A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

18 A GENTLEMAN FROM GASCONY. a muttered curse betokened that all were not in har- mony with the general gayety. And yet, forsooth, why should not the loyal subfebia of his most Christian maers of France be in gay and festival mood? A few days before, the 15th of August, 1572, had been celebrated, with great pomp and magnificence, the marriage of Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles IX., to Henri de Bourbon, the young king of Navarre. This union of Catholic and Huguenot had vastiy sur- prised everybody, and given rise to much surmise in the minds of the more subtle spirits of both parties. On the whole, however, the Huguenots rejoiced greatly and believed that an end had now come to the persecution they had suffered from for so many terrible years. How could they think otherwise? Had not the king openly declared: “In giving my sister Margot to Henri of Navarre, I give her to all the Protestants of the kingdom’’? Had not the venerable Admiral Coligny, the noted Huguenot, who for five or six years had been so bitterly opposed to the king, come to Paris to be present at the wedding of his beloved pupil, the young ruler of Na- varre? Had not Charles himself welcomed the old man with almost filial affection? And yet over all, to the eyes of those who had eyes to see, hovered the sinister, revengeful figure of the Duke of Guise, whom, youthful as he was, the Catholics looked up to as the chief of their party, just as the Hugue- nots considered Harry of Navarre to be their leader. A little apart from the general movement and gayety in the Place Royale, drawn up beneath a blank wall, under the shadow of the picturesque eaves of the Rising GComichbooks (E@)