find an instructor for Phil. Many of them are driven to
hard shifts to procure a living; and since that bag of yours is
every day getting heavier, and we have but him to spend it upon, we
will not grudge giving him the best instruction that can be
procured."

Lucie did not dispute her husband's will; but she nevertheless
tried to enlist Gaspard Vaillant--who was frequently up at the farm
with his wife in the evening, for he had a sincere liking for John
Fletcher--on her side; and to get him to dissuade her husband from
putting thoughts into the boy's head that might lead him, some day,
to be discontented with the quiet life on the farm. She found,
however, that Gaspard highly approved of her husband's determination.

"Fie upon you, Lucie. You forget that you and Marie are both of
noble blood, in that respect being of condition somewhat above
myself, although I too am connected with many good families in
Poitou. In other times I should have said it were better that the
boy should grow up to till the land, which is assuredly an
honourable profession, rather than to become a military adventurer,
fighting only for vainglory. But in our days the sword is not drawn
for glory, but for the right to worship God in peace.

"No one can doubt that, ere long, the men of the reformed religion
will take up arms to defend their right to live, and worship God,
in their own way. The cruel persecutions under Francis the First,
Henry the Second, and Francis the Second have utterly failed in
their object. When Merindol, Cabrieres, and twenty-two other towns
and villages were destroyed, in 1547; and persons persecuted and
forced to recant, or to fly as we did; it was thought that we were
but a handful, whom it would be easy to exterminate. But in spite
of edict after edict, of persecution, slaughterings, and burnings,
in spite of the massacres of Amboise and others, the reformed
religion has spread so greatly that even the Guises are forced to
recognize it as a power. At Fontainebleau Admiral Coligny,
Montmorency, the Chatillons, and others openly professed the
reformed religion, and argued boldly for tolerance; while Conde and
Navarre, although they declined to be present, were openly ranged
on their side. Had it not been that Henry the Second and Francis
were both carried off by the manifest hand of God, the first by a
spear thrust at a tournament, the second by an abscess in the ear,
France would have been the scene of deadly strife;