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Being there, and desirous of learning for myself whether the arrest of Auvergne had pacified his country to the extent described by the King's agents, I determined to take advantage of a vacation of the assembly and venture as far in that direction as Gueret; though Henry, fearing lest the malcontents should make an attempt on my person in revenge for the death of Biron, had strictly charged me not to approach within twenty leagues of the Limousin.
At this time most women affected that lightness of conduct and facility of morals which distinguished the reign of Louis XV. Whether it were in imitation of the tone of the fallen monarchy, or because certain members of the Imperial family had set the example as certain malcontents of the Faubourg Saint-Germain chose to say it is certain that men and women alike flung themselves into a life of pleasure with an intrepidity which seemed to forbode the end of the world.
Raising one hand to demand attention, Thurston said: "A red fir was felled by two or three among you to-day, and launched down stream after darkness fell. I want the men who did it to step forward and explain their reasons to me." "You're a mighty bold man," remarked Summers who knew that, although few were actually dangerous, the malcontents outnumbered Thurston's loyal assistants.
The banished Reformers, who had swarmed back in droves at the tidings of peace and good-will to all men, found themselves bitterly disappointed. They were exposed in the Walloon provinces to the persecutions of the Malcontents, in the Frisian regions to the still powerful coercion of the royal stadholders. Persecution begat counter-persecution.
Even the brave John de Werth was at the head of the malcontents, and encouraged by the Emperor, he formed a plot to seduce the whole army from their allegiance to the Elector, and lead it over to the Emperor. Ferdinand did not blush to patronize this act of treachery against his father's most trusty ally.
Still the people spoke of the King with affection, and appeared to think him favourable to the national desire for the reform of what were called abuses; but they imagined that he was restrained by the opinions and influence of the Comte d'Artois and the Queen; and those two august personages were therefore objects of hatred to the malcontents.
With low, sternly suppressed tones, the young warrior went on to tell of what followed: of the wicked attempt made by those malcontents to punish the bearers of death and misery; then, his voice rising and growing more clear, he told how, from a clearing-sky, there came a single shaft flung by the mighty hand of the great god, Quetzalcoatl, before which the impious dog went down in everlasting death.
In England the most formidable of the malcontents were the Puritans, who reckoned many of the first nobility, and the ablest members of the House of Commons among their chiefs; the restoration of episcopacy, and the declaration by the subservient Parliament of Scotland, that no General Assembly should be called without the King's sanction, had laid the sure foundations of a religious insurrection in the North; while the events, which we have already described, filled the minds of all orders of men in Ireland with agitation and alarm.
Neither high blood nor ancient title shall suffice to screen a traitor; war, war to the death, shall be henceforward my battle-cry against the malcontents who are striving to decimate the nation; and do not delude yourselves with the belief that I shall be single-handed in the struggle, for I will call the people to my aid, and the people will maintain the cause of their sovereigns.
Several thousand of these mercenaries took service immediately with the Malcontents under Montigny, thus swelling the ranks of the deadliest foes to that land over which Anjou had assumed the title of protector. The states' army, meanwhile, had been rapidly dissolving. There were hardly men enough left to make a demonstration in the field, or properly to garrison the more important towns.
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