The reaction that half a century later filled the
Gallican Church with saintliness had not set in; her ecclesiastics
were the tools of a wicked and bloodthirsty court, who hated virtue
as much as schism in the men whom they persecuted. The Huguenots
were for the most part men whose instincts for truth and virtue had
recoiled from the popular system, and thus it was indeed as if
piety and morality were arrayed on one side, and superstition and
debauchery on the other. Mr. Adderley thus found the tone of the
Ambassador's chaplain that of far more complete fellowship with the
Reformed pastors than he himself was disposed to admit. There were
a large number of these gathered at Paris; for the lull in
persecution that had followed the battle of Moncontour had given
hopes of a final accommodation between the two parties, and many
had come up to consult with the numerous lay nobility who had
congregated to witness the King of Navarre's wedding. Among them,
Berenger met his father's old friend Isaac Gardon, who had come to
Paris for the purpose of giving his only surviving son in marriage
to the daughter of a watchmaker to whom he had for many years been
betrothed. By him the youth, with his innocent face and gracious
respectful manners, was watched with delight, as fulfilling the
fairest hopes of the poor Baron, but the old minister would have
been sorely disappointed had he known how little Berenger felt
inclined towards his party.
The royal one of course Berenger could not love, but the rigid
bareness, and, as he thought, irreverence of the Calvinist, and the
want of all forms, jarred upon one used to a ritual which retained
much of the ancient form. In the early years of Elizabeth, every
possible diversity prevailed in parish churches, according to the
predilections of rector and squire; from forms scarcely altered
from those of old times, down to the baldest, rudest neglect of all
rites; and Berenger, in his country home, had been used to the
first extreme. He could not believe that what he heard and saw
among the Sacrementaires, as they were called, was what his
father had prized; and he greatly scandalized Sidney, the pupil of
Hubert Languet, by openly expressing his distaste and dismay when
he found their worship viewed by both Walsingham and Sidney as a
model to which the English Protestants ought to be brought.
However, Sidney excused all this as more boyish distaste to sermons
and love of externals, and Berenger himself reflected little on the
subject. The aspect of the venerable Coligny, his father's friend,
did far more towards making him a Huguenot than any discussion of
doctrine. The good old Admiral received him affectionately, and
talked to him warmly of his father, and the grave, noble
countenance and kind manner won his heart. Great projects were on
foot, and were much relished by the young King, for raising an army
and striking a blow at Spain by aiding the Reformed in the
Netherlands; and Coligny was as ardent as a youth in the cause,
hoping at once to aid his brethren, to free the young King from
evil influences, and to strike one good stroke against the old
national enemy. He talked eagerly to Sidney of alliances with
England, and then lamented over the loss of so promising a youth as
young Ribaumont to the Reformed cause in France. If the marriage
with the heiress could have taken effect, he would have obtained
estates near enough to some of the main Huguenot strongholds to be
very important, and these would now remain under the power of
Narcisse de Ribaumont, a determined ally of the Guise faction. It
was a pity, but the Admiral could not blame the youth for obeying
the wish of his guardian grandfather; and he owned, with a sigh,
that England was a more peaceful land than his own beloved country.
Berenger was a little nettled at this implication, and began to
talk of joining the French standard in a campaign in their present
home and described the conversation, Walsingham said,