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Show 418 'l'HE LII,Y ANI) THE TO'l'~M-and equally insensible to good faith and generosity, was to be a slave. They conductctl war with little regard to the rules that prevailed among civilized nations. The valor that Gorgucs displayed, instead of commending him to their admiration and fa\'Or1 only provoked their fury; and they punished, with shameful bonds, those br:~.vc actions which tho noble heart prefers to applause aud honor. Gourgucs was transferred in chains to the gallics. In this degrading condition, chained to the oar, be was captured by tho Tm ks off the coast of Sicily; the 'l'urks then being in alliance, to the dhamc of Christendom, with tho French monarch, and against the Spaniards. He was conducted by his new captors to Rhodes and lhcucc to Constantinople. Sent once more to sea, under his new lllaster, he was retaken by a ;)lnltesc galley, and thus rccovel 'ld bis liberty. But his latter ad\•enturcs had given him n. tast.o for the sea. His prog1·csscs brought him to the coast of Afriea, to Brazil, nml, according to Lescarbot, though the point is doubwd, to the Pacific Ocean. The details of this career arc not given to us, but the results seem to have been equally creditable to the fame, and of benefit to tho fortunes of our chevalier. He returnad to )Jont de Marsnn, with the reputation of being one of the most able and hardy of all the navigaWrs of his time. He had scarcely cst."lblished himself fairly in his ancient home, where he had in\'ested all the fruits of his toils and enterprise, when tho tidings came of the capture of I~:~. Caroline, and the massacre of the French in Flodda by i\Ielendcz. Ile f<>lt for the honor of France, for tho grief of the widows and orphans thus cruelly bcrca\•ed, and wt~s keenly reminded of that brutal nature of the Spaniard, under which he had himself suffered so long, and in a condition so humiliating to a noble spirit. H e had his own wrongs and those of his country t-o avenge. He brooded over the neoes· OOMlNIQU£ DE GOURGUES. 419 sity before him, with a passion that acquired new strength from contemplation, and finally resolved never to give himself rest till he had exacted full atonement, in the blood of tho usurpers in Florida, for the crime of which they had been guilty to his people and himself. II. 'l'Hts sublime purpose--sublime by reason of the intense indi· viduality which it betrayed-the proud, strong and defiant will, which took no counsel from the natural fears of the subject, and was totally unrcbukcd by the placid indifference of the sovereign to his own dutics-wa!l not, however, to be indulged opculyi but was comp~lled, by force of circumstances; tho better to effect its object--to subduB itself to the eye, to cloak i-ts real purposl:ls, to suffl:lr not the nearest or best friend to conceive the intense design which was working in the soul of the hero. We have seen that the 1\Iarcchal, Blaize do 1\Iontluc, a very celebrated warrior, a very bravo fellow, an accomplished leader and :1. good man, though a monstrous braggart--the very embodiment of Gascon self .esteem, had long been a personn.l friend of the Chevalier de Gourgucs. l\Iontluc was the king's lieutemmt in Guyennc, and to him De Gourgues proceeded to obtain his commission for sailing upon the high seas. Montluc, liko llimsclf, was a Catholic; but, unliko de Gourgues, was a bitter hater of the Huguenots. Our chevalier had been too long a prisoner with Spaniard and 'l'urk.too long a. cruiser upon lonely oceans, confined to a little world which knew and cared nothing for sects and partil:ls1 to feel very acute!~ P.:oliticia~n m:~.ttcrs of religion. Such a life as that ~ . :; ... '(•·.A tv.t f.,..~. f I l i:" ~ P""" ~t\:-. ..... f• |
