

CHAPTER XVIII. THE MOONBEAM

CHAPTER XIX. LA RUE DES TROIS FEES

CHAPTER XX. THE ABBE

CHAPTER XXI. UNDER THE WALNUT-TREE

CHAPTER XXII. DEPARTURE

CHAPTER XXIII. THE EMPTY CRADLE

CHAPTER XXIV. THE GOOD PRIEST OF NISSARD

CHAPTER XXV. THE VELVET COACH

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHEVALIER'S EXPIATION

CHAPTER XXVII. THE DYING KING

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE ORPHANS OF LA SABLERIE

CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE KING'S NAME

CHAPTER XXX. CAGED IN THE BLACKBIRD'S NEST

CHAPTER XXXI. THE DARK POOL OF THE FUTURE

CHAPTER XXXII. 'JAM SATIS'

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SCANDAL OF THE SYNOD OF MONTAUBAN

CHAPTER XXXIV. MADAME LA DUCHESSE

CHAPTER XXXV. THE ITALIAN PEDLAR

CHAPTER XXXVI. SPELL AND POTION

CHAPTER XXXVII. BEATING AGAINST THE BARS

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE ENEMY IN PRESENCE

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PEDLAR'S PREDICTION

CHAPTER XL. THE SANDS OF OLONNE

CHAPTER XLI. OUR LADY OF HOPE

CHAPTER XLII. THE SILVER BULLET

CHAPTER XLIII. LA BAISER D'EUSTACIE

CHAPTER XLIV. THE GALIMAFRE






PREFACE



It is the fashion to call every story controversial that deals with
times when controversy or a war of religion was raging; but it should
be remembered that there are some which only attempt to portray human
feelings as affected by the events that such warfare occasioned. 'Old
Mortality' and 'Woodstock' are not controversial tales, and the 'Chaplet
of Pearls' is so quite as little. It only aims at drawing certain scenes
and certain characters as the convulsions of the sixteenth century may
have affected them, and is, in fact, like all historical romance, the
shaping of the conceptions that the imagination must necessarily form
when dwelling upon the records of history. That faculty which might
be called the passive fancy, and might almost be described in Portia's
song,--

                  'It is engendered in the eyes,
              By READING fed--and there it dies,'--

that faculty, I say, has learnt to feed upon character and incident, and
to require that the latter should be effective and exciting. Is it
not reasonable to seek for this in the days 