The two young men laughed.  “Just at present,” de Lisle said, “the two religions get on quietly together.  The cardinal, churchman as he is, knows that if France is to be great religious enmities must cease, and that the wars of the last reign cost tens of thousands of lives, and drove great numbers of men to take refuge in Holland or England, to the benefit of those countries and our loss.  Still, his successor, whoever he may be, may think more of party and less of France, and in that case you might have found your vocation of a Huguenot minister as full of danger as that of a soldier.”

“It would have been much worse,” Hector said, “for it would not have been a question of fighting, but of being massacred.  I know nothing of either religious disputes or of politics.  In the regiment these things were never talked about, either among the men or the officers; all were for the king.  But at the same time, as it seemed to them that it was the cardinal who had stopped the persecution of the Huguenots, and who had now gone to war with the Austrians to prevent the Protestant princes of Germany being altogether subjugated by the Imperialists, they felt grateful to him; for of course Scotchmen are all on the side of the princes, and nigh half the army of Gustavus Adolphus was composed of my countrymen.”

“I do not suppose,” Chavigny laughed, “that the cardinal would have cared very much for the destruction of all the Protestant princes of Germany, had it not been that their ruin would make Austria more formidable than ever.  As long as Gustavus lived and the Swedes were able to hold their own against the Imperialists, France troubled herself in no way in the matter; but when the Swedes were finally routed at Nordlingen, and it seemed that the Imperialists would triumph everywhere —­ for most of the Protestant princes were leaving the Confederacy and trying to make the best terms they could for themselves —­ Richelieu stepped in; and now we see France, which for the past hundred years has been trying to stamp out Protestantism, uniting with Protestant Holland and Sweden to uphold the Protestant princes of Germany, and this under the direction of a cardinal of the Church of Rome.  And here are we riding behind a Huguenot general, who perhaps more than any other possesses the cardinal’s confidence.”

“It seems strange,” de Lisle said, “but it is assuredly good policy.  While fighting Austria we are fighting Spain, for Austria and Spain are but two branches of one empire.  Spain is our eternal enemy.  True, she is not as formidable as she was.  Henry of Navarre’s triumph over the Guises half emancipated us from her influence.  The English destroyed her naval power.  Holland well nigh exhausted her treasury, and brought such discredit on her arms as she had never before suffered.  Still, she and Austria combined dominate Europe, and it is on her account that we have taken the place of the Swedes and continued this war that has raged for so many years.”