MISS YONGE'S STRAY PEARLS.*
THE remembrance of Miss Yonge's first novel carries back readers who have reached middle-life almost to their childhood. She has given to the public in the interval more books than it is easy to remember. It is, therefore, peculiarly pleasant to see that she can still write with vigour and freshness. A reviewer, so that he be not of the Croker sort, always finds it more agree- able to praise than to blame, and never administers censure with more regret than when he is compelled to note weakness or weariness in the new effort of a popular writer. Miss Yonge's historical manner is, in our judgment, her best. We are just a little tired of Anglican parsons, doctors, and peers, each equipped with his numerous family of sourand daughters ; while each family presents the familiar varieties of the worldly, the devout, the student, the careless genius, and' the black, but not too black, sheep, Anglicanism, indeed, still follows us even to Paris, in the days of the Fronde. All good Church people will be glad to read how Margaret de Ribaurnont, though brought up herself in the Roman communion, records for the benefit of her grandchildren her conviction that "the English doctrine is no heresy, and that the Church is a true Church, and Catholic." Into the fold for the proper construction of which we have this satisfactory assurance, one of the heroes of the tale is finally admitted. Throughout the story Puritans meet with no favour, now and then, we should say, scarcely with fairness; nor is there much more liking for the Huguenots. Perhaps the most nnamiable personage that we encounter owed, we are told, something, at least, of her odions characteristics to Huguenot antecedents.
The story of Stray Pearls belongs to the days when Anne of Austria was Regent of France, and to the early years of Louis XIV. Miss Yonge speaks very sensibly in her preface of the conditions under which the historical novel must now be written. Sir Walter Scott dealt with facts pretty much as he pleased, and took any liberty with times and places that seemed to suit the development of his plot. Authors of the present have to make, as Miss Yonge almost pathetically complains, an entire sacrifice " of their plot, at the imperative bidding of historical accuracy, and instead of making "the catastrophe depend upon the heioes and heroines," to keep them mere in- effective spectators." But the clear perception of this necessity really serves her in good stead. She has quite enough of the artist's faculty to make her characters live before us, and we are no more disposed to complain of their being subordinated to events than we should if they had a veritable historical existence.
Margaret de Ribaumont is a young lady born in England, but more than half French in her extraction. A marriage, arranged after the French mode, makes her Viscountess of Bellaise (there is one amusing scene describing the dismay with which she regards the withered old man whom she takes for the bride- groom, but who is really the bridegroom's father), and she follows her husband to the wars. Readers who are familiar with Miss Yonge's fictions will be prepared for the in- evitable stroke which is to make Margaret a widow. The story of the bereavement is told with a pathos which is not the less effective because it is given with a restraint which the writer has not always used. The widow seeks retirement at the family chateau, and would have found solace in the part of a Lady Bountiful, but for the suspicions that are roused among her neighbours, and even at the centre of Government, that her benevolence generates an enmity to seignorial rights. "The Firebrand of the Bocage," for so the benevolent lady is called, is brought back to Paris by the threat of a lettre tie cachet, and of the loss of the guardianship of her son. In Paris, we are introduced to the second heroine, Mistress Annora, sister to Margaret, but thoroughly English in all hei sentiments. From that point the narrative is continued in alternation by the two sisters. This is not, we think, com- monly a very successful method ; but Miss Yonge uses it with • Way Pearls. Memoirs of Margaret de Ribaumont, Viscountess of Belted:se. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 2 vols. Londtat : Macmillan and Co. 1883.
skill, and it is, perhaps, more peculiarly suited to the chronicle form which such a story as this must necessarily take. Nothing, too, could be better than the marked difference=, most consistently kept up, between the two sisters. They are like and unlike with a contrast and a similarity which seem exactly to suit
-the poet's canon, " qualem decet ease sororum." It is always a pleasant change to leave the minor key of Margaret's reminis-
cences for the spirit and gaiety of Annora's narrative. Bred in
-the free air of her English home, and taught amidst the civil troubles of her country to care and to think for herself, she is
ever in a most entertaining rebellion to the conventions of the courtly life to which she is introduced. Her love-history har- monises, of course, with the general independence of her char- acter. The marriage which would have brought the long- standing family suit to so convenient a termination, finds no favour in her eyes ; her heart is given to a young lawyer, who dreams that France may yet be free, and in spite of the horror of her French kinsfolk, to whom all who are not noble seem scarcely of the same humanity as themselves, she has her way. Miss Yonge has not told a better love-story than this.
But, perhaps, the most spirited scene in the book is the abduction of Margaret. The Prince de Conde is very anxious 'that she should marry one of his followers, M. de Lamont ; and he, with the help of her brother-in-law, Armand d'Aubepine, carries her off. Here, again, the double narrative is skilfully employed. Margaret, exhausted with all the excitement of the day—for she had only escaped her fate by slinging with pas- sionate force to the image of St. Margaret in the chapel that was to have witnessed her marriage—could not have described
the incidents of her rescue. These her sister tells us with great -vividness. Here is an excellent scene :— "M. d'Aubepine, who was slinking a the scene, like a beaten hound, as well he might, unaware that we were in the antechapel, caught his foot and spur in Madame Darpent's long trailing cloak, and come down at full length on the stone floor, being perhaps a little flustered with wine. He lay still for the first moment, and there was an outcry. One of the soldiers cried out to the other, as Madame Darpent's black dress and white cap flashed into the light, It is the holy saint who has appeared to avenge the sacrilege ! She has struck hint dead.' And behold the superstition affected even the licentious, good-for-nothing Abbe. Down he dropped upon his knees, hiding his eyes, and sobbing out, Sancta Margarita, spare me, spare me ! I vow thee a silver image. I vow to lead a changed life. I was drawn into it, holy Lady Saint. They showed me the Prince's letter.' He get it all out in one breath, while some of them were lifting up D'Aubepine, and the Coadjutor was in convulsions of suppressed laughter, and catching hold of Clement's arm, whispered, No, no, Monsieur, I entreat of you, do not undeceive him. Such a scene is worth any- thing ! Madame, I entreat of you,' to Meg, who was stepping for- ward. However, of course it could not last long, though as D'Aubepine almost instantly began to swear, as he recovered his senses, Madame Darpent unconsciously maintained the delusion, by saying solemnly in her voice, the gravest and deepest that I ever heard in a French- woman, Add not another sin, sir, to those with which you have pro- faned this holy place.' The Abbe thereupon took one look and broke into another tempest of entreaties and vows, which Madame Darpent
by this time heard. M. l'Abbe,' she said, I pray yota to be silent ; I am no saint, but a friend, if Madame will allow me so to call myself, who has come to see her to her home: But oh ! Monsieur,' she added, with the wonderful dignity that surrounded her, 'forget. not, I pray you, that what is invisible is the more real, and that the vows and Tesolution you have addressed to me in error are none the less regis- tered in Heaven.'" Whether this novel gives us a true picture of those strange times is more than any one can say, but it is at least truth- like. The great personages of the day, great at least by virtue of their position, move before us in a very real fashion. The Coadjutor of Paris, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, shrewd, active, vivacious, as little like the ideal Bishop as a man could well be, the proud Anne of Austria, the little King, so apt to learn the lessons of absolutism, and, perhaps, best of all, let Grande Mademoiselle, are excellent sketches. Some of the historical or quasi-historical scenes, too, are very good ; Mademoiselle, for instance, making her way into Orleans, and the battle between Turenne and the Prince de Conde before the walls of Paris. On the whole, we may say that we have here a very well-written
and effective story.
Previous page
