Rénèe whispered to the girl to go away, and herself commenced the duties of putting in order all the Princess's disarranged things.
Anne began railing at her in a voice broken with tears; the waiting-woman hardly heard, for in her ears were the words she had just heard the Prince speak, and before her eyes the picture of him in the twilight, alone and thoughtful.
CHAPTER XIII
THE DEPARTURE OF THE CARDINAL
Cardinal Granvelle had asked and obtained leave to go to Burgundy to see his mother, whom he had not beheld for nineteen years.
That was now common knowledge, and a tumult of rejoicing broke forth which frightened the Regent almost more than the tumult of rage and hate which had preceded it.
For it seemed as if the people believed that with the departure of the Cardinal all their wrongs and miseries would end and the golden age begin; pamphlets, lampoons, caricatures, issued in hundreds from the secret printing presses, were scattered in the streets, pasted on the walls of the churches, and found their way even to Granvelle's cabinet and Margaret's antechamber; the rhetoric players became daily bolder and performed their satirical plays before huge audiences who forcibly protected the actors; heretic preachers addressed their followers even from the pulpits of churches from which the priests had been driven, and two of them, condemned to the flames by the Inquisition at Antwerp, were rescued, even after they had been chained to the stake, by the furious people, who carried them back in triumph to their lodgings.
And it was not only the people who thus recklessly displayed their joy at the departure of the hated minister. The victorious nobles, particularly Egmont and Brederode, openly exulted in the downfall of their enemy, for none of them believed that the object of his visit was more than an excuse, and it was generally thought that his journey to Burgundy was a mere pretext for retiring with dignity from a position he could no longer maintain.
Various rumours were abroad: some said the Cardinal had asked to be removed from the Netherlands, others that he was obeying secret orders from Philip and was furious at leaving the contest with the grandees, but whichever of their surmises might be correct it was certain that he was leaving and almost as sure that he would not return. Already a wit had pasted a notice "to be sold" over his villa "La Fontaine," and much laughter was provoked by the famous statue with "Durate" on the pedestal, which word had a mocking sound now.
But through all this hearty, intense, noisy rejoicing of the Netherlanders the Cardinal remained serene. Perhaps what gave him his calm was his knowledge of the other side of the picture; he knew Madrid, he knew Philip; he knew too how all this present rejoicing would be paid for some day, how Philip had marked and noted the names of these gay nobles who had driven out his minister, how all the reckless jests, pasquinades and speeches, the famous insolence of Egmont's livery, the disloyalty of Berghen and Montigny, were all known to Philip, and by him patiently and painstakingly noted down. Philip knew how to wait, but he had a memory no detail escaped.
Granvelle was not vindictive, and he was too politic to be inclement; he had no desire to be avenged on the men who had caused his downfall, and his last words to the Regent were to advise her to overlook the present disorders.