“There is asked a ransom far too high.”
All Geneva was moved with sorrow and sympathy for De Caulaincourt and anxiety about his fate. But presently even this was driven into the background by public events of a very important nature. The Libertine party, after several defeats still strong and daring, raised its head again and challenged a decisive conflict for the possession of Geneva. The special foot of ground they chose to contest was the admission of the French exiles to the privileges of citizenship. These exiles were religious men, and warm friends of Calvin, himself a Frenchman. So the Libertines raised the cry, Geneva for the Genevans,” and tried to persuade the people that the ambitious preacher intended, by means of his countrymen, to get the whole power into his hands, crush the old citizens, and rule as a despot. This at least was plausible. But to the baser sort,” especially to the fishermen and boatmen of the lake, they told another tale. Calvin and his French, they said, were plotting to deliver up the city to the King of France, and thus deprive the citizens of their ancient liberties. Seeing that the first act of the King of France, if he got the city, would have been to burn the French exiles every one, this did not seem a likely story; yet it gained credence enough to cost a night of terror, during which the streets were paraded by armed bands of disorderly Libertines, and mobs of fishermen with arquebuses, crying, Kill! kill! Death to the Francillions — to the Porte-Francais! “as they called the exiles and their friends. Happily, these all remained quietly within doors, so the rioters found no one to kill.
But this was open sedition. It showed that the foes of order must be dealt with decisively, else the new Geneva would be split into fragments, and no man’s life would be safe in it. Some of the Libertine leaders, especially Philibert Berthelier and Ami Perrin, escaped to Bernese territory; but Daniel Berthelier, two brothers named Comparet, and others of less note, were arrested and imprisoned.
Ami Berthelier held himself aloof from the whole affair. Though not quite in sympathy with the new regime, he was still less so with his own kinsfolk, whose projects, if successful, would lead, he thought, to anarchy. Still, when party feeling ran so high, he could scarcely hope that one of his name would escape suspicion; nor would it have surprised him, at any moment, to find himself arrested on some charge or other and lodged in the Eveche.
Norbert, having nothing else to do, had gone to school again. He told himself he was as well, or as ill, there as anywhere else. It is true he did little, but then he had never done very much. And at this time all the office-bearers, from the rector to the dizainier of his class, were very lenient with him: they knew the bitterness of his soul.
The days wore on. At last, one afternoon in May, on coming out of the school, he noticed an unusual concourse in the street. All were gazing at a burly horseman with a trumpet at his side, and a pole with a white pennon attached to his stirrup.
Norbert looked because the others did, but without interest, until someone called out, “A Lormayeur!”
“What say you?” he cried, eager enough now.
“Look at the badge in his cap — holly for Savoy, broom for the Counts of Lormayeur. This means a parley, and tidings. Let us follow him to the Town Hall, and hear.”
When they got there they heard that the Little Council was then actually in session (a thing unusual in the afternoon), and the trumpeter was at once admitted to an audience.
Many hands were stretched out for his reins when he flung them down, but Norbert seized them first.
“I pray you, sir,” said he, “know you aught of my father, the Sieur de Caulaincourt, a prisoner?”
“Ay, do I, young master. ‘Tis about his ransom I am here.”
Norbert’s heart leaped within him. He cried aloud with his sudden joy.
“And how does he fare?” he added hastily; but there was no time to answer. Already a messenger of the council was hurrying the trumpeter in, and bidding the bystanders take care of his horse.
Still, Norbert had heard enough. That word ransom sounded in his ears like the sweetest of melodies. It meant hope of deliverance; it meant, even now, gentle and honorable treatment — that of a prisoner of war, instead of that of a condemned heretic.
True, there was a question behind — where was the ransom to come from? It might prove — it was likely to prove — a very perplexing question indeed. But it did not trouble him yet.
Another official came out, a clerk with spectacles and a pen behind his ear.
“Take that horse to the Wild Man,” he said; “his master will follow presently.”
Norbert sprang upon the clerk with eager questions, to be waived off in summary fashion.
“I am under oath. I can say nothing. You will know all in due time.”
“Come away, Norbert,” said two other lads. “No use in waiting. We may cool our feet here for hours before the council thinks fit to break up!” But still Norbert lingered, unable to tear himself from the spot.
In about half an hour the clerk came forth again. Seeing Norbert waiting at the door, he said —
“I think you lodge near the dwelling of Master Ami Berthelier. Will you go and fetch him?”
“I will, sir,” cried Norbert, eagerly. “Is there a letter for him? May I take it?”
“No; fetch him hither as quickly as thou canst.” Norbert flew to the Rue Cornavin, and told his errand breathlessly.
“Oh, sir, make haste!” he cried; “there is news of my father.”
A summons from the Little Council would not in itself have surprised Berthelier, who lived, as we know, in the expectation of being denounced by somebody as an enemy to the commonwealth. But a summons in connection with the messenger of Lormayeur! — What could that possibly mean? Whatever it meant, he must do all right and fitting honor to their worthinesses of the Town Council. So he put on his gown of broadcloth and his furred bonnet, and hung by his side the ancient sword he had never once had the chance of using.
“I am with you,” he said to Norbert.
With much difficulty the eager boy adapted his pace to the lame man’s lagging footsteps. To him the time seemed endless till they reached the hall. Then he was told he might go home, which he did not do, and Berthelier was ushered at once into the presence of the twenty-five.
He bowed, removed his bonnet, and stood before them in respectful silence, awaiting their pleasure.
There, at the great table with the covering of green cloth, sat the four syndics and the rest, all well-known to him by face and name. They wore their hats and were dressed very plainly and soberly, but in robes of good broadcloth. Each of the syndics had his black baton of office laid on the table before him. They looked like a company of honest, but hard and stern, perhaps narrow-minded men. The thought came to Berthelier, as he waited there, that it had been the dream of his youth that such men as these should rule his Geneva, in place of the haughty duke and the dissolute prince-bishop. His dream had come true; but was Geneva the better for it, after all?
“Be seated, Master Berthelier,” said the first syndic, addressing him in terms of unlooked-for-courtesy.
This is a fairer beginning than I expected, thought Berthelier, as he took the offered seat.
“We have sent for you,” continued the syndic, by name Amblarde “Come, because of a communication which we have just received from the Count of Lormayeur.”
Berthelier looked the astonishment he felt.
“The notary will explain,” continued the syndic.
A person in a notary’s robe stood up at the end of the table and began to read. Philip Manuel Joseph, by the grace of God, Count of Lormayeur;” thus began the letter which the haughty Savoyard had so far demeaned himself as to address to the heretics of Geneva. A string of other titles followed, with a curt commendation to Them of Geneva,” as of one who strained a point to observe the barest rules of courtesy. But the next words were of thrilling interest. The count condescended to inform the Genevans that he had in ward one Germain de Caulaincourt, a Frenchman by birth, but a citizen of Geneva. This ill-advised person had been found upon the count’s estate, disseminating heretical doctrines, and thus laying himself open to condign punishment. Two others of Genevan birth were in the prisons of the count, a certain Jacques de Maisonneuve, or Baudichon, supposed to be a cadet of an honorable house, and Jean Ardenot, companion of the Guild of Bonnet-makers. These also, as heretics, were liable to summary justice. But the count in his clemency was willing to regard all these as prisoners of war, and put them to fair exchange and ransom.
Here the notary paused, and Berthelier, much rejoiced, could not help saying —
“Good! We will give to the last denier, and so will all the Frenchmen, for the ransom of M. de Caulaincourt. Maisonneuve will take care of his kinsman and the bonnet-makers will see to their companion.”
“Patience, friend,” the first syndic said gravely. “It is not money that is wanted. Master Notary, read on.”
The notary bowed. “There is at present,” he continued, “there is at present in your city a young lady, a kinswoman of the count, whose person his excellency desires to recover “ — here Berthelier suddenly raised his head, with a look at the notary that disconcerted him visibly — ” desires to recover,” he repeated, then rallying himself went on, “since of right she is his ward, and should be under his guardianship, that she may be educated suitably, and in honorable fashion, and placed in the possession of the estates that are her rightful inheritance.” More followed, enveloped in many high-sounding words. But the meaning of all was abundantly clear. “Give me the young lady, and you shall have your three heretics safe and sound. I offer you Germain Caulaincourt, Jacques de Maisonneuve, and Jean Ardenot, in exchange for the Demoiselle Castelar, who goes amongst you by the name of Gabrielle Berthelier.”
Ami Berthelier spoke no word, uttered no cry, but he looked what he was — a man stabbed to the heart.
One of the council, who sat where he could see his face, interposed from an impulse of compassion.
“We will do nothing rashly. This story has yet to be proved.”
“And if it were,” said another, “how is the count to make sure that we do not palm off on him some peasant girl, get our men back, and laugh in his face?”
“The men of Geneva deal fairly,” said the first syndic, in a tone of grave reproof. “And the count, of course, will take due precautions. Go on, Master Notary.”
The rest of the count’s letter, stripped of verbiage and circumlocution, contained the following facts — the child, Olive de Castelar, was stolen from her parents by her nurse, at the instigation of the devil, and of the rascally kinsman who hoped to inherit if they died childless. The nurse, one Josephine Mendol, passed her on for better concealment to her sister, the wife of a well-to-do peasant, named Robinet. She then induced this Robinet to come to Geneva, and they were lodging in one of the suburban houses which was destroyed by the citizens on account of the threatened Savoyard invasion. She lost sight of them after that, and did not hear until long afterward that they both died of the plague, but that the child was living, and had been adopted by a citizen of Geneva. All these things, being stricken with remorse, she had revealed on her deathbed to her confessor, charging him to make them known to the relations of the child.
“A fine story that!” said another syndic, named Bonna. “But I pray you, how does it prove that the citizen who adopted the child was Master Ami Berthelier, here present before us?”
“There is more,” said the notary, who had been scanning the paper carefully, and wishing the count had employed a secretary who wrote a clearer hand, and a style less burdened with Savoyard idioms.
“Let us have it all,” said the first syndic.
“Some months ago,” the notary continued, an old servant of the house of Castelar, ignorant of these facts, being in town upon his own affairs, and under safe conduct, saw the young lady, and was struck by her likeness to her mother, whom he well remembered, though she is long dead. He inquired of the townsfolk, and learned that she was the adopted daughter of Master Ami Berthelier. That it not all. The traitorous nurse, it appears, did not wish all record of the child’s parentage to be lost. What was strange in a woman like that, of the baser sort, she could read and write, having learned these arts in the service of the lady of Castelar. She used her clerkship to write the child’s real name, with the state and quality of her parents, enclosing the said writing in a little bag, which she hung round the child’s neck, calling it a “charm.” The notary laid down the paper and took off his spectacles.
“Master Berthelier,” asked the first syndic, very courteously, “have you any knowledge of this paper?”
Berthelier cleared his throat, though his voice was still husky, and sounded to himself a great way off.
“I do know it,” he said; “it was lost-as I believed destroyed. But some weeks ago I found it again. It is all as you say.” The last words were a hoarse whisper.
“You must see, Master Berthelier,” Amblarde Come resumed gravely, we have no choice left us. “We must give her up.”
“Not so bad as it might be,” a member of the council threw in. “The maiden goes to her kindred and her friends. Perhaps also to a fair inheritance.”
“But you forget,” said the third Syndic Aubert, well known as an excellent apothecary and a most zealous Protestant. “You forget we are thrusting the poor child’s soul into deadly peril. They will make a Papist of her.”
“Please you, my masters,” said the notary. “There is here a sort or manner of post scriptum, which I did not observe before.”
“Read it,” said several voices together.
“The count, in his clemency, is pleased to take into consideration the regrettable fact that the young lady, through no fault of her own, hath been nourished and brought up hitherto in the pernicious doctrines “-so he says, my masters, I am bound to read his words as they stand written — ” in the pernicious doctrines of the pretended Reformed, and he desires to assure her present guardians that no restraint will be put upon her in the matter of religion. Also, he thanks them for their good offices towards her, which upon due occasion he holds himself bound to requite.”
“Fine words!” said Aubert. “How much are they to be trusted?”
“An’ it please your worthiness, I have somewhat to say.” The speaker was a little insignificant-looking man with a squint. But he was of some weight in the town; besides being a member of council he was Prior of the Honorable Guild of the Tailors. “I know the Count of Lormayeur very well. Indeed, I may say, after a fashion of speech, “I have taken his measure.”
“In more ways than one, Master Pradel,” said the youngest of the councilors, and one or two grave faces relaxed a little. Pradel’s renown in his craft extended to Savoy, and he had gone more than once, under proper safe conduct, to the Castle of Lormayeur, to place his skill at the service of its lord.
“I know the count,” he resumed. He is like all the rest of them — self first, the pope second, the duke his liege lord third and last — all else, nowhere. When I say self, I mean gold and lands for self. Depend upon it, this is at bottom an affair of these. He wants the maiden for some purpose that will bring them into his net. That purpose served, he will care for naught about herself or her religion, one way or the other.”
There was a pause, then Syndic Corne said gravely: “Our duty is clear. Yet the matter should be voted upon, in due course and order. Master Bonna, my honored colleague, what say you?”
Syndic Bonna’s mind was quite made up, as indeed was that of everyone else. But he could not record his vote with Berthelier’s eyes of anguish fixed upon his face. “I move,” he said, “that Master Berthelier be requested to withdraw.”
Without waiting for more, Berthelier rose silently and retired to the ante-chamber. Syndic Bonna was right, no man should be present while the votes are taken upon his own death-sentence. He went over to the window, leant against it and looked out upon the street. A wave of agony swept over him, such as he had not known for years, such as he never thought to know again. Chords which had seemed broken forever in the storm that wrecked his youth thrilled now with exquisite pain. Once more he had let himself love, and the power to love is the power to suffer. So the child — his child by every tie and claim, save that of birth — must go from him, and forever! Were it but for her good, he could have borne it. But that she, the child of Geneva, the child of that new Faith which had such mysterious power to grasp and hold the souls it touched, should be flung into the midst of that cruel Papist crew — the thought was intolerable! A lily amongst thorns — she would be torn and tortured, perhaps done to death amongst them. He would not have it! He would refuse to give her up, and take the consequences. He would defy the syndics, the council, the whole city — what did he care for them all?
Ay, but then — were there not those behind for whom he did care? Would he choose, even if he could, to give up his noble friend De Caulaincourt, not to speak of the other two, to a death of lingering torture? His love for him, strengthened by every claim of justice and of right, surged back upon his heart, and forbade the thought. Impossible to abandon him — and yet, oh, how impossible to consent to that other thing! He felt like a wild beast in a net, unable to struggle, unable even to move, able only to suffer.
The notary stood at the door. “Master Berthelier, the honorable council desires your presence.”
He obeyed, and stood before the council as a man might stand waiting his death sentence.
The first syndic addressed him mildly, with courteous intonation. “You must see for yourself, respectable Master Berthelier, that there is no choice left us in this matter. These three worthy citizens must be saved. Therefore, we accept the terms of the Count of Lormayeur. And since they are no doubt pining in his dungeons all this time upon scanty pittance of bread and water, it is our unanimous opinion that what must be done should be done quickly. Therefore we require of you, upon your oath and your duty as a citizen, to hold the maiden known and designated as Gabrielle Berthelier ready in three days” time for honorable exchange against German de Caulaincourt, Jacques Baudichon, and Jean Ardenot. I pray you, Master Berthelier, if you have anything to say, speak freely; we shall hear you with all indulgence.”
“I have nothing to say. I obey the honorable council,” said Berthelier, hoarsely. He turned to go; then, remembering that these men represented Geneva, turned again, made his “reverence,” and passed out.
At the door Norbert sprang upon him demanding news. He is saved,” said Berthelier.
“But how — how? Tell me all!” Norbert cried.
“Is it by ransom?”
“Yes, by a great ransom.”
“How much?”
“Ask me no more. And I pray thee, let me go home alone.”
He waved off the boy, who would have given him his arm, and who stood waiting, his joy dashed with awe, as the old man passed slowly and wearily down the street.