The Queen's Pastoral

Chapter 7 The Queen's Pastoral 

Either very gravely gay,
Or very gaily grave,--W. M. PRAED


Montpipeau, though in the present day a suburb of Paris, was in the
sixteenth century far enough from the city to form a sylvan
retreat, where Charles IX, could snatch a short respite from the
intrigues of his court, under pretext of enjoying his favourite
sport.  Surrounded with his favoured associates of the Huguenot
party, he seemed to breathe a purer atmosphere, and to yield
himself up to enjoyment greater than perhaps his sad life had ever
known.

He rode among his gentlemen, and the brilliant cavalcade passed
through poplar-shaded roads, clattered through villages, and
threaded their way through bits of forest still left for the royal
chase.  The people thronged out of their houses, and shouted not
only 'Vive le Roy,' but 'Vive l'Amiral,' and more than once the cry
was added, 'Spanish war, or civil war!'  The heart of France was,
if not with the Reformed, at least against Spain and the
Lorrainers, and Sidney perceived, from the conversation of the
gentlemen round him, that the present expedition had been devised
less for the sake of the sport, than to enable the King to take
measures for emancipating himself from the thraldom of his mother,
and engaging the country in a war against Philip II.  Sidney
listened, but Berenger chafed, feeling only that he was being
further carried out of reach of his explanation with his kindred.