"St. Michael must have been rather astonished at the acts attributed to him, if he happened to be anywhere in the neighborhood," said Andrew; but my father shook his head.
"It is no laughing matter," said he. "We have lived in great peace with our Roman Catholic neighbors, under the rule of the last curé, who was a kindhearted old man, much fonder of his garden and orchard than of his breviary; but this new priest is of a different type. He is doing his best to arouse the fanaticism of the peasants, and especially of the lower and more debased class. I do not believe he would hesitate to hold out, as an inducement, the plunder of the tower."
"Would he dare do that?" asked Andrew.
"It has been done in a hundred instances," answered my father. "It is no lower motive than that of relieving a man of the payment of his honest debts, on condition of his returning to the bosom of the church, and that has been done by a public edict."
"And this is the king who must not be resisted, because, forsooth, he is the Lord's anointed!" said Andrew, with that peculiar flash of his gray eye, like sunlight reflected from bright armor, that I had learned to know so well.
"The king is governed by his counsellors," said my father.
"As to that," answered Andrew, "he does not seem to be very much governed by his counsellors in the matter of his building and gambling expenses, and—some other things," catching a warning glance from my mother. "I thought he made a boast that he was the state. As to his being deceived, why does he not find out for himself? Things are no better in Paris than here. How can he be ignorant of what happens under his very nose?"
"Very easily, my son. A good many things happen under the very nose of His Majesty King Charles of England which do not seem to make much impression on his mind," said my father, a little testily. He had his full share of that unreasoning loyalty—unreasonable, too, as I think—which possessed all France, Protestant and Catholic, at that time. "We have all heard how the king was engaged the night that the Dutch sailed up the river. You cannot propose him as a model, nephew!"
"I never said he was," answered Andrew dryly, and then the conversation stopped.
The next morning I went out very early into the lane to look for a pair of scissors which I had dropped the day before, when I was joined by my cousin.