Angèle

“ Angele's heart fluttered to her mouth, but the soft, simple music helped her, and she began with eyes bent upon the ground, her linked fingers clasping and unclasping slowly.
"I was born at Rouen, your high Majesty," she said. "My mother was a cousin of the Prince of Passy, the great Protestant—"
"Of Passy—ah!" said Elizabeth amazed. "Then you are Protestants indeed; and your face is no invention, but cometh honestly. No, no, 'tis no accident—God rest his soul, great Passy!" ”

“ So Angele, suddenly arrested, was caught by the sense of mystery in the man, by the fascination of finesse, of dark power; and it was womanlike that all on an instant she should dream of the soul of goodness in things evil. ”

“ Her glance fell on De la Forêt. Her look softened. “I will hear you preach next Sunday, sir.”
[Pg 248]
There was an instant’s pause, and then she said to Angèle, with gracious look and in a low voice: “You have heard from me that calumny which the innocent never escape. To try you, I neglected you these many days; to see your nature even more truly than I knew it, I accused you but now. You might have been challenged first by one who could do you more harm than Elizabeth of England, whose office is to do good, not evil. ”

“ He who hath never seen the lightning hath no dread of it. I had not thought there was in the world so much artlessness, with all the power of perfect art. But we live to be wiser. Thou shalt continue in thy tale. Thou hast seen Mary, once Queen of France, now Queen of Scots—answer me fairly; without if, or though, or any sort of doubt, the questions I shall put. Which of us twain, this ruin-starred queen or I, is of higher stature?”
“She hath advantage in little of your Majesty,” bravely answered Angele. ”

“ Ouen’s; and he spoke proudly of his friendship with the Duke’s Daughter, who had admired the cut of his jerkin at the court of Elizabeth. But in the house where Angèle had lived he moved about as though in the presence of a beloved sleeper he would not awake.
Michel and Angèle had had their few years of exquisite life and love, and had gone; Lemprière had longer measure of life and little love, and who shall say which had more profit of breath and being? The generations have passed away, and the Angel of Equity hath a smiling pity as she scans the scales and the weighing of the past. ”

“ But the longest waiting must end. It came on the evening of the very day that the Seigneur of Rozel went to Angèle's father and bluntly told him he was ready to forego all Norman-Jersey prejudice against the French and the Huguenot religion, and take Angèle to wife without penny or estate. ”

“ Nor resist the governor?” she asked, eagerly.
“Whither should I go? My place is here by you, by the Comtesse de Montgomery. One day it may be I shall return to France and to our cause—”
“If it be God’s will.”
“If it be God’s will.”
“Whatever comes, you will love me, Michel?”
“I will love you whatever comes.”
“Listen.” She drew his head down. “I [Pg 51] am no drag-weight to thy life? Thou wouldst not do otherwise if there were no foolish Angèle?”
He did not hesitate. “What is best is. I might do otherwise if there were no Angèle in my life to pilot my heart, but that were worse for me.” ”

“ It was not a beautiful thing in a woman, but it was what a woman could do; and, denied other powers given to men—as to her father—she resorted to astute but doubtful devices to advance her diplomacy. Over all was self-infatuation, the bane of princes, the curse of greatness, the source of wide injustice. It was not to be expected, as Leicester had said, that Elizabeth, save for the whim of the moment, would turn aside to confer benefit upon Angele or to keep her in mind, unless constrained to do so for some political reason. ”

“ II Meanwhile Angèle had gone through many phases of alternate hope and despair. She knew that the Comte de Montgomery was dead, and a rumor, carried by refugees, had reached her that de la Forêt was with him to the end. ”

“ So it was that, with bowed head, Angele left the room with the Queen of England, leaving Lempriere and De la Foret gazing at each other, the one bewildered, the other lost in painful reverie, and Leicester smiling maliciously at them both.
CHAPTER X
Every man, if you bring him to the right point, if you touch him in the corner where he is most sensitive, where he most lives, as it were ”

“ Heaven save your honour!' Which when Angelo heard, he said within his heart: 'Amen, I would be saved from thee and from thy virtues': and then, affrighted at his own evil thoughts, he said: 'What is this? What is this? Do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes? What is it I dream on? The cunning enemy of mankind, to catch a saint, with saints does bait the hook. Never could an immodest woman once stir my temper, but this virtuous woman subdues me quite. ”

“ The Madonna is sitting in the same light and airy loggia reading in some little book, as the Angel Gabriel, with his iridescent wings still poised for flight, alights at her feet, filling the air with glory. Outside, the grass is starred with the flowers which Angelico loved to paint; and far away, silhouetted against the sky, we see the Angel with a flaming sword driving Man and Woman from their Garden of Paradise, whose gates not even the coming of Christ could reopen on earth. ”

“ Enter Agnes, hastily, not seeing Ravensburg.
Agnes. I cannot comprehend! the prince to gaze on me with such emotion! wildly exclaim, "the sight of her is hateful!" and, with the baron, leave the banquet, to be told the whole of my sad history—'Tis well! I shall not suffer by the truth; for, as I guess, mine, is a story to excite more of compassion than resentment.
Ravens. Agnes! speak—what of the Prince?
Agnes. Nothing, my lord ”

“ In the beginning of the IVth century a Roman maiden, whose name is popularly known as Agnes, gave up her life for her faith. “Her tender sex,” says a Protestant writer, “her almost childish years, her beauty, innocence, and heroic defence of her chastity, the high antiquity of the veneration paid to her, have all combined to invest the person and character of S. Agnes with a charm, an interest, a reality, to which the most sceptical are not wholly insensible.” The son of the Prefect of Rome became enamored of her comeliness, and asked her parents to give her to him as his wife. ”

“ Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in fact, the wife for a poet. ”

“ Angelica, they may give you praise, they may give you wealth; they may elevate you to a lofty place in the world’s view, where thy beauty and thy worth being recognized, may command the homage of the great and good; they may appoint you to a high rank among the hierarchy of genius that minister in the temple of fame—but I, only I, love thee! ”

“ Angélique, radiant in the bloom of youth and beauty, her golden hair floating about her like a cloud of glory round a daughter of the sun, with her womanly perfections which made the world seem brighter for such a revelation of completeness in every external charm ”

“ Jean—Do not worry your mind with these visions and wonderings, dearest Angelica. You will become so excited you will be ill, dear.
18Angelica—Oh no, I shall not be ill, I shall be well! It makes me almost believe that there is such a world above when I think of how well I could be if I were in it. For, why did I have eyes that long for light, light, more light, if I was never to have more light?
Jean—Dear Angelica! (soothingly.)
Angelica—No, no, do not speak against it! I know there is a world above. I know it. I feel it. O, let us go there! Let us go up through this flue and find it! ”

“ You have convinced yourself of the injustice of your opinion of women. You have found a noble woman. I am willing to believe that Angela is a magnificent and faultless creature, although she have an ultramontane father. But my consent to your union with Siegwart's daughter you will never receive. Now, Richard, you can without trouble find a woman that will suit you, and who is as beautiful and as noble-minded as the Angel of Salingen. ”

“ As the child grew older, she often sat at evening with wide, wondering eyes, listening over and over again to the story of the fair Saint Agnes,—how she was a princess, living in her father's palace, of such exceeding beauty and grace that none saw her but to love her, yet of such sweetness and humility as passed all comparison ”

“ Then said the Prefect to the holy maiden,
' I have borne with thee hitherto because thou art yet a child;
thou insultest our gods, yet do not anger them.'
Agnes answered him, ' The Almighty approveth
the minds of men rather than their great age;
and faith is not in years, but dwells in prudent understandings. ”

“ Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if her nature could have detested any one creature in a state of wretchedness, it would have been the woman who had lost her honour; yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego ”

“ Faith none at all: Our Inclinations are our Masters, and we wander but as our Stars lead us; if they are false Lights, and shew us out of the way, let them answer for't. It was my fortune to see Angelica, and to love her. ”

“ And Angélique is on nobody's side. Angélique favors no suitor. She is like me: she would live a single life to the end of her days, as holy as a nun, with never a thought of courtship and weddings, but I have set my face against such a life for her. I have seen the folly of it. Here am I, a poor old helpless woman, living without respect or consideration, when I ought to be looked up to in the Territory. ”

“ Angelo, Fasting and praying in the midnight darkness, In a celestial vision I beheld A crucifix in the sun, of the same substance As is the sun itself. And since that hour There is a splendor round about my head, That may be seen at sunrise and at sunset Above my shadow on the grass. And now I know that I am in the grace of God, And none henceforth can harm me. MICHAEL ANGELO. None but one,— None but yourself, who are your greatest foe. He that respects himself is safe from others; He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
BENVENUTO. I always wear one. ”

“ Always that tossing to and fro, the queer, jumbled talk, the growing thinner—all of the dreadful signs of how he suffers. Angelique, if I could bear it for him. I am so young and strong and worth nothing to this world, while he’s so wise and good. ”

“ Angélique replied that she prayed her to implore the king's grace to allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every three years, and leave being granted, she and her sister Agnes, who was her coadjutor, instantly resigned. ”

“ Angelica— (Laughing joyously.) I cannot tell you anything because you always prove things out, can I?
Jean— (Laughing in his turn.) I cannot tell you anything because you always know without any proving, don’t you? But are you ready now to try to reach the gateway? Shall I lift you, dear? Shall we go on?
Angelica—But I am so tired. It was such a long way we came. I would fain stay here always with your arms around me. I do not care if we never reach The World Above!
Jean—But if we go on, you will still have me with you and have The World Above besides!
Angelica—And the light! ”

“ It passed to other nations, but was of more rare occurrence there, except in the feminine. The fashion of complimenting women as angels, left the masculine Ange to be scantily used in France, and Angel now and then in England; but in Italy alone did Angiolo, and its derivative Angelico, thrive. ”

“ We of today might clothe our imagination with the vision of Princess Angeline, the old chief’s daughter, then a maiden of comely, though dusky, looks, standing respectfully near and listening, possibly in eagerness, to this bartering away of her father’s domain—her own heritage—to the stranger. ”

“ All the other countries adopted the feminine, either in the simple form or the diminutive, or most commonly, the derivative, Angelica (angelical) , noted in romance as the faithless lady, for whose sake Orlando lost his heart, and his senses. She was a gratuitous invention of Boiardo and Ariosto; whose character for surpassing beauty made her name popular, and thus Angelica and Angelique have always been favourites.
Angel was most often a man’s name in England. We find it at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1591, and sometimes likewise in Cornwall. ”

“ Who play their bag-pipes in the streets of Rome
At the Epiphany, will bear it soon,
And will deserve it better than some poets.
VITTORIA.
What bee hath stung you?
MICHAEL ANGELO.
One that makes no honey;
One that comes buzzing in through every window,
And stabs men with his sting. ”

“ Finally, let us hope that God’s people throughout England will make it a matter of daily intercession to the throne of Grace that convents, whether Anglican or Roman Catholic, may be utterly abolished. I sincerely trust that this book will be read as a witness of what God’s good providence and sovereign grace have done for the writer of this interesting narrative, and therefore can do for others. May the Spirit of the living God that opened the eyes of Sister Mary Agnes, be poured out abundantly to open the eyes of many in this land, who are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. ”