Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville

“ He laughed outright, getting up from his chair and dragging himself heavily across the room, where, with his hands in his pockets and his back against the bookshelves, he stood facing her. "What do you think of Bienville's attitude toward Marion Grimston?" he asked, with an inflection that would have sounded casual if it had not been for all that lay behind.
"I can understand it; but I think he was wrong."
"You think he ought to allow her to marry him?"
"Weighing one thing with another—yes."
"Would you marry a man who had shown himself such a hound?" ”

“ Bienville tried to speak again, but his dry lips refused to frame the words.
"Noble ... impossible ... drag you down," came incoherently from him, when by a quick backward movement he stepped over the threshold into the semi-obscurity of the hail.
The act was so sudden that seconds had already elapsed before Marion Grimston uttered the cry that rent her like the wail of some strong, primordial creature without the power of tears. ”

“ She's a wonderful woman. Madame du Maine hates Bienville because she can not use him in her dealings with Spain. She has duped the Bretons by the promise of an independent provincial government, but Bienville stands true to his King. So they seek by every means to discredit him. You may surmise from this how unfortunately our affairs here are complicated in the affairs of great personages, where lesser men lose their lives at the first breath of suspicion. ”

“ Bienville's eyes glistened and his face lighted up with an ardor that was not dampened by the casual, almost listless, air with which she told her story.
"It might have been better if I had let the whole thing alone."
"Why so?"
"You can rarely interfere in other people's affairs without doing more harm than good. If I had let them go their own way, Diane Eveleth wouldn't have been put in a false position." ”

“ I think Lady Moyne was relieved when I assured her that I really would rather not.
“But you’ll be on the platform,” she said. “We want you very much indeed.”
“I don’t see,” I said, “that I’ll be the least use to you.”
“The point is,” said Babberly, “that you’re a Liberal.”
“Oh, you mustn’t say that,” said Lady Moyne. “That’s only foolish gossip. I’m perfectly certain that Lord Kilmore never was—”
“Never,” I said. “But then I never was a Conservative either.”
“That’s just it,” said Lady Moyne. “Don’t you see?” ”

“ His eavesdropping news had reached the King. In my indignation I forgot the man I addressed was the Imperial Louis. Defending my master I spoke vigorously the truth, and that right earnestly.
"Your Majesty is a soldier, and will forgive a soldier's blunt speech. I beg you, Sire, to consider the services and the sorrows of Bienville's people, the loyal Le Moynes. Where rests his father? ”

“ Eveleth had kept her place in French society—the story wouldn't have done her any harm. People would have shrugged their shoulders at it, and forgotten it. It's the transferring of the scene here, among you, that makes it grave. All your ideas are so different that what's bad becomes worse, by being carried out of its milieu. Monsieur de Bienville must be made to understand that, and repair the wrong. ”

“ To Bienville himself, during these idle, balmy nights, there was a threefold inspiration, which in no case called for strict exactitude of detail. There was, first, the pleasure of talking about himself; there was, next, the desire to give his career the advantage of a romantic light; and there was, thirdly, the story-teller's natural instinct to hold his hearer spellbound. The little more or the little less could not matter to a man whom he didn't know, in talking about a woman whose name he hadn't given ”

“ All the soldiers and all the volunteers are marching up and down. They mean to keep it up all night. I should say that you and I and three or four other sensible people who have gone to bed will have the town entirely to ourselves to-morrow.”
Moyne smiled feebly.
“I wish it was all well over,” he said. “I hope the Prime Minister won’t be disagreeable to—. It would have been better, much better, if she’d gone to Castle Affey.”
“You needn’t be a bit afraid of that,” I said.
This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. ”

“ No man living could be disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister. ”

“ Again there was a minute or two of silence, during which Bienville seemed to probe for the meaning of the two laconic words. If anything could be read from his countenance, it was doubt as to whether to relinquish the prize with dignity or to pay its price in humiliation. There was an instant in which he appeared to be bracing himself to do the latter; but when he spoke his interrogation threw the responsibility for decision on Miss Grimston. ”

“ Hats were flung into the air. Sticks were waved. Some one began firing shots from a revolver in rapid succession. It was a fusillade of joy, a kind of salute to McNeice who appeared at the window of the committee-room. Moyne and I pushed our way on. When we were clear of the crowd Moyne spoke to me again.
“You’d better take them at once,” he said. “It’s impossible to know what’ll happen here to-night.”
“But you?” I said.
“Oh, I shall stay.”
“Don’t be a fool, Moyne,” I said. “You’re the one of all others who ought not to stay. Don’t you see that whatever way things go you’re in for it? ”

“ But things had passed beyond the control of Babberly and Lady Moyne. No newspaper was able to give any report of the proceedings of the meeting held that afternoon. But Malcolmson, Cahoon and McNeice were all present, and the Dean, having escaped the overpowering atmosphere of Moyne House, was able to express his opinions freely and forcibly. On the other hand Lady Moyne was not there, and Moyne, when it comes to persuading men, is a very poor substitute for her. The English Unionists could not be there, so the weight of their moderation was not felt. ”

“ I had not the slightest doubt that Lady Moyne would succeed in seeing the Prime Minister. He has probably sense enough to know that though he may resist other women successfully, he cannot possibly make head against her.
“If there is no rioting here to-night,” said Lady Moyne, “I shall be in time. That young man, Mr. Power, seemed to think that everything would be quiet until to-morrow. I hope he’s right.”
“He’s sure to be,” I said. “Conroy is running the revolution and settles exactly what is to happen.”
“He was very confident,” said Lady Moyne. “Ah! here’s Marion. Now we can start. ”

“ John's swarming with naked warriors. The prudent Laudonnière set his men in array, and for a season pick and spade were dropped for arquebuse and pike. The savage potentate descended to the camp. The artist Le Moyne, who saw him, drew his likeness from memory,—a tall, athletic figure, tattooed in token of his rank, plumed with feathers, hung with strings of beads, and girdled with tinkling pieces of metal which hung from the belt, his only garment. He came in regal state, a crowd of warriors around him, and, in advance, a troop of young Indians armed with spears. ”

“ On the afternoon of my garden-party I happened to be standing close beside Lady Moyne when she was saying good-bye to the Dean. Her final remark was addressed quite as much to him as to me.
“What we have got to do,” she said, “is to make use of this virile democracy of ours; to mould it into an instrument for the preservation of social order. The introduction of the Home Rule Bill gives us just about the chance we want.”
I found myself wondering, while the diatribe against the bishops was in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice into a weapon for her hand. ”

“ We were interrupted in this pleasant work by the arrival of a letter from Lady Moyne. She summoned me—invited would be quite the wrong word—to Castle Affey. I went, of course.
Babberly was there. He and Lady Moyne were shut up in the library along with Lady Moyne’s exhausted secretary. They were writing letters which she typed. I saw Moyne himself before I saw them.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “I’m very much afraid that some of our people are inclined to go too far. Malcolmson, for instance. I can’t understand Malcolmson. After all the man’s a gentleman.”
“But,” I said, “Malcolmson wants to fight. ”

“ I’ve heard Babberly say so.”
“But—damn it all, Kilmore!—it doesn’t do to push things to these extremes. The whole business has been mismanaged. The people have got out of hand; and there’s Malcolmson, a man who’s dined at my table a score of times, actually egging them on. Now, what do you think we ought to do?”
“The Government is threatening you, I suppose?”
“It’s growling,” said Moyne. “Not that I care [Pg 104] what the Government does to me. It can’t do much. But I do not want her ladyship mixed up in anything unpleasant. It won’t do, you know. People don’t like it. ”

“ They sent off telegrams of the most flamboyant kind about our Puritan forefathers.
[Pg 112]
Poor Moyne, who is a deeply religious man, did not sing the hymn. He has a theory that hymns and politics ought not to be mixed. I heard him arguing the position afterwards with the Dean who maintained that the question of Home Rule was not a political one. Political questions are those, so he argued, with regard to which there is a possibility of difference of opinion among honest men. But all honest men are opposed to Home Rule, which is therefore not a political question. ”

“ French shook his head. "Steele, you can't do things like that here. Black is one of Le Moyne's best men. Didn't yuh know that?"
"Then Le Moyne is a damn poor judge of men," retorted Duke. "The more I hear about Le Moyne the more I think he's a big, greasy bluffer. If Pete Black is the type of men that Le Moyne is usin' in his big game, Le Moyne is due to lose. They say that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, French; Le Moyne's chain has got a lot of weak links. ”

“ The year of bigotry, 1563, in France having passed, a second expedition of three vessels under Réné de Laudonnière, who had been an officer under Ribault in 1562, sailed for Florida from Havre, April 22, 1564, and arrived at the river of May the 25th of June. There were men of courage and consequence in this company of adventurers, among whom was Le Moyne, the painter and mathematician. The story of the sufferings of this second colony has often been told, and need not be repeated here. ”

“ He believed that he had no occasion to bother unduly for food, because God would feed him at need, and certes 'tis true he never died of starvation. A strange man! One to be judged without thought to creed or politics.
His face betrayed no emotion as our canoe drew alongside Le Moyne's, and a Marine corporal clutched the gunwale, but his eyes blazed with fanatical intelligence in the deep recesses of their bony sockets. He leaned forward and tapped Le Moyne's shoulder. ”

“ Hesden Le Moyne was not a man with whom one wished to provoke a controversy. His unwillingness to submit to be catechised was generally accepted as a proof positive of his "Radical" views. He had been an adviser of Nimbus, his colored playmate, in the purchase of the Red Wing property, his interest in Eliab Hill had not slackened since that worthy cast in his lot with Nimbus, and he did not hesitate to commend the work of the school. ”

“ My seat was in the very front of the platform, and when we had finished the hymn I noticed that the smell of perspiration was beginning to overpower the oranges. It is my misfortune to have an unusually acute sense of smell. No one afflicted with such an infirmity ought to take any part in the politics of a modern democratic state.
Moyne introduced Babberly to the audience, and everybody cheered, although no one heard a word he said. Moyne has not a good voice at any time, and his objection to the hymn had made him nervous. ”

“ Lady Moyne had been one of the original syndicate which, so to speak, placed our insurrection on the market. Her house was therefore friendly soil for me. She had afterwards disassociated herself, more or less, from Conroy and McNeice; while Moyne had been trying for two days to surrender himself. The Prime Minister’s ambassador could therefore go to Moyne House without loss of dignity.
Clithering brought my nephew Godfrey with him.
“Mr. D’Aubigny,” he said, “is acting for the present as one of my private secretaries.”
Clithering is a man who accumulates private secretaries rapidly. ”

“ A man who was digging potatoes directed me to that curious retreat.
“It’s all right, Moyne,” I said. “We’ve got the whole thing settled most satisfactorily. You needn’t be afraid of any disagreeable public scandal.” ”

“ Norman wrote in my letter. "What can I do? Mr. Le Moyne is the most delightful, the sincerest and certainly the most generous of friends. Through his convalescence he has said so many times, 'What could I do without you, Norman, when I have no son or nephew even?' He has one sister, who is an invalid from a broken hip and partial paralysis, and her 170 daughter is a fashionable and titled lady. He is very fond of travelling and enjoys society, but now he needs some one continually. I know he fears he will be blind, and he wants to be sure of a permanent stay and solace. ”

“ Bienville, leaning across the table with his eyes ashine, listened eagerly while Crawford and the chaplain conned the days that had elapsed since Limerick and Boynewater. Once Crawford turned to him gaily.
"And suppose we find the English fleet ahead of us, Bienville?"
The boy shrugged. "Ask Pierre! We've put some of our guns and thirty seamen aboard the Profound, and twoscore of our men are down below with scurvy. But we'll not find the enemy ahead of us. Pierre is always the first, never fear!" ”

“ He is very fond of Lady Moyne and very proud of her. This is quite natural. I should be proud of her too if she were my wife.
“Her idea,” said Lord Moyne, “is—”
Just then our Dean came into the room. His presence emphasised the highly political nature of the party. Unless she had asked Crossan, Lady Moyne could not have got hold of any one of more influence with our north of Ireland Protestant democracy. The Dean cannot possibly be accustomed to the kind of semi-regal state which is kept up at Castle Affey. I should be surprised to hear that he habitually dresses for dinner. ”