All thought of the clams was instantly dropped. The women pressed close to the water"s edge; with eyes fixed upon the ships, they awaited anxiously the issue of the combat upon which depended the victualing of their city. It was a solemn moment; an imposing spectacle. The further extremities of the two tongues of land that enclosed the outer bay and left but a narrow entrance to the port, threw their black profiles upon the waves, silvered by the moon. The four brigantines were sailing in single file before the wind with a full spread of canvas, towards the dangerous pa.s.sage which they had to enter under the cross fire of the enemy"s redoubts. A rapid and frightful cannonade followed upon the first shot which had startled the women. Already the first one of the four vessels had entered the pa.s.sage, when, despite the firmness of her nature, Cornelia emitted a cry of distress and said in consternation to Theresa:
"Look, the mast of the forward brigantine is down! It must have been struck by a ball! Good G.o.d, my father is lost if he should be on that vessel--dismantled--unable to move--exposed to the fire of the enemy!"
"All is lost! Alas, all is lost!"
"The brigantines are returning to the open sea!"
"Captain Mirant flees without giving battle! without answering the enemy"s fire! without giving back a single shot!"
"Come, let us return to our clams--henceforth the only resource of La Roch.e.l.le! Let us continue picking up clams!"
"No! My father is not fleeing from battle," answered Cornelia. "By sailing back he means to tow the dismantled ship out of harm"s way. No, Captain Mirant is not fleeing from battle! Do you not see that his vessels are now lying to? They are not sailing away!"
The words of Cornelia, who was long familiar with nautical manoeuvres, thanks to the many voyages she made on board her father"s vessels, revived the hopes of the Rochelois women. Their eyes returned with renewed anxiety to the entrance of the port. But, alas, as they did so, none perceived that soldiers of the royal army were coming out of the Bayhead redoubt, and, screened by the shadows cast by the rocks that were strewn to the right of the beach, were silently creeping nearer behind the ma.s.sive blocks.
"What did I tell you?" Cornelia proceeded to explain. "The brigantines are sailing back again into the pa.s.sage. The forward one, with the dismantled vessel in tow, is opening fire upon the royalist redoubt. No!
Captain Mirant"s cannons have not lost their speech!"
And so it was. The brigantine that had the dismantled vessel in tow sailed intrepidly into the pa.s.sage, returning the enemy"s fire from both broadsides. The enemy"s redoubts, especially the Bayhead, being the better equipped, replied to the brigantine. Suddenly, however, a cry of terror escaped from all b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The brigantine that led was enveloped in a thick smoke which here and there was reddened by the ruddy glow of flames.
The agony of the women of La Roch.e.l.le redoubled. Their attention, held captive by the spectacle in the bay, prevented their noticing the Catholic soldiers, who, in increasing numbers, were approaching, hidden behind the last rocks of the ledge. Suddenly the echoes around the rocks repeated, like the reverberations of thunder, the roar of a tremendous explosion. The dismantled vessel, which carried a full load of powder, was blown into the air after being set on fire, not by the enemy, but by Captain Mirant himself; and, as it blew up, it partly dismantled the Bayhead redoubt. The manoeuvre was successful. Not only was the redoubt crippled, but a large number of the soldiers and cannoniers who manned it perished under the ruins of their own batteries. So soon as the intrepid mariner saw one of his vessels disabled from proceeding on its voyage, he had taken her in tow; veered about with the end in view of withdrawing his flotilla from the enemy"s fire long enough to enable him to perfect his newly conceived strategy; heaped inflammable materials upon the disabled ship; left the powder in her hold; transferred the sailors to his own bottom; veered again; sailed under full canvas before the wind straight into the pa.s.sage; and leading in tow the floating incendiary machine which he had just improvised, set it on fire, and cut the cable just before arriving in front of the redoubt, convinced, by his intimate acquaintance with the currents along the coast, that they would drive ash.o.r.e and against the redoubt the floating firebrand loaded with powder, which, when exploding, would shake the royalist battery to pieces. It happened as Captain Mirant calculated. Once the redoubt was in ruins, Captain Mirant had nothing to fear except from the inferior battery raised on the opposite tongue of land. The bold mariner now proceeded on his course followed by his remaining vessels, deliberately answering the inoffensive shots from the opposite side. Finally, with only the perforation of some of their sails, and a few bullets lodged in their sides, the three vessels steered straight towards the entrance of the interior port of La Roch.e.l.le, which they were to save from famine, and re-supply with munitions of war.
"G.o.d be praised! The city is saved! May my father have come off safe and sound from the combat!" cried Cornelia, while the other Rochelois women loudly acclaimed with shouts of joy and hope the brilliant triumph of the captain.
The last of the three brigantines had just entered the port when the rattle of arquebus shots resounded from behind the rocks which bordered the beach to the right of where the Rochelois women were a.s.sembled. It rained bullets. Women and children, mortally wounded, dropped dead around Theresa and Cornelia. The unexpected attack of the royalist soldiers in ambush threw the unfortunate women into a panic. They had come wholly unarmed, bent upon gathering clams along the beach, and not looking for danger except from the batteries of Bayhead. It happened that a part of that garrison consisted of troops of the guard of the Duke of Anjou, under the command of the Marquis of Montbar, one of the Prince"s favorites, and the most noted debauchee of the whole royalist army. So soon as he perceived the Rochelois women spread along the beach, the Marquis set his soldiers in motion, ordered them to slide out of the redoubt, and to creep noiselessly, under cover of the rocks and of the shadows that they projected, with the object in view of ma.s.sacring a large number of the heroic women, whose intrepidity the royalists had more than once tasted to their sorrow, and of seizing several of them for the orgies of the Duke of Anjou"s tent. Accordingly, after unmasking his ambuscade by the first round of arquebus shots, the Marquis of Montbar rushed with his soldiers upon the startled and panic-stricken women, crying: "Kill all the old ones! Take the handsomest and youngest prisoners! G.o.d"s blood! You can easily distinguish the pretty girls from the old and ugly! The moon is bright!"
The scene that followed was frightful to behold. Many of the "old" ones were ruthlessly butchered, as ordered by the Catholic captain. Others, having escaped the fire of the arquebuses and the ensuing carnage, finding themselves unarmed, and unable to resist the soldiers, sought safety in flight in the direction of the Two Mills Gate. Still others stood their ground and defended themselves with the energy of despair against the guards who sought to seize them. Among the latter was Cornelia, who, in the turmoil, was separated from Theresa Rennepont as both sought to reach the city. The Marquis of Montbar, happening to be near where Cornelia was struggling in the hands of several soldiers, and struck by the beauty of the girl, called out to his men: "Take care you do not hurt her--keep her alive! G.o.d"s blood, she is a royal morsel! I reserve her for Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou."
Cornelia, whose wound was re-opened in her struggle with the soldiers, felt herself losing strength and consciousness through loss of blood.
She fell in a faint at the feet of Montbar. By his orders two of his guards raised her by her feet and shoulders, and carried her away like a corpse. Several other Rochelois women, who were likewise carried off captive to the Bayhead redoubt, now lying in ruins through Captain Mirant"s manoeuvre, were that night victims of the brutality of both captains and soldiers. Finally many others succeeded in reaching the Two Mills Gate at the moment that a company of Protestants, attracted by the sound of arquebus shots, sallied from the city and were hastening to the beach. Alas, it was too late! Already the inrushing tide was submerging the dead and the dying victims of the royalist ambush. Already the water reached the foot of the rocks and intercepted the progress of the Rochelois. They could not pursue the enemy who, among other prisoners, carried away the inanimate body of Captain Mirant"s daughter at the very hour that the daring mariner weighed anchor in the port of La Roch.e.l.le amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DUKE OF ANJOU.
The headquarters of the royal army were at the suburb of Font, now in ruins. The Duke of Anjou, brother of King Charles IX, occupied at Font, in the center of the royal encampment, a house that went by the name of the "Reservoir," since within its yard lay the reservoir into which the waters were gathered that the now destroyed aqueduct conducted into La Roch.e.l.le. The Prince"s headquarters, although wrecked by the war, were repaired, and made fit for the royal guest, thanks to the industry of his valets, who upholstered and equipped the ruins with a ma.s.s of tapestries and furniture which the pack-mules carried in the wake of the army. The Prince"s oratory, where, either in sacrilegious derision, or perhaps yielding to a mixture of fanaticism and lewdness, he both performed his orisons and indulged his debaucheries, was tapestried in violet velvet, garlanded with fringes that were gathered up by gold and silver ta.s.sels. Daylight never penetrated the voluptuous retreat, which only a vermillion chandelier illumined with its candles of perfumed wax.
On one side of the apartment stood a prayer-stool surmounted with an ivory crucifix; on the opposite side was a thickly cushioned lounge. A Turkish carpet covered the floor. A velvet portiere, closed at this moment, communicated with an inside room.
It was about eight in the evening. Cornelia Mirant, captured on the beach of La Roch.e.l.le the night before by the Marquis of Montbar, had just been introduced by him into the oratory of the Duke of Anjou. A feverish agitation imparted an unwonted glow to the countenance of the young girl. Her eyes glistened; her beauty was particularly radiant; a certain coquetish touch was noticeable in the arrangement of her hair; her Rochelois clothing, torn to shreds during the previous night"s encounter, had been changed for a robe of poppy-red brocade. A broad embroidered scarf supported and concealed her right hand. The wound she received the day before on the neck had been dressed with care by one of the Duke"s own surgeons. Monsieur Montbar--a youth barely twenty years of age, but whose delicate features were prematurely blighted by incontinence--had exchanged his war armor for the apparel of the court.
His hair was artistically curled. From his ears hung a pair of earrings encrusted with precious stones; jet black frills hung down from his wrists and encased his hands; a short mantle was thrown over his shoulders; tight-fitting hose and a toque garnished with a brooch of rubies completed his dainty outfit. The Marquis had just brought Cornelia into the oratory, and was saying to her: "My pretty saucebox, you are now in the oratory of the Prince of Anjou, brother of our well-beloved King Charles IX."
"One feels as if in a palace of fairies!" answered Cornelia looking around with feigned and childish wonderment. "Oh, what splendid tapestries! What gorgeous ornaments! It seems I must be dreaming, monseigneur! Can it be possible that the Prince, so great a Prince, deigns to cast his eyes upon so poor a girl as I?"
"Come, my pretty la.s.sy, do not cast down your eyes. Be sincere--you shall ever after feel the glory of having been, if but for one day, the mistress of the King of France"s brother. But what are you thinking about?"
"Monseigneur, all this that is happening to me seems a dream. No! You are making sport of a poor girl. Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou does not think of me."
"You will see him in a minute, I a.s.sure you; he is just now in conference with Fra Herve, his confessor." And turning towards the still closed portiere, he proceeded: "I hear the curtains drawn back, and steps in the neighboring room--it is monseigneur."
Hardly had the Marquis p.r.o.nounced these last words when the drapery was raised, giving pa.s.sage to the Duke of Anjou. The Prince was then twenty-eight years of age; overindulgence had weakened his gait, and imparted to his effeminate physiognomy a wily aspect, and a suggestion of cruelty and hypocrisy to his smile; added to this, excessive ornamentation rendered his appearance trivial and even sinister.
Monsieur Montbar took a few steps towards the Duke, whispered in his ear and pointed to Cornelia. The girl thrilled with suppressed emotion; her right hand, hidden in the wide folds of her scarf, seemed to twitch convulsively and involuntarily to rise to her bosom. She contemplated the Prince with mixed horror and curiosity. Her eyes glistened, but she quickly lowered them before the libidinous glance of the Prince, who, while speaking with the Marquis, regarded her covetously. He said to his favorite: "You are right, my pet; her beauty gives promise of great delight; leave us alone; I may call you in again."
The Marquis of Montbar withdrew. Left alone with Cornelia, the Duke of Anjou stepped to the lounge, stretched himself out upon it nonchalantly with his head resting on the cushion, pulled a gold comfit-holder from his pocket, took a pastille out of it, masticated it, and after a few minutes of silent revery said to the Rochelois:
"Approach, my pretty girl!"
Cornelia raised her eyes heavenward. Her countenance became inspired. A slight pallor overcast it. Her glistening eyes grew moist. Distress was stamped on her features as she muttered to herself: "Adieu, father!
Adieu, Antonicq! The hour of self-sacrifice has sounded for me!"
Surprised at the immobility of Cornelia, whose face he could not see distinctly, the Duke of Anjou sat up and repeated impatiently: "Approach! You seem to be deaf, as well as mute. I told you to approach.
By G.o.d"s death, hurry up! Come and lie down beside me!"
Cornelia, without the Prince"s noticing her motions, disengaged her arm from the folds of the scarf, and stepped deliberately towards the lounge on which he had again stretched himself out. Again he motioned her to approach, saying: "Come here, I tell you. I would fear to d.a.m.n myself forever by contact with such a satanic heretic as you, but for Fra Herve"s promise to give me absolution after our amorous encounter."
And rising from his soft lounge, the Prince opened his arms to Cornelia.
The girl approached; she bowed down; then, quick as thought she seized the Duke by the hair with her left hand, at the same time drawing out of the folds of her scarf her right hand armed with a short sharp steel dagger with which she struck the Prince several blows in the region of the heart, crying: "Die, butcher of my brothers! Die, cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin of women and children!"
The Duke of Anjou wore under his jacket a coat of mail of steel so close meshed and well tempered that Cornelia"s dagger broke under the blows that she dealt, while the frightened Prince called out for help, gasping: "Murder! She a.s.sa.s.sinates me! Murder!"
At the Prince"s cries and the noise of the struggle between them the Marquis of Montbar, together with several domestics of the royal household, hurried into the oratory, from the contiguous room where they always stood in waiting; they flung themselves upon Cornelia and seized her by the wrists, while the Prince, freed from the grasp of the brave maid, ran livid and demented to his prayer-stool, where he threw himself down upon his knees, and, with lips white with terror, shivering in every part of his body, and with his teeth clattering in his head, he stammered: "Almighty G.o.d, thanks be to Thee! Thou hast protected Thy unworthy servitor!" And bending low, till his forehead touched the ground, the terrified libertine smote his chest exclaiming: "_Mea culpa!
mea culpa! mea maxima culpa!_"[84]
While the Duke of Anjou was thus giving thanks to his G.o.d for having escaped the dagger of the young Protestant girl, she, held firmly by the seigneurs and retainers who heaped upon her insults and threats of death, stood erect with proud front, defied them with steady eyes, and preserved a disdainful silence. Holding himself responsible for the conduct of the Huguenot girl, whom he had taken to his master"s bed, the Marquis of Montbar drew his sword and was about to run her through, when the Prince, rising from his prayer-stool cried out: "Do not kill her, my pet! Oh, no, she must not die so soon!"
The favorite re-sheathed his sword. The Duke of Anjou, now pale with rage, staggered to his lounge and sat down. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, cast a look of implacable hatred upon Cornelia, and after regarding her in silence for a moment, said: "Well, my pretty la.s.s--so you meant to a.s.sa.s.sinate me!"
"Yes--because you are the worthy son of Catherine De Medici, the worthy brother of Charles IX; because you suborned an a.s.sa.s.sin to poison Coligny!"
The Duke of Anjou remained unmoved, and remarked with a cruel smile: "You are a resolute girl, resolute in word and deed. I came near learning as much at my cost! What is your name?"
"Cornelia Mirant."
"What! You are the daughter of the mariner who last night almost threw into utter ruins our Bayhead redoubt? You are the daughter of the devilish Huguenot who has just revictualed La Roch.e.l.le?"
The Cordelier Fra Herve had just raised the portiere and was about to step into the oratory, when he heard the young girl declare her name to be Cornelia Mirant. The monk immediately stopped. Half-hidden by the tapestry, he remained on the threshold of the room and listened to the rest of the dialogue between the Huguenot girl and the Prince.
"You must be a girl of honorable habits. How came you to yield so readily to the propositions of the Marquis?"
"In the hope of being able to strike you dead with the dagger that I found in the tent of your officer," boldly answered Cornelia.
"A new Judith, you seem to see in me a modern Holofernes! Everything about you breathes courage, honor, chast.i.ty. By G.o.d! I am becoming interested in you. You have wished my death--well, I wish that you live.
So brave a girl should not die."
"What, monseigneur! Shall this wretch escape punishment!" cried the Marquis of Montbar, while Cornelia thought to herself with a shudder: "I dread the clemency of the son of Catherine De Medici more than I do his ire."