He paused a little, and his voice had grown considerably weaker, even while he spoke. "God forgive my enemies," he said at length, "and the mistaken men who persecute others for their soul's sake. God forgive them, and yield them a better light; for, oh how I wish that all men could feel death only as I feel it!"
Such were the last words of Claude de l'Estang. They were perfectly audible and distinct to every one present, and they were spoken with the usual calm sweet simplicity of manner which had characterised all the latter part of his life. But after he had again paused for two or three minutes, he opened his lips as if to say something more, but no sound was heard. He instantly felt that such was the case, and ceased; but he feebly stretched forth his hand toward Clémence, who bent her head over it, and dewed it with her tears.
When she raised her eyes, they fell upon the face of the dead.
CHAPTER VIII.
[THE DISCOVERY OF ERROR.]
We must now change the scene and time, though the spot to which we will conduct the reader is not situated more than ten miles from that in which the events took place recorded in the last chapter, and only one day's interval had elapsed. Considerably more inland, it presented none of that sandy appearance which characterises the landes. The vegetation also was totally different, the rich, even rank, grass spreading under the tall trees of the forest, and the ivy covering those which had lost their leaves thus early in the year.
There was a little château belonging to an inferior noble of the province, situated in the midst of one of those wide woods which the French of that day took the greatest pains to maintain in a flourishing condition, both for the sake of the fuel which they afforded, and the cover that they gave to the objects of the chase. The château itself was built, as usual, upon an eminence of considerable elevation, overlooking the forest world around, and in its immediate neighbourhood the wood was cleared away so as to give an open esplanade, along which, upon the present occasion, some fifteen hundred or two thousand men had passed the preceding day and night: having liberated the poor pastor of Auron on the night before. Some few tents of rude construction, some huts hastily raised, had been their only shelter; but they murmured not; and indeed it was not from such causes that any of those who deserted from the body of Protestant insurgents quitted the standard of their leader. It was, that the agents of the governing priesthood had long been busy amongst them, and had sapped the principles and shaken the resolution of many of those who even showed themselves willing to take arms, but who soon fell away in the hour of need, acting more detrimentally on their own cause than if they had absolutely opposed it, or abandoned it from the first. Doubts of each other, and hesitation in their purposes, had thus been spread through the Protestants; and though, of the number assembled there, few existed who had now either inclination or opportunity to turn back, yet they thought with gloomy apprehension upon the defection that was daily taking place in the great body of Huguenots throughout France; and their energies were chilled even if their resolution was not shaken.
The day of which we now speak rose with a brighter aspect than the preceding one, and it was scarcely more than daylight when the gates of the castle were opened, the horses of the Count de Morseiul and his immediate officers and attendants were brought out; and in a minute after, he himself, booted and spurred, and bearing energetic activity in his eye, came forth upon the esplanade, surrounded by a number of persons, who were giving him information, or receiving his orders. The men who were gathered in arms on the slope of the hill gazed up towards him with that sort of expectation which is near akin to hope; and the prompt rapidity of his gestures, the quickness with which he was speaking, the ease with which he seemed to comprehend every body, and the readiness and capability, if we may so call it, of his own demeanour, was marked by all those that looked upon him, and gave trust and confidence even to the faintest heart there.
"Where is Riquet?" the Count said, after speaking to some of the gentlemen who had taken arms; "where is Riquet? He told me that two persons had arrived from Paris last night, and were safe in his chamber. Where is Riquet?"
"Riquet! Riquet!" shouted several voices, sending the sound back into the castle; but in the mean time the Count went on speaking to those around them in a sorrowful tone.