Page:The silent prince - a story of the Netherlands (IA cu31924008716957).pdf/84

 triumphs now and evermore!” and Monseigneur smiled with complacency.

“Thanks, Father, for the lesson you have just given me in strategy. I wish the heretics in the Netherlands could be as easily disposed of as these counterfeit kings, queens, knights and pawns,” he continued, as he dropped the ivory pieces into a box.

“No one can stay the march of time or the power of the Church,” said the Superior. “Either the heretics must return to the fold of the Church, or they will be crushed. By the way, what was that memorial of which you spoke?”

“It was a document from the advocate Chenoweth, setting forth the claims of a certain Madame La Tour and her daughter.”

“I received a similar petition in my ecclesiastical capacity,” said the Superior. “The facts in the case are these: Madame La Tour was a Catholic, but against the tenets of the Church married a French Huguenot. They had one child, whom, it is supposed, her mother reared in the Catholic faith. During the persecution of the Huguenots, the estates of Monsieur La Tour were confiscated, and after the death of her husband, Madame and her daughter were reduced to poverty.”

“But why was such severity allowed, if mother and daughter were staunch Catholics?” inquired the Chancellor.