‘Monseigneur is mistaken,’ said Esclairmonde.
‘Child, we will have no more folly. You have flown after this young Scot in a manner fitted only for the foolish name your father culled for you out of his books of chivalry. You have given a lesson to the whole Court and city on the consequences of a damsel judging for herself, and running a mad course over the world, instead of submitting to her guardians.’
‘The Court understands my purpose as well as you do, Monseigneur.’
‘Silence, Mademoiselle. Your convent obstinacy is ended for ever now, since to send you to one would be to appear to hide a scandal.’
‘I do not wish to enter a convent,’ said Esclairmonde. ‘My desire is to dedicate my labour and my substance to the foundation of a house here at Paris, such as are the Béguinages of our Netherlands,’
The Bishop held up his hands. He had never heard of such lunacy and it angered him, as such purposes are wont to anger worldly-hearted men. That a lady of Luxemburg should have such vulgar tastes as to wish to be a Beguine was bad enough; but that Netherlandish wealth should be devoted to support the factious poor of Paris was preposterous. Neither the Duke of Burgundy, nor her uncle of St. Pol, would allow a sou to pass out of their grasp for so absurd a purpose; the Pope would give no license—above all to a vain girl, who had helped a wife to run away from her husband—for new religious houses; and, unless Esclairmonde was prepared to be landless, penniless, and the scorn of every one, for her wild behaviour, she must submit, bon gré, mal gré, to become the wife of the Scottish prince.
‘Landless and penniless then will I be, Monseigneur,’ said Esclairmonde. ‘Was not poverty the bride of St. Francis?’
The Bishop made a growl of contempt; but recollecting himself, and his respect for the saint, began to argue that what was possible for a man, a mere merchant’s son, an inspired saint besides, was not possible to a damsel of high degree, and that it was mere presumption, vanity, and obstinacy in her to appeal to such a precedent.
There was something in this that struck Esclairmonde, for she was conscious of a certain satisfaction in her plan of being the first to introduce a Béguinage at Paris, and that she was to a certain degree proud of her years of constancy to her high purpose; and she looked just so far abashed that the uncle saw his advantage, and discoursed on the danger of attempting to be better than other people, and of trying to vapour in spiritual heights, to all of which she attempted no reply; till at last he broke up the interview by saying, ‘There, then, child; all will be well. I see you are coming to a better mind.’
‘I hope I am, Monseigneur,’ she replied, with lofty meekness; ‘but scarcely such as you mean.’