Stray Pearls

Stray Pearls

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stray Pearls, by Charlotte M. Yonge
#34 in our series by Charlotte M. Yonge
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Title: Stray Pearls
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5708] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 12, 2002]
Edition: 10

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PEARLS ***

This Project Gutenberg Etext of The Stray Pearls by Charlotte M
Yonge was prepared by Hanh Vu, [email protected]. A web
page for Charlotte M Yonge may be found at
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STRAY PEARLS
MEMOIRS OF MARGARET DE RIBAUMONT
VISCOUNTESS OF BELLAISE

PREFACE

No one can be more aware than the author that the construction of this
tale is defective. The state of French society, and the strange scenes of
the Fronde, beguiled me into a tale which has become rather a family
record than a novel.
Formerly the Muse of the historical romance was an independent and
arbitrary personage, who could compress time, resuscitate the dead,
give mighty deeds to imaginary heroes, exchange substitutes for
popular martyrs on the scaffold, and make the most stubborn facts
subservient to her purpose. Indeed, her most favoured son boldly
asserted her right to bend time and place to her purpose, and to make
the interest and effectiveness of her work the paramount object. But
critics have lashed her out of these erratic ways, and she is now become
the meek hand maid of Clio, creeping obediently in the track of the
greater Muse, and never venturing on more than colouring and working
up the grand outlines that her mistress has left undefined. Thus, in the
present tale, though it would have been far more convenient not to have
spread the story over such a length of time, and to have made the
catastrophe depend upon the heroes and heroines, instead of keeping

them mere ineffective spectators, or only engaged in imaginary
adventures for which a precedent can be found, it has been necessary to
stretch out their narrative, so as to be at least consistent with the real
history, at the entire sacrifice of the plot. And it may be feared that thus
the story may partake of the confusion that really reigned over the
tangled thread of events. There is no portion of history better illustrated
by memoirs of the actors therein than is the Fronde; but, perhaps, for
that very reason none so confusing.
Perhaps it may be an assistance to the reader to lay out the bare
historical outline like a map, showing to what incidents the memoirs of
the Sisters of Ribaumont have to conform themselves.
When Henry IV. succeeded in obtaining the throne of France, he found
the feudal nobility depressed by the long civil war, and his exchequer
exhausted. He and his minister Sully returned to the policy of Louis XI.,
by which the nobles were to be kept down and prevented from
threatening the royal power. This was seldom done by violence, but by
giving them employment in the Army and Court, attaching them to the
person of the King, and giving them offices with pensions attached to
them.
The whole cost of these pensions and all the other expenses of
Government fell on the townspeople and peasantry, since the clergy
and the nobles to all generations were exempt from taxation. The trade
and all the resources of the country were taking such a spring of
recovery since the country had been at peace, and the persecution of the
Huguenots had ceased, that at first the taxation provoked few murmurs.
The resources of the Crown were further augmented by permitting
almost all magistrates and persons who held public offices to secure the
succession to their sons on the payment of a tariff called LA
PAULETTE, from the magistrate who invented it.
In the next reign, however, an effort was made