A Protestant Hero [pp. 813-832]

8i8 A PROTESTANT HERO. [Sept.,
never been seen since, except once when the church of France
was punished for her slavish subservience to the state by the
awful spectacle of a Dubois clothed in the Roman purple.
Scarcely was he installed in his bishopric of Beauvais when he
introduced his mistress, Elizabeth d'Hauteville, into the very
sanctuary where he presided at the celebration of a Calvinistic
Lord's Supper. Until his open lapse into Calvinism his relations
with this lady had been kept secret. But as soon as Paul IV.
bad deprived him of the purple he gloried in the shameful connection, and the good people of Beauvais were horrified at seeing a heretical service solemnized in their cathedral, in presence
of a cardinal in his robes, with a lady by his side about whose
position there could be no misconception, gorgeously attired-a
veritable Scarlet Lady indeed! After a wayward and wretched
career he took refuge at the court of Elizabeth, who treated him
with the neglect which agents meet usually at the hands of sovereigns when their days of usefulness are past. His ending was
a melancholy sermon on the Nemesis that generally finds the
priest who deserts his standard in face of the enemy. He
died a year before the massacre of St. Bartholomew, miserable
and neglected, poisoned, it was said, by his valet.
For a young noble like Gaspard, the acknowledged head of
his house and the lord of many vassals, only one career was possible-that of the sword. Accordingly we find him brought to
the court of Francis I. at the age of twenty-one by his mother,
who had been appointed gouvernanle of Jeanne d'Albret; and here
he met Francis of Guise,~and between the two young nobles sprang
that quick affection which was fated to have such a tragic ending.
The Prince de Joinville, as Francis was then called, belonged to a family that then and for a generation afterwards
overshadowed all the great houses of France. Its heroic grandeur was very little indebted to accident of birth: it ~was founded on brilliant services to the nation and the king. It continued
to produce successive generations of mighty statesmen and warriors until the daggers of assassins quenched the illustrious line
in blood. Rene' of Lorraine fought with the Swiss at Morat,
and his brilliant valor was a principal factor in the achievement
of the freedom of the cantons. His grandson, Claude, sought
his fortunes in France with little but his good sword to rely on.
~Vith this and his illustrious birth, backed by personal grace and
beauty, he won the hand of Antoinette of B~urbon. Nothing
further was required to give him a footing in the court and
army, which he strengthened by his irresistible valor and chival