a word of greeting, a handshake.
“Will they keep him forever?” thought Norbert. He seemed to himself to be standing still — yet gradually he was moving nearer, near enough at last to hear a boy, a schoolmate of his own, implore the master with passionate words to send him — him also — to France to preach the Word of God.
“My son, thou art too young. Two, or perchance three years more of preparation are needful for thee,” said the calm, impassive voice.
One eager forward thrust, and Norbert had dispersed the loiterers between; indeed, they gave way before him. He stood face to face with the master, his own face white, and his eyes wild.
“Oh, sir,” he cried, “send him not! Send no more forth to die”
John Calvin looked at him in calm surprise. “Collect thyself, young man, and speak soberly,” he said. “Who art thou?”
“I am Norbert de Caulaincourt, and my father lies in a Savoyard dungeon. Oh, sir, you can do everything. Help him, for God’s sake”
“I know already what has happened, and I regret it. I hold M. de Caulaincourt in high esteem.”
The measured words fell like ice on the heart of Norbert. He asked for bread, and the autocrat of Geneva offered him a stone. He stood motionless, in bitter pain, gazing into the inscrutable face. But presently he saw something there, just the shadow of a shade, which moved him to throw himself at the great man’s feet with a passionate cry.
“Oh, sir, have pity! have pity! your word is law — you do what you will — surely you can save him?”
“Am I in the place of God, to kill and to make alive? Norbert de Caulaincourt, wherefore kneelest thou to me? I can do nothing in this matter.”
Norbert rose up — it was no use in kneeling to this man.
Then in his anguish the boy said a desperate thing, scarce any man in Geneva would have dared.
“Were you not in God’s place to kill, when you sent him forth for this?”
For a moment Calvin did not answer. Then he said very calmly, even coldly “I sent him not. He went forth at his own desire, that God’s will might be done by, and in, him. To that will, Norbert de Caulaincourt, thou and I and he must bow. There is nothing else. Go home; pray for thy father and thyself.”
Without another word Norbert turned and walked away. A cold, numb despair had him in its grasp. There was no help for him in Master Calvin, and no comfort. What, to the great man, was his father’s peril, his own anguish? Only what the soldier’s fall might be to the captain — perhaps not so much.
As he went home he thought sadly, “Is there anything I can do?” But the only possible answer was “Nothing.” To go into Savoy in the hope of seeing his father would be simply an act of insanity. He must stay where he was, and suffer, and eat his heart out.
Thus dreary days passed on, until the desperate pain in a measure wore itself out, and a kind of lethargy began to steal over him.