Excerpt: ... of the marriage of King Charles to his little Austrian Elizabeth about this time-the armed chiefs of Protestantism, dreaming of a "dictator" after the Roman manner, who should set up a religious republic. Serried closely together on land, they had a strange mixed following on the sea. Lair of heretics, or shelter of martyrs, La Rochelle was ready to protect the outlaw. The corsair, of course, would be a Protestant, actually armed perhaps by sour old Jeanne of Navarre-the ship he fell across, of course, Spanish. ...
Read More
Excerpt: ... of the marriage of King Charles to his little Austrian Elizabeth about this time-the armed chiefs of Protestantism, dreaming of a "dictator" after the Roman manner, who should set up a religious republic. Serried closely together on land, they had a strange mixed following on the sea. Lair of heretics, or shelter of martyrs, La Rochelle was ready to protect the outlaw. The corsair, of course, would be a Protestant, actually armed perhaps by sour old Jeanne of Navarre-the ship he fell across, of course, Spanish. A real Spanish ship of war, gay, magnificent, was gliding even then, stealthily, through the distant haze; and nearer lay what there was of a French navy. Did the enigmatic "Admiral," the coming dictator, Coligni, really wish to turn it to foreign adventure, in rivalry of Spain, as the proper patriotic outcome of this period, or breathing-space, of peace and national unity? Undoubtedly they were still there, even in this halcyon weather, those causes of disquiet, like the volcanic forces beneath the massive 82 chestnut-woods, spread so calmly through the breathless air, on the ledges and levels of the red heights of the Limousin, under which Gaston now passed on his way southwards. On his right hand a broad, lightly diversified expanse of vineyard, of towns and towers innumerable, rolled its burden of fat things down the slope of the Gironde towards the more perfect level beyond. In the heady afternoon an indescribable softness laid hold on him, from the objects, the atmosphere, the lazy business, of the scene around. And was that the quarter whence the dry daylight, the intellectual iron, the chalybeate influence, was to come?-those coquettish, well-kept, vine-wreathed towers, smiling over a little irregular old village, itself half-hidden in gadding vine, pointed out by the gardeners (all labourers here were gardeners) as the end of his long, pleasant journey, as the abode of Monsieur Michel de Montaigne, the singular but not...
Read Less
Add this copy of Gaston De Latour: an Unfinished Romance to cart. $16.77, very good condition, Sold by Prominent Trading Company rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hereford, HEREFORDSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2006 by Echo Library.