The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

As to the moral lectures which formed a great part of the preaching of the day, they were not like to have any great influence so long as people saw the king, an open and shameless contemner of the laws of God and man, publicly receiving the sacrament, while his attendants meantime laughed and chatted among themselves as if they had been in a playhouse, the Duke of York himself setting the example.

As I said, there were glorious exceptions—men who shunned not fearlessly to declare the whole council of God, and to rebuke sin wherever they found it, but these were not the rule, and they did not come in my way. Sunday was a long day to us at my aunt's, though we did our best to shorten it by reading romance and plays, playing at tables, and seeing company at home.

My visit to Madame de Fayrolles was soon repeated, and it came to be an understood thing that I should spend at least two days in the week with her.

I made the acquaintance of Father Martien, as he was called, and found him a very polished, agreeable gentleman. He was a Frenchman by birth, but educated in Florence. We soon fell upon the subject of Italian literature, and he ventured gently to criticise my pronunciation, and offered his services to correct it by reading with me two or three times a week. I had always been fond of the language, and accepted the offer with enthusiasm. I hardly know how we began upon the subject of religion, but we were in the midst of it before I was aware.

I had been well furnished, like every Huguenot child, with abundance of answers to every argument that could be brought forward upon the Romish side; but, alas, the armor was loose and dented from neglect, and the sword rusty and out of use. My faith in Christianity itself had been in some degree shaken by the sneers and arguments I had heard from Lewis, and also from my Uncle Charles, who was a worshipper of Mr. Hobbes. I had come to think that one form of faith was perhaps as good as another—that so long as men led good lives, their opinions did not very much matter, and so forth. When I tried to recall my old arguments I remembered other things which roused my conscience, and made me wretched, that I was glad to let them rest again.

I was persuaded to hear mass in the chapel of the French ambassador, that I might enjoy the music. Aunt Jem herself went to the chapel of the queen for the same reason, and I soon discovered that she was leaning the same way as myself.

"Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird."

One might think so certainly, and yet how often do we see nets spread in plain daylight, and the silly birds walking straight into them.

Every day I grew more and more indifferent to the faith in which I had been educated, and for which my father had died. Every day I saw new reason to regret the bigotry—so I learned to call it—which had brought so many misfortunes upon our family. Every day I grew more attached to my uncle and aunt, and came more under their influence.

My Aunt Jem even grew a little jealous, and murmured that it was rather hard she should have so little of my company, when she had been the means of my coming to town in the first place; but a little attention from the ambassador's family, and a few introductions to great people, and cards to great entertainments, soon reconciled her to the state of things. As to my Uncle Charles, I am sorry to write it, but I have good reason to believe that he was playing into the hands of Monsieur de Fayrolles all the time. He was deep in debt, and embarrassments of all sorts, caused by his high play and extravagant style of living, and I believe that he deliberately turned me over to my French relations in consideration of being relieved of some of the most pressing of these liabilities.