CHAPTER XLVI.
THE BOURGEOIS PHILIBERT.
The Bourgeois Philibert, after an arduous day's work, was enjoying
in his armchair a quiet siesta in the old comfortable parlor of his
city home.
The sudden advent of peace had opened the seas to commerce, and a
fleet of long-shut-up merchantmen were rapidly loading at the quays
of the Friponne as well as at those of the Bourgeois, with the
products of the Colony for shipment to France before the closing in
of the St. Lawrence by ice. The summer of St. Martin was lingering
soft and warm on the edge of winter, and every available man,
including the soldiers of the garrison, were busy loading the ships
to get them off in time to escape the hard nip of winter.
Dame Rochelle sat near the window, which to-day was open to the
balmy air. She was occupied in knitting, and occasionally glancing
at a volume of Jurieu's hard Calvinistic divinity, which lay upon
the table beside her. Her spectacles reposed upon the open page,
where she had laid them down while she meditated, as was her custom,
upon knotty points of doctrine, touching free will, necessity, and
election by grace; regarding works as a garment of filthy rags, in
which publicans and sinners who trusted in them were damned, while
in practice the good soul was as earnest in performing them as if
she believed her salvation depended exclusively thereupon.
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