"We Huguenots, at least, showed our teeth to the monsters," put in Barbot the boilermaker. "Nevertheless, to talk shop, I must confess our mistake. It was our duty to throw into the furnace and melt once for all that old royal boiler in which for a thousand and odd years the Kings have been boiling Jacques Bonhomme, and serving him up in all manner of sauces for their repasts. Once that boiler is melted, the devil's kitchen would be done for!"
"Yes, indeed, comrade," replied Captain Mirant, "we made that mistake, and yet we were the most daring among the oppressed! And we made the mistake notwithstanding we were repeatedly imposed upon and betrayed by treacherous edicts. May it please God that this last edict do not fare like the previous ones, and that Louis Rennepont may speedily bring us tidings from Paris to dispel our apprehensions!"
"Brother," observed Marcienne, "I can not but mistrust the pledges of Charles IX and his mother. Alas, I can not forget the revelations made in the letter to her father by my poor daughter before she leaped voluntarily to death at the battle of Roche-la-Belle. Catherine and her sons are well capable of scheming the massacre that she confided to the Jesuit Lefevre. At the same time we must not forget that Admiral Coligny, so prudent, so wise, so experienced a man, in short, better qualified than anyone else to appreciate the situation, seeing he is in close touch with the court, reposes full confidence in the peace. Did he not give us positive proof of his sense of security by inducing the Protestants to restore to the King, before the date fixed by the edict, the fortified towns of asylum that were placed in their power?"
"Oh, sister, sister!" interjected Captain Mirant. "I shall ever congratulate myself upon having been on the Board of Aldermen among those who most decidedly opposed the relinquishing of La Rochelle! Thank God, this fortified place remains to us. Here at least we may feel safe. I very much fear the loyalty of the Admiral may not be a match for the duplicity of the Italian woman."
"I must say that I am increasingly impatient for my husband's return home," observed Theresa. "He will have had an interview with Admiral Coligny; he will have expressed to him the fears and misgivings of the Rochelois. At least we shall know for certain whether we are to feel safe or not."
"Do you call that living?" cried Captain Mirant. "Why should we, honorable people, be kept ever in suspense as though we were criminals! Mistrust ever sits in our hearts! Our ears ever are on the watch, our hands on our swords! Whence come these mortal alarms? The reason is that, despite our old municipal franchises, despite the ramparts of our town, we are, after all, the subjects of the King, instead of belonging to ourselves, like the Swiss cantons, that are freely federated in a Republic! Oh, liberty! liberty! Shall our eyes ever see your reign among us?"
"Yes!" answered Antonicq. "Yes! We would see that beautiful reign if the admirable sentiments of La Boetie could be made to penetrate the souls of our people! But listen, I shall read on:
"Oh, liberty! So great, so sweet a boon, that, once lost misfortune follows inevitably, and even the enjoyments that may remain behind wholly lose their taste and flavor, being tainted with servitude! Liberty is not desired by men for no other reason, it seems to me, than that, if they were to desire it, they would have it! One would think they refuse the priceless conquest only because it is so easily won! The beasts (may God help me!) where men are too deaf to hear, scream in their ears—Long live Freedom! Many animals die the moment they are captured. Fishes lose their lives with their element: they die unable to survive their natural franchise! If animals recognized rank in their midst they would turn liberty into—nobility! From the largest to the smallest, when caught, they offer so emphatic a resistance with nails, horns, feet, or beaks that they sufficiently declare how highly they prize what they are losing. When caught, they give us so many manifest tokens of how thoroughly they realize their misfortune that, if they continue to live, it is rather to mourn over their lost freedom than to accommodate themselves to servitude.
"Poor, miserable people! Poor senseless beings! Oh, ye nations stubbornly addicted to your own evil! Blind to your weal! You allow yourselves to be carried away, to be ravished of the best that you have, of the prime of your revenue; your fields to be pillaged; your homes to be robbed; your paternal furniture and heirlooms to be taken for spoils! Your life is such that you may say nothing is your own. Would it be that wise unless you are tolerant of the thief who plunders you, and the accomplice of the murderer who slays you? Are you not traitors to yourselves? You sow your fields for him to gorge himself! You furnish your houses in order to furnish matter for his burglaries! You bring up your daughters that there may be food for his debauches! You bring up your sons that he may lead them to slaughter and turn them into the instruments of his greed and the executors of his revenges. You stint your bodies that he may revel in the delights you are deprived of, and wallow in lecherous and vile pursuits!
"True enough, physicians advise not to lay hands upon wounds that are incurable. Perhaps I act not wisely in seeking to give advice to the people in this matter. They have long lost consciousness; they are no longer aware of their ailment; the disease is mortal!"