that dark and fugitive Montgomeri, the slayer, as some would have it
the assassin, of a king, now active, and almost ubiquitous, on the
Huguenot side. Still, at Deux-manoirs, this warfare, seething up
from time to time so wildly in this or that district of France, was
for the most part only sensible in incidents we might think
picturesque, were they told with that intention; delightful enough,
certainly, to the curiosity of a boy, in whose [19] mind nevertheless
they deepened a native impressibility to the sorrow and hazard that
are constant and necessary in human life, especially for the poor.
The troubles of "that poor people of France"--burden of all its
righteous rulers, from Saint Lewis downwards--these, at all events,
would not be lessened by the struggle of Guise and Conde and Bourbon
and Valois, of the Valois with each other, of those four brilliant
young princes of the name of Henry. The weak would but suffer
somewhat more than was usual, in the interest of the strong. If you
were not sure whether that gleaming of the sun in the vast distance
flashed from swords or sickles, whether that far-off curl of smoke
rose from stubble-fire or village-steeple, to protect which the
peasants, still lovers of their churches, would arm themselves, women
and all, with fork and scythe,--still, those peasants used their
scythes, in due season, for reaping their leagues of cornland, and
slept with faces as tranquil as ever towards the sky, for their
noonday rest. In effect, since peace is always in some measure
dependent on one's own seeking, disturbing forces do but fray their
way along somewhat narrow paths over the great spaces of the quiet
realm of nature. La Beauce, vast enough to present at once every
phase of weather, its one landmark the twin spires of Chartres,
salient as the finger of a dial, guiding, by their change of
perspective, victor or vanquished on his way, offered room enough
[20] for the business both of peace and war to those enamoured of