im, at another held aloof from him, or forgot him,
or considered him a mischief-maker, a faction-monger who must be put in
the Bastille, and against whom, if it seemed good, there would be enough
to put him on his trial. Madame de Chatillon, who took an interest in
D'Aubigne, warned him of the danger, and urged him to depart that very
evening. "I will think about it, madame," said he; "I will implore God's
assistance, and I will see what I have to do." . . . "The inspiration
that came to me," says he, "was to go next morning very early to see his
Majesty, and, after having briefly set before him my past services, to
ask him for a pension, which up to that time I had not felt inclined to
do. The king, surprised, and at the same time well pleased to observe a
something mercenary behind all my proud spirit, embraced me, and granted
on the spot what I asked of him." The next day D'Aubigne went to the
Arsenal; Sully invited him to dinner, and took him to see the Bastille,
assuring him that there was no longer any danger for him, but only since
the last twenty-four hours. [_La France Protestante,_ by MM. Haag,
t. i. p. 170.] If D'Aubigne had not been a writer, he would be
completely forgotten by this time, like so many other intriguing and
turbulent adventurers, who make a great deal of fuss themselves, and try
to bring everything about them into a fuss as long as they live, and who
die without leaving any trace of their career. But D'Aubigne wrote a
great deal both in prose and in verse; he wrote the _Histoire
universelle_ of his times, personal _Memoires,_ tales, tragedies, and
theological and satirical essays; and he wrote with sagacious,
penetrating, unpremeditated wit, rare vigor, and original and almost
profound talent for discerning and depicting situations and characters.
It is the writer which has caused the man to live, and has assigned him a
place in French literature even more than in French history. We purpose
to quote two fragments of his, which will make us properly understand and
appreciate both the writer and the man. During the civil war, in the
reign of Henry III., D'Aubigne had made himself master of the Island of
Oleron, had fortified it, and considered himself insufficiently rewarded
by the King of Navarre, to whom he had meant to render, and had, in fact,
rendered service. After the battle of Coutras, in 1587, he was sleeping
with a comrade named Jacques de Caumont la Force, in the wardrobe