The Chaplet of Pearls | Page 2

the young to
realize history vividly--and, what is still more desirable, requiring an
effort of the mind which to read of modern days does not. The details
of Millais' Inquisition or of his Huguenot may be in error in spite of all
his study and diligence, but they have brought before us for ever the
horrors of the auto-da-fe, and the patient, steadfast heroism of the man
who can smile aside his wife's endeavour to make him tacitly betray his
faith to save his life. Surely it is well, by pen as by picture, to go back to
the past for figures that will stir the heart like these, even though the
details be as incorrect as those of the revolt of Liege or of La Ferrette
in 'Quentin Durward' and 'Anne of Geierstein.'
Scott, however, willfully carved history to suit the purposes of his story;
and in these days we have come to feel that a story must earn a certain
amount of credibility by being in keeping with established facts, even if
striking events have to be sacrificed, and that the order of time must be
preserved. In Shakespeare's days, or even in Scott's, it might have been
possible to bring Henry III. and his mignons to due punishment within
the limits of a tale beginning with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew;
but in 1868 the broad outlines of tragedy must be given up to keep
within the bounds of historical verity.
How far this has been done, critics better read than myself must decide.
I have endeavoured to speak fairly, to the best of my ability, of such
classes of persons as fell in with the course of the narrative, according
to such lights as the memoirs of the time afford. The Convent is
scarcely a CLASS portrait, but the condition of it seems to be justified
by hints in the Port Royal memoirs, respecting Maubuisson and others
which Mere Angelique reformed. The intolerance of the ladies at

Montauban is described in Madame Duplessis-Mornay's life; and if
Berenger's education and opinions are looked on as not sufficiently
alien from Roman Catholicism, a reference to Froude's 'History of
Queen Elizabeth' will show both that the customs of the country clergy,
and likewise that a broad distinction was made by the better informed
among the French between Calvinism and Protestantism or
Lutheranism, in which they included Anglicanism. The minister Gardon
I do not consider as representing his class. He is a POSSIBILITY
modified to serve the purposes of the story.
Into historical matters, however, I have only entered so far as my story
became involved with them. And here I have to apologize for a few
blunders, detected too late for alteration even in the volumes. Sir
Francis Walsingham was a young rising statesman in 1572, instead of
the elderly sage he is represented; his daughter Frances was a mere
infant, and Sir Philip Sidney was not knighted till much later. For the
rest, I have tried to show the scenes that shaped themselves before me
as carefully as I could; though of course they must not be a
presentiment of the times themselves, but of my notion of them.
C. M. Yonge
November 14th, 1868

THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS
or
THE WHITE AND BLACK RIBAUMONT
CHAPTER I.
THE BRIDAL OF THE WHITE AND BLACK

Small was the ring, and small in truth the finger: What then? the faith

was large that dropped it down. Aubrey De Vere, INFANT BRIDAL
Setting aside the consideration of the risk, the baby-weddings of the
Middle Ages must have been very pretty sights.
So the Court of France thought the bridal of Henri Beranger Eustache
de Ribaumont and of Marie Eustacie Rosalie de Rebaumont du
Nid-de-Merle, when, amid the festivals that accompanied the signature
of the treaty of Cateau-Cabresis, good-natured King Henri II. presided
merrily at the union of the little pair, whose unite ages did not reach ten
years.
There they stood under the portal of Notre-Dame, the little bridegroom
in a white velvet coat, with puffed sleeves, slashed with scarlet satin, as
were the short, also puffed breeches meeting his long white knitted silk
stockings some way above the knee; large scarlet rosettes were in his
white shoes, a scarlet knot adorned his little sword, and his velvet cap
of the same colour bore a long white plume, and was encircled by a row
of pearls of priceless value. They are no other than that garland of
pearls which, after a night of personal combat before the walls of Calais,
Edward III. of England took from his helmet and presented to Sir
Eustache de Ribaumont, a knight of Picardy, bidding him say
everywhere that it was a gift from the King of England to the bravest of
knights.
The precious heirlooms