Clement Marot

“ Marot, who was with Calvin in Ferrara, went back to Paris, still countenanced at court; but no favor of king or king's sister could save a sinner who would eat meat during Lent; and in 1543 Marot was forced to flee to Italy, and died in Turin in 1544. He lives less in his special verse than in his general influence, along with Rabelais and Montaigne, in the formation of French letters. These three cleansed that language into literature, by purging 94 it of the old Gallic chaos and clumsiness of form. ”

“ No matter. A year of penance will, Dei gratia, restore me to my calm. My poor Margaret, I seem cruel: yet I am kind: 'tis best we part; ay, this moment.”
“Part, Gerard? Never: we have seen what comes of parting. Part? Why, you have not heard half my story; no, nor the tithe, 'Tis not for thy mere comfort I take thee to Gouda manse. Hear me!”
“I may not. Thy very voice is a temptation with its music, memory's delight.”
“But I say you shall hear me, Gerard, for forth this place I go not unheard.”
“Then must we part by other means,” said Clement sadly. ”

“ Look at him now!--shamed and dishonoured--run away to the States--afraid to show his face in Canada! Martha and the boy are to be pitied in belonging to him, for they are good; but they do not know him, and no one will be ruffian enough to enlighten them. Martha is back at St. Euphrase again. Susan had a letter from her to-day. The house there is settled on her, it seems, and she wants to give it up to the creditors, but Ralph says she must not, and that before long he will be on his feet again, and pay everybody. ”

“ The young friar swooned away.
A gigantic monk strode forward, and carried him off like a child.
Brother Clement went back to the convent sadly discouraged. He confessed to the prior, with tears of regret.
“Courage, son Clement,” said the prior. “A Dominican is not made in a day. Thou shalt have another trial. And I forbid thee to go to it fasting.” Clement bowed his head in token of obedience. He had not long to wait. A robber was brought to the scaffold; a monster of villainy and cruelty, who had killed men in pure wantonness, after robbing them. ”

“ In this attempt Clement was aided by the Superior, who also bitterly lamented his loss, without, however, suspecting the part that Father Ambrose had played.
On this particular evening Clement had posted himself near the house, and seeing an opportunity, set himself closely to watch a certain window which he made sure was that of the fair Bella.
How vain, indeed, are human calculations! While the forlorn Clement, robbed of his pleasures, was relentlessly watching one chamber, the object of his desires was bathed in salacious enjoyment between her two vigorous lovers in another. ”

“ In character Marot seems to have been a typical Frenchman of the old stamp, cheerful, good-humoured and amiable enough, but probably not very much disposed to elaborately moral life and conversation or to serious reflection. He has sometimes been charged with a want of independence of character; but it is fair to remember that in the middle ages men of letters naturally attached themselves as dependants to the great. ”

“ The empress is always so kindly disposed to grant a favor; and, were it otherwise, the sight of her who presented the petition could not fail to ensure its success.”
Clement made no reply to this observation. “You said, Monsieur le Marquis, that an unexpected incident—”
“Yes, I am coming to it. I must first tell you what perhaps you are ignorant of.—That miserable Fabiano Dini, who so cruelly compromised George, and was confined with him—”
Clement, surprised, interrupted him with emotion. “The unfortunate man is actually dying, Monsieur le Marquis. ”

“ There he found the chapmen, five of them in all, and their lads, and a score of men-at-arms, with whom was Clement, not clad like a merchant, but weaponed, and bearing a coat of proof and a bright sallet on his head.
They greeted each the other, and Ralph said: "Yea, master Clement, and be we riding to battle?" "Maybe," quoth Clement; "the way is long, and our goods worth the lifting, and there are some rough places that we must needs pass through. But if ye like not the journey, abide here in this town the onset of Walter the Black." ”

“ The haste with which the young man had quitted the village was only a proof that he felt his danger. He believed that, if he came into the presence of Myrtle Hazard for the third time, he should be no longer master of his feelings. Some explanation must take place between them, and how was it possible that it should be without emotion? and in what do all emotions shared by a young man with such a young girl as this tend to find their last expression?
Clement determined to stun his sensibilities by work. He would give himself no leisure to indulge in idle dreams of what might have been. ”

“ As they were departing the next morn Ralph asked of Clement if he yet looked for onset from the waylayers. Said Clement: "It is most like, lord; for we be a rich prey, and it is but seldom that such a company rideth this road. And albeit that the wild men know not to a day when we shall pass through their country, yet they know the time within a four and twenty hours or so. For we may not hide our journey from all men's hearing; and when the ear heareth, the tongue waggeth. But art thou yet anxious concerning this matter, son?" ”

“ I cannot teach languages, and her voice seems worth cultivating."
"Take her to Selby, Miss Matildy," cried the worthy Martha, little dreaming how her husband and his aunt wished her a lockjaw. "He is married to a sister of Judy's there--plays the organ at St. Wittikind's--does it beautiful, my dear, but you will have heard him--and if there is any sing in the child it is he will bring it out. He'd make the kettle sing."
"We can all do that," said Judith disgusted. "Put another stick in the stove, that's all it wants. And this is little Muriel's birthday. Miss Matilda? How old is she today? ”

“ Till Ralph said to him: "Hail, friend! many a time we thought of this meeting when we were far away and hard bestead; but this is better than all we thought of. But now, Clement, hold up thine head and be a stout man of war, for thou seest that we are not alone."
Said Clement: "Yea, fair lord, and timely ye come, both thou and thy company; and now that I have my speech again which joy hath taken away from me at the first, I shall tell thee this, that if ye go further than the good town ye shall be met and fought withal by men who are over-many and over-fierce for us." ”

“ So the man departed, and those two being left alone, Master Clement said: "Well, I deemed that nothing else would come of it: and I fear that thy gossip will be ill-content with me; for great is the peril." "Yea," said Ralph, "and great the reward." Clement smiled and sighed, and said: "Well, lad, even so hath a many thought before thee, wise men as well as fools." ”

“ The citoyenne Gamelin shook her head, paying no heed to the cockade that fell out of her cap at the gesture.
"Have done, Évariste; your Marat is a man like another and no better than the rest. You are young and your head is full of fancies. What you say to-day of Marat, you said before of Mirabeau, of La Fayette, of Pétion, of Brissot." ”

“ Clement then said to himself that the great enemy of man had retired but to spring with more effect, and had allowed him a few days of true purity and joy only to put him off his guard against the soft blandishments he was pouring over the soul that had survived the buffeting of his black wings. ”

“ Vexed his despair with a vision of wife and of home and of children,
Calling his sister’s children around her, and stilling their clamor,
Making believe they were hers. And Clement sat moody and silent,
Blank to the wistful gaze of his mother bent on his visage
With the tender pain, the pitiful, helpless devotion
Of the mother that looks on the face of her son in his trouble,
Grown beyond her consoling, and knows that she cannot befriend him. ”

“ But I do not think, my dear Clement, that any one who possesses ever so little love to God and ingenuousness, will be able to take in, or even to hear, the things that are spoken against Him. For how is it that he can have a monarchic [1] soul, and be holy, who supposes that there are many gods, and not one only? ”

“ He looked askance on Ralph, whose face flushed and whose eyes glittered at that word. But Clement said: "Yea, that seemeth fair to look to: but hark ye! Is it not so that the way to Utterness is perilous?" Said the man: "Thou mayst rather call it deadly, to any who is not furnished with a let-pass from the Lord of Utterbol, as I am. But with such a scroll a child or a woman may wend the road unharmed." "Where hast thou the said let-pass?" said Clement. ”

“ But had his cousin, with Asmodeus-flight, beheld Clement during the subsequent hours which he spent alone, it is possible that the wheelwright had felt amply repaid for his trouble. Not until dawn stole grey along the village street; not until sparrows in the thatch above him began their salutation to the morning; not until Chagford rookery had sent forth a harmonious multitude to the hills and valleys did Clement’s aching eyes find sleep. ”

“ The Lottery Ticket.
Pubd. May 1, 1831, by J. Harris, St. Pauls Church Yard.
[Pg 151]
PART VI. PAUL AND CLEMENT.
"This is a sad melancholy letter, from our poor mother," said Paul, looking mournfully on his brother. "It is indeed, Clement; and our dear Fanny—" "Is doomed to be unfortunate, like all the rest of us."—"Do not say so: it is ungrateful to say that, brother. My mother has a decent competency."—"Call it rather a bare competency," interposed Clement. "And you and I, Clement; are we not very fortunate, in holding situations that keep us in honest independence?" ”

“ I to stand alone when I want years of training? It would be enough to ruin me!'
'But the place, Clement. This parish will never be ill-supplied while Mr. Fulmort lives; but people have souls down in the country.'
Clement had not much feeling for souls whose bodies he had never realised ”

“ On the seventh day following Mole's entry into the household, and while the latter was preparing his employer's bath, Marat said abruptly to him:
"You'll go as far as the Chemin de Pantin to-day for me, citizen. You know your way?"
"I can find it, what?" muttered Mole, who appeared to be in one of his surly moods.
"You will have to go very circumspectly," Marat went on, in his cracked and feeble voice. "And see to it that no one spies upon your movements. I have many enemies, citizen ... one especially ... a woman.... She is always prying and spying on me.... ”

“ O beloved Clement, the way to get it is this: if any one be persuaded that enemies, ill-using for a time those whom they hate, become the cause to them of deliverances from eternal punishment; and forthwith he will ardently love them as benefactors. ”

“ And, oh, mysterious heart of man! the people who had seen the living body robbed of life with indifference, almost with satisfaction, uttered a piteous cry at each stroke of the axe upon his corpse that could feel nought. Clement too shuddered then, but stood firm, like one of those rocks that vibrate but cannot be thrown down. But suddenly Jerome's voice sounded in his ear.
“Brother Clement, get thee on that cart and preach to the people. Nay, quickly! strike with all thy force on all this iron, while yet 'tis hot, and souls are to be saved.” ”

“ He said he was an Englishman, and, oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bough off the nearest tree, to save his head. "In my country anybody is welcome to what grows on the highway. Confound the fools; I am ready to pay for it. But here is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of leaves."
The pig-headed podesta would have sent the dogged islander to prison: but Clement mediated, and with some difficulty made the prisoner comprehend that silkworms, and by consequence mulberry leaves, were sacred, being under the wing of the Sovereign, and his source of income ”

“ He bore graven upon his heart neither the mob of tossing red caps nor the glare of the sunset nor the blood-stained guillotine, but that last look from those brilliant eyes. The sight almost deprived him of his reason. The self-sacrifice of the only woman he had ever loved, even though she had never so much as seen him, impelled him with a sort of fury to his own destruction.
He wrote a bitter denunciation of the judges, of the officers, and of all who had been followers of Marat. This document he printed, and scattered copies of it through every quarter in Paris. ”

“ To this Peter answered: “I am exceedingly delighted, O Clement, that I commit my words to so safe a heart; for to be mindful of the things that are spoken is an indication of having in readiness the faith of works. But he from whom the wicked demon steals away the words of salvation, and snatches them away from his memory, cannot be saved, even though he wish it; for he loses the way by which life is reached. ”

“ If he could smash that, create an uproar in the Sault Algonquin, then he would attract help.
An oath came from a man as his game was realized. Something whistled through the air, hit a wall with a soft and terrible thud. “Sandbag,” registered Clement’s brain. He dodged, and there was another oath and another miss.
A shadow, lean and leaping like a cat, shot from the darkness into the dazzle of the torch. Clement saw a fierce, feline face, and one hand stretched [Pg 133] forward to clutch, while the other swung up to club.
“Siwash,” Clement’s brain signaled. ”