Part 22 (1/2)

At length they were outside, and alking quietly down the road to Pontoise, where they took refuge in a church, till the inhabitants, hearing of their arrival, placed all they had at their disposal

Great was the indignation of the king and the abbot when, next elique informed them of what had happened

Instantly a warrant was issued for the arrest of e body of archers was sent off post-haste to Maubuisson in order to carry it out But the abbess had received warning of her danger, and was not to be found, though her flight was so hurried that on searching her rooms the captain discovered several important papers that she had left behind her Her friend, e in a cupboard, which was concealed by tapestry, high up in a wall The dust seeot into her nose, and she sneezed, and in this ainst the wall, which the lady instantly thren The captain then levelled his pistol at her, and bade his ain

[Illustration: The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady instantly thren]

'I will shoot you if you do not surrender,' he said, and as she was sure he ave herself up

When all was quiet in the abbey, the archers mounted their horses and rode to Pontoise, and under their protection Angelique and her nuns walked back to Maubuisson at ten o'clock that night, escorted by the people of Pontoise, and lighted by a hundred and fifty torches borne by the archers For six uard of fifty remained there, but when madame d'Estrees was at last captured and sent back for life to the Convent of the Penitents, at the request of Angelique they returned to their quarters, and she was left to e the nuns herself

The last year of her residence at Maubuisson was, if possible, more unpleasant than the rest had been, for the title of abbess was given to a lady of high birth whose vieere far ry at the presence of the thirty poor nuns who had been added to the coelique begged theh her abbey was, and had thees sent by elique, or some of the nuns chosen by her, was often sent to reform other convents, and very hard work it was She had, besides, her own cares at Port Royal, for the abbey, always unhealthy, was , and the income and the dormitories which had been held sufficient for sixteen now had to do for eighty A low fever broke out, of which many died, and soon it became clear that the rest would follow if they did not leave At length, at the entreaty of her elique applied for permission to move into Paris, where madame Arnauld had taken a house for the town, to find a ready-h Angelique added a sleeping-gallery, the refectory or dining-room was so small that the nuns had to dine in parties of four Her father was dead, and she does not see any of her brothers; more space appeared a necessity, and, much as she hated debt, in her strait she made up her mind that she must borrowher rule, accepted a rich boarder, who became the cause of infinite trouble

Just at this period the king's mother, as in Paris, paid a visit to the fa to ask for, as it was her custo a convent for the first tielique replied that she prayed her to irace to allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every three years, and leave being granted, she and her sister Agnes, as her coadjutor, instantly resigned She uard, so that no one nun should enjoy absolute power for long; but as regarded her own abbey it was a great ed to feomen, and often when a mean or spiteful sister was elected she would wreak her ill-temper upon the late abbess, and ielique always bore elique not only had her four younger sisters with her, Agnes, Anne, Marie, and Madeleine, but later her mother and her ed sister, h the rule of silence laid down by Angelique to prevent gossip must have stood in the way of much that would have been pleasant By-and-by her nieces almost all entered the convent, and, what is still , her brothers and several of her nephews, most of them brilliant and successful men, one by one quitted the bar or the army, and formed a little band known as the 'Recluses of Port Royal,'

who afterwards did useful work in draining and repairing the abbey 'in the fields,' so that the nuns could go back to it

And all this ing to the exairl, who had been thrust into a position for which she had certainly shown no liking

In the last twenty-five years of Angelique's life her religious views underwent a change, and her confessor, St Cyran, who shared thee of heresy, at Vincennes Even as a young girl she had left the chapel at Port Royal bare of ornaift to the altar of Port Royal de Paris, in order to bestow the money on the poor Everyone looked up to her, but by-and-by it began to be whispered that she was 'a dangerous person,' who thought that the Church needed refor as well as the convents, and had adopted the opinions of one Jansen, a Swiss, ished to go back to the faith of early tiustine was bishop

In 1654 she heard through one of her nephews that in consequence of so resisted a decree of the pope conde a book of Jansen's, a resistance supposed to have been inspired by the abbess herself, it was reported that she was either to be sent to the Bastille or imprisoned in some convent She did not take any notice, and neither threat was fulfilled; but the hatred which the order of the Jesuits bore to the 'Jansenists,' as their opponents were called, never rested, and later a command came for the recluses to be dispersed, and the leaders were forced to go into hiding Then her schoolgirls were sent to their ho them; and after them went the candidates, or those ished to take the veil All these blows caelique, with health broken from the incessant labours of over fifty years, was attacked by dropsy

The nuns were in despair, and hung about her night and day, hoping that she ht cherish alelique, who, unlike her sister Agnes, had all her life been very impatient of sentimentality, detected this at once, and took care 'neither to say nor do any thing remarkable' 'They are too fond of me,' she once said, 'and I am afraid they will invent all sorts of silly tales about me' And in order to put a stop as far as she could to all the show and parade which she knew her nuns would rejoice in, as she felt that her end was drawing near she gave them her last order:

'Bury me in the churchyard, and do not let there be any nonsense after my death'

GORDON

Many years hence, when the children of to-day are growing old men and women, they will perhaps look back over their lives, as I a now, and ask themselves questions about the people they have known or have heard of 'Who,' they will say, 'was the person I should have gone to at once if I needed help?' 'Who was the , till I felt as if I could listen to him for ever?' 'What wo?' and they will turn over the chapters in the Book of Long Ago and give the answers to the for their reply

Well, if the question were put throughout England at thisenthusiasiven with one voice:

'Gordon'

It seemed as if from the very first Nature had intended hi record even in Scotch history, and he was living on Woolwich Couns, when his fourth son, Charles George, was born on January 28, 1833 Yet, strange to say, though fearless in ames with his numerous brothers and sisters, Charles as a small boy hated the roar of cannon Unlike queen Christina of Sweden, who at four years old used to clap her hands when a gun was discharged near her, and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise It was not lack of courage, for he showed plenty of that about other things, but simply that the sudden sound made him jump, and was unpleasant to hie, as the lives of soldiers'