The Refugees

e time when they were allotted to her, but with that rare tact and self-restraint which were the leading features in her remarkable character, she had

pension and estate which the king’s favour had awarded her. Here it was that every day the king would lounge, finding in the conversation of a clever and virtuous woman a charm and a pleasure which none of the professed wits of his sparkling court had ever been able to give to him, and here, too, the more sagacious of the courtiers were beginning to understand, was the point, formerly to be found in the magnificent salons of De Montespan, whence flowed those impulses and tendencies which were so eagerly studied, and so keenly followed up by all who wished to keep t

only at the hours of devotion. It was therefore with some feelings both of nervousness and of curiosity that he followed his guide down the gorgeo

dame about your creed, for it is the only thing upon which her heart can be hard.” She raised her finger to emphas

p in.” The voice was firm

fined woman. The stamped-leather furniture, the La Savonniere carpet, the pictures of sacred subjects, exquisite from an artist’s point of view, the plain but tasteful curtains, all left an impression half religious and half feminine but wholly soothing. Indeed, the

figure was graceful and queenly, her gestures and pose full of a natural dignity, and her voice, as he had already remarked, most sweet and melodious. Her face was handsome rather than beautiful, set in a statuesque classical mould, with broad white forehead, firm, delicately sensitive mouth, and a pair of large serene gray eyes, earnest and placid in repose, but capable of reflecting the whole play of her soul, from the merry gleam of humour to the quick flash of righteous anger. An elevating serenity was, however, the leading expression of her features, and in that she presented the strongest contrast to her rival

ve already seen yo

onour of attending upon you though it may no

me. It is the curse of such places that evil flaunts itself before the eye and cannot be overlooked, while the

Lowlands, on the Rh

le Ber at Montreal? It was but the other day that I had an account of them from Father Godet des Marais. What joy to be one of such a body, and to turn from the blessed work

e same sisters, threatened ever with misery, hunger, and the scalping-knife, to hear this

remembering Mademoiselle Nanon’s warning, and

d the privilege also of se

I have seen

pitians still hold their

Jesuits are the stronger at Queb

our own direc

worst had come upon him

now not how I could guide my steps in the difficult path which

m of the Reformed

owed itself in mouth and eye. “What, in the court itself,” s

urt his self-esteem to see himself regarded as though he had confessed to something that was loathsome and unclean. “You will find, mada

randsire, Theodore d’Aubigny, did so much to place a crown upon the head of the great Henry. But He

devotions stood in some perplexity in the middle of the room, hardly knowing whether such an attention should be regarded as an insul

ctories, madame,” said she. “H

s. Now, sir,” she continued, when they were alone once

d, ma

e de Montespan was refused a

as, ma

for the king i

e d

a promise that he

, ma

a breach of your duty to tell. But I am fighting now against

tinat

hat do

that she is fighting for the king’s

thought of myself. I am fighting w

same thing

his faithful guards, and not less so now, surely, when so much more is at sta

ur, ma

done me a service, and

said Mademoiselle Nanon,

outer passage. And take this. It is Bossuet’s statement of the Catholic

o him, and her hand was raised to the mantel-piece. At the instant that he looked she moved her neck,