He found an ancient dame in dim brocade.—-TENNYSON
Madame la Duchesse de Quinet had been a great heiress and a personal friend and favourite of Queen Jeanne d’Albret. She had been left a widow after five years’ marriage, and for forty subsequent years had reigned despotically in her own name and that of mon fils. Busied with the support of the Huguenot cause, sometimes by arms, but more usually by politics, and constantly occupied by the hereditary government of one of the lesser counties of France, the Duke was all the better son for relinquishing to her the home administration, as well as the education of his two motherless boys; and their confidence and affection were perfect, though he was almost as seldom at home as she was abroad. At times, indeed, she had visited Queen Jeanne at Nerac; but since the good Queen’s death, she only left the great chateau of Quinet to make a royal progress of inspection through the family towns, castles, and estates, sometimes to winter in her beautiful hereditary hotel at Montauban, and as at present to attend any great assembly of the Reformed.
Very seldom was her will not law. Strong sense and judgment, backed by the learning that Queen Marguerite of Navarre had introduced among the companions of her daughter, had rendered her superior to most of those with whom she came in contact: and the Huguenot ministers, who were much more dependent on their laity than the Catholic priesthood, for the most part treated her as not only a devout and honourable woman, an elect lady, but as a sort of State authority. That she had the right-mindedness to respect and esteem such men as Theodore Beza, Merlin, &c., who treated her with great regard, but never cringed, had not become known to the rest. Let her have once pronounced against poor little Esperance Gardon, and public disgrace would be a matter of certainty.
There she sat in her wainscoted walnut cabinet, a small woman by her inches, but stately enough to seem of majestic stature, and with gray eyes, of inexpressible keenness, which she fixed upon the halting, broken form of Isaac Gardon, and his grave, venerable face, as she half rose and made a slight acknowledgment of his low bow.
‘Sit, Maitre Gardon, you are lame,’ she said, with a wave of her hand. ‘I gave you the incommodity of coming to see me not openly discuss en pleine sale.’
‘Madame is considerate,’ said Isaac, civilly, but with an open-eyed look and air that at once showed her that she had not to deal with one of the ministers who never forgot their low birth in intercourse with her.
‘I understand,’ said she, coming to the point at once, ‘that you decline the proposals of Samuel Mace for your daughter-in-law. Now I wish you to know that Mace is a very good youth, whom I have known from his birth’—and she went on in his praise, Isaac bowing at each pause, until she had exhausted both Mace’s history and her own beneficent intentions for him. Then he said, ‘Madame is very good, and the young man appeared to me excellent. Nevertheless, this thing may not be. My daughter-in-law has resolved not to marry again.’
‘Nay, but this is mere folly,’ said the Duchess. ‘We hold not Catholic tenets on merit in abstaining, but rather go by St. Paul’s advice that the younger widows should marry, rather than wax wanton. And, to tell you the truth, Maitre Gardon, this daughter of yours does seem to have set tongues in motion.’
‘Not by her own fault, Madame.’
‘Stay, my good friend; I never found a man—minister or lay—who was a fair judge in these matters. You old men are no better than the young—rather worse—because you do not distrust yourselves. Now, I say no harm of the young woman, and I know an angel would be abused at Montauban for not wearing sad-coloured wings; but she needs a man’s care—you are frail, you cannot live for ever—and how is it to be with her and her child?’