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Soon their dream attracted other recruits, and presently seven friends, whose names are all famous now, and most of whom have statues in Arles or in Avignon Roumanille, Mistral, Aubanel, Mathieu, Giéra, Brunet, and Tavan after the manner of Ronsard's "Pléiade," and Rossetti's "P.R.B." formed themselves into a brotherhood to carry on the great work of regeneration.
Very little romance is left to hallow it; and it is doubtful whether the white moon, swinging like a silver lamp in heaven above the peaceful Islands, shed her glory anywhere on any such lovers in the world, as the two who on this fair night of the southern springtime, with arms entwined round each other, moved slowly up and down on the velvet greensward outside Ronsard's cottage, Gloria and her 'sailor' husband.
The book was none other than Pierre de Ronsard's "Odes," with "Mignonne! allons voir si la Rose," and "The Skylark" and the lines to April itself verily like nothing so much as a jonquil, in its golden-green binding and yellow edges and perfume of the place where it had lain sweet, but with something of the sickliness of all spring flowers since the days of Proserpine.
He had a glowing picture before his eyes, a picture he could not forget, of the Crown Prince and Gloria standing with arms entwined about each other under the rose-covered porch of Ronsard's cottage saying "Good- night" to him, while Ronsard himself, his tranquillity completely restored, and his former fears at rest, warmly shook his hand, and with a curious mingling of pride and deference thanked him for all his friendship 'all his goodness!
We would cheerfully omit the weak and effeminate Henry from the novelist's group, but we would be tempted to add thereto such interesting contemporary figures as the King of Navarre and his heroic mother, Jeanne d'Albret, or his beautiful, faithless wife, La Reine Margot, the Pasithée of Ronsard's verse, who, with her brilliant eyes and flashing wit, is said to have surpassed in charm all the members of her mother's famous "escadron volant."
Dashing the tears from her eyes, she looked up, her face white as marble. "You must not tell Ronsard!" she said in faint tones that shook with fear; "He would kill you!" The Prince smiled indulgently; his only thought was for her, and so long as he could dry her tears, Ronsard's rage or pleasure was nothing to him.
It is in referring to the sonnets for Hélène that M. Jusserand calls attention to the realism of Ronsard's poetry. He points out that one seems to see the women Ronsard loves far more clearly than the heroines of many other poets.
The thought was subtly flattering, but he disguised the touch of amusement he felt, and spoke his next words with a kindly and indulgent air. "Then, as I shall not see her, you may surely tell me of her? I am no betrayer of confidence!" A pale red tinged Ronsard's worn features anon he said: "It is no question of confidence, Sir, and there is no secret or mystery associated with the matter.
But the exiles would have been wise to listen to Plutarch, and, had I enjoyed the luck of Mary Stuart, when Loch Leven was not overfished, when the trout were uneducated, never would I have plunged into politics again. She might have been very happy, with Ronsard's latest poems, with Italian romances, with a boat on the loch, and some Rizzio to sing to her on the still summer days.
Arrived on the scaffold, which was set up before the queen's palace, Chatelard, who had declined the services of a priest, had Ronsard's Ode on Death read; and when the reading, which he followed with evident pleasure, was ended, he turned towards the queen's windows, and, having cried out for the last time, "Adieu, loveliest and most cruel of princesses!" he stretched out his neck to the executioner, without displaying any repentance or uttering any complaint.
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