"I am happy to see you all, gentlemen," he said; "Monsieur de Morseiul, my good friend," he continued, shaking him warmly by the hand, "I am delighted to meet you. I have not seen you since we were fellow-soldiers together in very troublous times." "I hope, Marshal," replied the Count, "that at the present we may be fellow-pacificators instead of fellow-soldiers. We are all Protestants, gentlemen, and as what I have lately learned affects us all, I thought it much the best plan, before I took any steps in consequence, in my own neighbourhood, to consult with you, and see whether we could not draw up such a remonstrance and plain statement of our case to the King, as to induce him to oppose the evil intentions of his ministers, and once more guarantee to us the full and entire enjoyment of those rights in which he promised us security on his accession to the throne, but which have been sadly encroached upon and curtailed within the last ten years." "They have, indeed," said the Count de Champclair; "but I trust, Monsieur de Morseiul, you have nothing to tell us which may lead us to believe that greater encroachments still are intended." Marshal Schomberg shook his head with a melancholy smile; but he did not interrupt the Count de Morseiul, who proceeded to relate what he knew of the mission of Pelisson and St. Helie, and the further information which he had gained in regard to their commission on the preceding day. The first burst of anger and indignation was greater than he expected, and nothing was talked of for a few minutes but active resistance to the powers of the crown, of reviving the days of the League or those of Louis XIII., and defending their rights and privileges to the last. Marshal Schomberg, however eminently distinguished for his attachment to his religion, maintained a profound silence during the whole of the first ebullitions; and at length Monsieur de Champclair remarked, "The Marshal does not seem to think well of our purposes. What would he have us do, thus brought to bay?" "My good friends," replied Schomberg, with his slight foreign accent, "I think only that you do not altogether consider how times have changed since the days of Louis XIII. Even then the reformed church of France was not successful in resisting the King, and now resistance, unless men were driven to it by despair, would be madness. Forced as I am to be much about the court, I have seen and known these matters in their progress more intimately than any of you, and can but believe that our sole hope will rest in showing the King the utmost submission, while at the same time we represent to him the grievances that we suffer." "But does he not know those grievances already?" exclaimed one of the other gentlemen; "are they not his own act and deed?"