Flower o' the lily: A romance of old Cambray

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

Already messengers, dressed in Monseigneur the governor's livery, were flying all over the town, carrying letters and sign-manuals. Directly these were delivered, extraordinary bustle and activity came at once into being in the official and municipal centres of the city. The Provosts could be seen, wearing their chain of office and hurrying to the Town Hall, where they were received by the Chief Magistrate. Orders and counter-orders flew from one end of the town to the other, from the Citadel to the Palace and from Cantimpré to the Château, while, by special command of M. le Marquis de Landas, the entire garrison, which manned the forts, was under arms during the whole of that night.

The humbler folk, scared by this unwonted turmoil, shut themselves up with their families inside their houses, until a persistent rumour reassured them that no fresh assault on the part of the besieging army was expected, but rather that a happy, joyful and hopeful proclamation would be made by Monseigneur the governor on the morrow, from the balcony of the Town Hall. Whereupon fear and trouble were for the moment put resolutely away. The people were beginning to suffer so acutely, that they were abjectly thankful for any ray of hope, which gleamed through the darkness of their ever-present misery. With the Duke of Parma's armies at their gates, they were still clinging to the thought that some mighty Power would take compassion on them, and come to their rescue with a force strong enough to inflict a severe defeat upon the Spaniard. They had not yet reached the final stages of despair. They were still ready to seize every opportunity for forgetfulness, for enjoyment even, whenever it was offered or allowed them. Rumour had been persistent about the help which was to come from France. Messire de Balagny's presence in the city had confirmed the hopes which had rested upon those rumours. Now, with the knowledge that Monseigneur had a joyful announcement to make, mercurial temperaments rose for awhile—especially among the young. The older people had been too often deluded with flowery promises to believe in any good fortune for their unfortunate city. They had seen the fate of others—of Mons and of Mechlin and of Gand. The might of the Spanish armies always conquered in the end, and the rebellious cities had been made to suffer untold brutalities, as a punishment for their heroic resistance.

Fortunately for the morale of Cambray, these older people, these wiseacres, were still in the minority, and hope is of all human attributes the strongest and the most persistent. So, despite the prognostications and fear of pessimists, people rose early on the following morning, in order betimes to decorate their houses. Soon after dawn, activities began; flags were dragged out of old, disused coffers and hung out of windows and balconies; the women sought, in their worm-eaten dower chests, for any scraps of finery that may have survived from the happy olden days, before their Spanish tyrants had made of this prosperous land a forlorn wilderness.

By eight o'clock the beleaguered city looked almost gay. The shops were closed; soldiers paraded the streets; the city guilds, their masters and their 'prentices, came out with banners flying, to stand in groups upon the Grand' Place. If a stranger could have dropped into Cambray from the skies on that fine April morning, he would of a truth have doubted if any Spanish army was encamped around these walls.

II

Even Gilles de Crohin, absorbed as he was in his own affairs, could not fail to notice the generally festive air which hung about the place. In the quarter where he lodged, it is true that very little of that holiday mood had found its way down the narrow streets and into the interior of squalid houses, where the pinch of cold and hunger had already made itself insistently felt. But as soon as he was past the Place aux Bois, he began to wonder what was in the wind. The populace had been at obvious pains to put aside for the moment every outward sign of the misery which it endured. The women had donned their best clothes, the men no longer hung about at street corners, looking hungry and gaunt. They did not even scowl in the wake of the masked stranger, so lately the object of their ire, as the latter hurried along on his way to the Palace.

And then there were the flags, and the open windows, the draped balconies and pots of bright-coloured early tulips—all so different to the dreary, drab appearance which Cambray had worn of late.

But, nevertheless, Gilles himself would have told you afterwards that no suspicion of Monseigneur d'Inchy's intentions crossed his mind. Vaguely he thought that Messire de Balagny's arrival had been announced to the townfolk, and that the promise of help from France had been made the occasion of a public holiday. And he himself was in too much of a fume to pay serious heed to anything but his own affairs—to anything, in fact, but his own departure, which had been so provokingly delayed until this morning.

And this veracious chronicle has all along put it on record that Messire Gilles de Crohin was not a man of patience. Imagine his choler, his fretting rage when, fully prepared for his journey, mounted upon the same horse which had brought him into Cambray a month ago, and duly accompanied by Maître Jehan, who had a pack-horse on the lead, he had presented himself on the previous afternoon at the Porte Notre Dame with his original safe-conduct, and was incontinently refused exit from the city, owing to strict orders issued by the commandant of the garrison that no one should be allowed to pass out of the gates under any pretext whatsoever.

Gilles had argued, persuaded, demanded; but he himself was too thorough a soldier not to have realized from the first that every argument would be futile. The captain of the guard assured him that he could do nothing in the face of the strict and uncompromising orders which he had received. Gilles was of course quite certain that some one had blundered—a mere matter of formality, which Monseigneur the governor could put right with a stroke of the pen—but it was obviously not for a subordinate officer to question his orders, or to take any revision thereto upon himself; and Gilles, after receiving the captain's courteous regrets, had no option but to ride away.