"Actively, he has done nothing. Yet he is a doomed man, because of his religion. My dear one, ere long the king will be roused to awful fury by this rebellion; there will not be a réformé left in France. And those who are passive will suffer the same as those who take up arms--in the Midi--here--at least. Even I shall not be able to shield him. Nay, more, how can I shield one and destroy all the rest?"
"Can there be no peace?"
"None! Peace! How can there be peace when none will make it? These Protestant rebels are the aggressors this time. Ask for no peace. It is war, a war which means extermination. A month ago I should have said extermination of them alone; now God knows who, which side, is to be exterminated. Louis is weakened by these attacks from without, from every side; all over Europe there is a coalition against France. And half her enemies are of the Reformed faith, as they term it. It is said that the old religion is to be destroyed, abolished. Yet Louis, France, will not fail without one effort; dying, we shall drag to destruction numberless foes. Urbaine, if we do not suppress these Camisards we have an internal foe to deal with as well. Do you think one Protestant will be spared?"
"I may not see him again ere I set out for Versailles," the girl whispered, terrified at his words.
"Then he must take his chance. At best he is but a quixotic fool."
"Let me remain here; if there is danger let me share it."
"Never!" Baville said. "The nobility are threatened, the 'Intendant' above all. Your place must be in safety. Oh, that your mother would go too! Yet," he added reflectively, "her place is by my side."
"And mine is not? Do you say that?" And she touched his face caressingly with her hand.
"Your place is where I can best shield you from the least threat of danger, my loved one; where danger can never come near you." And beneath his breath he added the word "again."
Speaking thus to the girl upon his knee, a girl scarce better than a child, seeing she was now but seventeen years old, Baville--of whom the greatest of French diarists has said that il en étoit la terreur er l'horreur de Languedoc--was at his best. For if he loved any creature more than another on this earth--more than Madame l'Intendante, more even than his own son--that creature was Urbaine.