Excerpt
CHAPTER I
If you go to Southampton and search the register of the Walloon Church there, you will find that in the summer of '57,
"Madame Vefue de Montgomery with all her family and servants wereadmitted to the Communion"—"Tous ceux ce furent Recus la a Cene du'57, comme passans, sans avoir Rendu Raison de la foj, mes sur latesmognage de Mons. Forest, Ministre de Madame, quj certifia quj necognoisoit Rien en tout ceux la po' quoy Il ne leur deust administrela Cene s'il estoit en lieu po' a ferre."There is another striking record, which says that in August of the same year Demoiselle Angele Claude Aubert, daughter of Monsieur de la Haie Aubert, Councillor of the Parliament of Rouen, was married to Michel de la Foret, of the most noble Flemish family of that name.
When I first saw these records, now grown dim with time, I fell to wondering what was the real life-history of these two people. Forthwith, in imagination, I began to make their story piece by piece; and I had reached a romantic 'denoument' satisfactory to myself and in sympathy with fact, when the Angel of Accident stepped forward with some "human documents." Then I found that my tale, woven back from the two obscure records I have given, was the true story of two most unhappy yet most happy people. From the note struck in my mind, when my finger touched that sorrowful page in the register of the Church of the Refugees at Southampton, had spread out the whole melody and the very book of the song.
One of the later-discovered records was a letter, tear-stained, faded, beautifully written in old French, from Demoiselle Angele Claude Aubert to Michel de la Foret at Anvers in March of the year 157. The letter lies beside me as I write, and I can scarcely believe that three and a quarter centuries have passed since it was written, and that she who wrote it was but eighteen years old at the time. I translate it into English, though it is impossible adequately to carry over either the flavour or the idiom of the language:
Written on this May Day of the year 157, at the place hight Rozelin the Manor called of the same of Jersey Isle, to Michel de laForet, at Anvers in Flanders.MICHEL, Thy good letter by safe carriage cometh to my hand, bringingto my heart a lightness it hath not known since that day when I washastily carried to the port of St. Malo, and thou towards the Kinghis prison. In what great fear have I lived, having no news of theeand fearing all manner of mischance! But our God hath benignlysaved thee from death, and me He hath set safely here in this isleof the sea.Thou hast ever been a brave soldier, enduring and not fearing; thoushalt find enow to keep thy blood stirring in these days of trialand peril to us who are so opprobriously called Les Huguenots. Ifthou wouldst know more of my mind thereupon, come hither. Safety ishere, and work for thee—smugglers and pirates do abound on thesecoasts, and Popish wolves do harry the flock even in this islandprovince of England....