but, unlike the Emma of the English ballad, Françonnette is too conscious of being fair, and torments her admirers to death. She becomes, at length, the object of suspicion and hatred to her fellows, in consequence of a rumour circulated by her disappointed lover, Marcel, that her Huguenot father had sold her to the evil one, and that misfortune awaited whoever should love or marry her. Some fearful scenes ensue, in which the poet exhibits great power. The quarrel of the rivals is managed with effect; and the rising of the peasantry against the supposed bewitched beauty; the discovery of Pascal's love, and the consequent revolution the knowledge effects in the mind of the deserted girl; his tender devotion, her danger, and Marcel's subsequent remorse, are admirably told; and, on the whole, the story of Françonnette must be acknowledged as a great advance upon the "Aveugle;" and its superiority promises greater things yet from the poet of Agen.
"FRANÇONNETTE'S MUSINGS.
"On the parched earth when falls the earliest dew,
As shine the sun's first rays, the winter flown,
So love's first spark awakes to life anew,
And fills the startled mind with joy unknown.
The maiden yielded every thought to this—
The trembling certainty of real bliss:
The lightning of a joy before unproved,
Flash'd in her heart, and taught her that she loved.
"She fled from envy, and from curious eyes,
And dream'd, as all have done, those waking dreams,
Bidding in thought bright fairy fabrics rise
To shrine the loved one in their golden gleams.
Alas! the Sage is right, 'tis the distrest
Who dream the fondest, and who love the best!"
But, perhaps, a better idea can be conveyed, by giving a version in prose of the whole story.
The story of Françonnette.
It was at the time when Blaise de Montluc, the sanguinary chief, struck the Protestants with a heavy hand, and his sword hewed them in pieces, while, in the name of a God of mercy, he inundated the earth with tears and blood.
At length he paused from fatigue: it was ended; no more did the hills resound with the noise of carbine or cannon: the savage leader, to prop the cross, which neither then nor now tottered, had slain, strangled, filled the wells with slaughtered thousands. The earth gave back its dead at Fumel and at Penne: fathers, mothers, children, were nearly exterminated, and the executioners had time to breathe.
The exhausted tiger—the merciless ruffian—dismounted from his charger, re-entered his fortress, with its triple bridge, and its triple moat, and, kneeling at the altar, uttered his devout prayers, received the communion, while his hands were yet reeking with the blood of innocence with which he had glutted his cruelty.
Meantime, in the hamlets, young men and maidens, at first terrified at the bare name of Huguenot, devoted their hours to love and amusement as formerly. And in a village, at the foot of a strong castle, one Sunday, a band of lovers were dancing on the votive feast of Roquefort, and, to the sound of the fife, celebrated St. Jacques and the month of August—that lovely month, which, by the freshness of its dew, and the fire of its sun, ripens our figs and grapes.