He dropped her hands and moved slowly away, she watching him with full eyes. Then he turned and said, "But should he fall—fall as he must—and come to be what his life will surely make him, a felon whom no woman could marry—"
"Thee makes duty hard for me, Richard," she answered. "Do not make me think thee cruel. When in God's good time he shall send me back the words of promise I wrote when he went away a disgraced man, to whom, nevertheless I owed my life, then—Oh, Richard, I love thee! Do not hurt me. Pray for me and him."
"God help us!" he said. "We have great need, to be helped;" and suddenly leaning over he kissed her forehead for the first time, and went away up the garden and into the house.
EDWARD KEARSLEY.
MODERN HUGUENOTS.
It demands a good deal of energy, and it involves a little hardship, to see the Protestant communities of the High Alps of France, but the picturesque and historic interests of the journey furnish a sufficient motive and make ample amends. I can think of no route so entirely unhackneyed to recommend to blasé tourists. The point of departure is Grenoble, reached in an hour or so from Chambéry, and in itself well worth turning aside from the Mont Cenis thoroughfare to visit. As far as Corps the way lies over the beaten track of the Salette pilgrims, of which the charms are recorded in many a devout description.
It happened to us, however, to get a preliminary glimpse of French Protestantism in a characteristic, although wholly modern, development before leaving Grenoble. We applied to the Protestant clergyman there for information respecting the details of our proposed tour. Pleased with our project, he told us the story of a mission which he had established under circumstances altogether unique, and invited us to join him in paying it a visit. The scene of his enterprise was a sunny little village lying high among vineyarded hills, and bearing the name of Notre Dame des Commiers. Owing to its remoteness and insignificance, the Roman Catholic authorities had never replaced its last priest, who withdrew during the turmoils of the Revolution. For all their ecclesiastical needs the people were obliged to descend to the next village, the curé of which gave them little pastoral care beyond the thrifty collection of his dues. Learning these facts, our Grenoble friend determined to take advantage of the situation. He presented himself in the village and told the people he was willing to become their pastor. He only asked them to acknowledge the validity of baptism and marriage performed by him, and to pledge him their support in the struggle with the priests that would probably ensue. Later, he said, he hoped to convince them that he taught a better religion than that at the hands of whose ministers they had suffered such neglect. A majority of the villagers accepted his proposal, and by a formal act constituted themselves a Protestant commune. By so doing they were able to secure recognition by the government as belonging to the National Protestant Church of France. It was not long before the parishioners grew warmly attached to their new pastor. His position of assistant at Grenoble enabled him to assume the sole charge of the enterprise. Week after week he made the tedious stage-coach journey, walking up the two-mile hill at the foot of which he had to quit the highway. Often in winter he toiled for hours through deep snow and faced violent storms in making the ascent. In the worst weather it sometimes happened that the whole journey from Grenoble had to be made on foot. For two years he carried on the work unaided, holding his services in such rude quarters as he was able to secure. The village is now, after an interval of seven years since the missionary's first visit, adorned with a pretty chapel and school-house and provided with a resident minister.
In talking with the people we found abundant proof that their Protestant faith is both intelligent and practical. Such of them as were not busy in the fields surrounded their old pastor with greetings that touchingly expressed their affection and gratitude, and we, as his friends, had a share in the demonstration. One stalwart, clear-eyed old woman obliged us to sit down in front of her chalet, cheerfully explaining that she had just been burned out, and that the shed in which she had found a shelter was not fit for us to enter. She would take no refusal of her offer to fetch us grapes, and ran all the way to and from her vineyard on the opposite hillside, returning in an incredibly short time, scarcely out of breath, and carrying a basket heavy with great white and purple clusters. As she stood watching with delight our appreciation of her produce—the only sweet and luscious grapes, by the way, that we found throughout the autumn in that land of vines—she talked frankly of her religious vicissitudes, summing up as follows: "The priests used to say to me that I had turned Protestant because that is an easier religion than the Roman Catholic. But I have not found it so at all. Il est beaucoup plus facile de me confesser que de me corriger." Presently another woman came up the hill, bending painfully under the weight of two water-pails hanging from the ends of a yoke that rested on her shoulders. "Ah," said our hostess, "if they would but let us build the aqueduct, we should not have that ugly work to do." And then we learned that among the small minority of Roman Catholics left in the village, to care for whom, as soon as it was found a wolf had entered the fold, a priest arrived promptly enough, there prevail the wildest superstitions concerning the Protestants. Among many improvements introduced by the latter an aqueduct had been planned to furnish the hamlet with wholesome water. The project was defeated by the opposition of the Roman Catholics, who considered it a scheme for poisoning them en masse. It was here that we heard for the first time the epithet Huguenots applied as a term of reproach and derision to the Protestants. Afterward, in regions where Protestants have a history of centuries, we found it commonly used in the same way.
Our visit to Notre Dame des Commiers was like reading a living page of early Reformation history, and the whole neighborhood made a fitting stage for such a reproduction. Some six or seven miles from Grenoble we passed the restored but still, in parts at least, historic château of Lesdiguières at Vizille. Nearer our mountain-village we stopped to admire an ivy-covered bit of tower-ruin, associated by a grim tradition with the same Dauphiné hero. A prisoner confined here by the apostate constable had, says the legend, a lady true who came every night and clasped her lover's hand stretched out to her between the bars of his dungeon window. Lesdiguières discovered the rendezvous, and the spot is still pointed out where his soldier was stationed one fatal night to chop off the hand that sought its accustomed pledge. The historical associations of our excursion were, indeed, somewhat confused, but a fresh feature was added to its interest by the departure, which we chanced to witness, of Monsieur Thiers from the Château de Vizille, now occupied by Casimir Perier, whom the ex-president had been visiting.