"Do you, monsieur, know my parents?" it was now Anna Bell's turn to ask. "Pray tell me where I can find them."
But overcome with emotion, the Franc-Taupin said: "But Oh! what a shame for the family! What a disgrace! A maid of honor to the Queen!"
The Franc-Taupin was quickly drawn from his mixed emotions of sorrow and joy. More important work was soon to be done. An officer entered the vestry, bringing orders from Admiral Coligny for the vanguards and outposts to fall back without delay toward St. Yrieix. Franz of Gerolstein immediately conveyed the Admiral's orders to the Avengers of Israel, who crowded behind the officer, and then turned to Anna Bell, saying:
"Mademoiselle, come; remount your litter. We shall escort you to St. Yrieix. I shall impart to you on the road tidings concerning your family—of which I am a member."
"What a revelation to Odelin—and to Antonicq!" the Franc-Taupin thought to himself, "when they learn within shortly, at St. Yrieix, that this unfortunate creature—the disgraced and dishonored maid of honor to the Queen is the daughter of the one and the sister of the other!"
The Avengers of Israel and the squadron of German horsemen, with Franz of Gerolstein at their head, completed their reconnoisance about the forest and fell back upon St. Yrieix. The chapel of St. Hubert remained deserted and wrapped in silence. The morning breeze swung the body of the monk as it hung limp from a branch of the oak-tree in front of the portico of the holy place. Horrible to look at were the features of the corpse. They preserved the impress of the Cordelier's last agonies. The skin was ripped from the head. It had the appearance of being covered with a red skull cap.
Abominable reprisals, without a doubt; and yet less abominable than the crimes of which they record the expiatory vengeance.
CHAPTER IV.
GASPARD OF COLIGNY.
The burg of St. Yrieix stood in the center of the staked-in camp occupied by the army of Admiral Coligny. An inflexible disciplinarian, Admiral Coligny maintained rigorous order among his troops. Never was pillage allowed; never marauding. His soldiers always paid for all that they demanded from city folks or peasants. He went even further. Whenever it happened that, scared at the approach of armed forces, the peasants fled from their villages, the officers, executing the express orders of Admiral Coligny, left in the houses the price of the vegetables and forage with which the soldiers provisioned themselves and their beasts in the absence of the masters of the place. Finally, as a necessary and terrible example—thieves caught redhanded were inexorably hanged, and the stolen objects tied to their feet. Finally there never were seen at the Huguenot camps the swarms of women of ill fame that ordinarily encumbered the baggage of the Catholic army, and that, according to the ancient practice, were placed under the supervision of the "King of the Ribalds."
The habits of the Protestants in the army of Admiral Coligny were pious, austere and upright. This notwithstanding, the Admiral found it impossible to impose rigid discipline upon the numerous bands that from time to time attached themselves to his main forces, usually conducted a guerilla warfare, and emulated the royalists in rapine and cruelty.