WHEN the rulers of France found that even after the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, when all the Protestants or Huguenots were murdered in one night, and the streets of Paris ran with the blood of these noble martyrs; when they found that in spite of all these cruelties this despised religion seemed to gain more followers, they formed a new plan to make the people give up their faith.
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A law was passed by which any child of Protestant parents might be seized and placed in a monastery or convent; it did not matter how young a child might be, if it but made the sign of the cross or said one short prayer to the Virgin it was pronounced a Roman Catholic, and the father and mother had no longer any right to keep the child.
It was this law which had so troubled M. Clément. On the day our story begins, he met a friend who had just lost his little daughter in this way.
Her nurse, who was a Roman Catholic at heart, though she pretended to follow the Huguenot teaching, had taken her into a church, and there the child had touched her forehead with the holy water in imitation of the nurse. She was at once seized and sent to a convent, where she was treated with every possible kindness, and everything done to make her forget the dear mother she might never see again. Poor little Marie I she was only vine years old.
M. and Mme. Clément sat talking a long time after the children had gone to bed. They felt they were no longer safe in their native town.
Claude and Marguerite were old enough to understand what it was to suffer for Christ who had done so much for them, they would stand firm whatever happened; but Louise and Eugène were so young and so ready to please everybody, that it would have been most dangerous to let them be seen out alone with old Jeanne, who although a staunch Protestant, was a nervous and timid old woman.
“If we could only get Louise and Eugène away I should feel safe," said M. Clément.
“Oh, I could not bear to part with them," said their mother, " how dull the house would be without my noisy little Eugène, naughty little darling that he is.''
How little do you children know how much your mother loves you, notwithstanding all the trouble you give her, and if she had to part with you she would feel just the same as poor Mme. Clément felt. For them the parting came only too soon.
Two or three days passed without anything serious happening, but they were days of terrible anxiety to M. and Mme. Clément. They were afraid to let their children go out of doors, and the children who were not used to be confined to the house grew fretful and impatient at the restraint.
Poor little things! they could not understand why they should be kept prisoners, for their parents had not told them the reason. Young as they were, it made them sad to see the face of their mother so pale, for though she tried to appear cheerful before the children, she could not hide from them that something had happened to trouble her. Poor Jeanne too, who was so faithful and loved them all so well, had been let into the secret, and shed many tears over the trouble which had come upon them. She appeared calm enough before her mistress, but the children often surprised her when she was crying, and when they tried to comfort her they only seemed to increase her distress. So the children felt more than ever puzzled as to the cause of the cloud which had fallen on their hitherto happy home.