There was one point, however, on which it behoved her to be careful:  and extremely careful she was,—­not leaving a single loop-hole for censure or attack.  This was the question of religion.  On first taking the house, Madame Bonaventure gave it out that she and the skipper were Huguenots, descended from families who had suffered much persecution during the time of the League, for staunch adherence to their faith; and the statement was generally credited, though there were some who professed to doubt it.  Certain it was, our hostess did not wear any cross, beads, or other outward symbol of Papacy.  And though this might count for little, it was never discovered that she attended mass in secret.  Her movements were watched, but without anything coming to light that had reference to religious observances of any kind.  Those who tried to trace her, found that her visits were mostly paid to Paris Garden, the Rose, and the Globe (where our immortal bard’s plays were then being performed), or some other place of amusement; and if she did go on the river at times, it was merely upon a party of pleasure, accompanied by gay gallants in velvet cloaks and silken doublets, and by light-hearted dames like herself, and not by notorious plotters or sour priests.  Still, as many Bordeaux merchants frequented the house, as well as traders from the Hanse towns, and other foreigners, it was looked upon by the suspicious as a hotbed of Romish heresy and treason.  Moreover, these maligners affirmed that English recusants, as well as seminary priests from abroad, had been harboured there, and clandestinely spirited away from the pursuit of justice by the skipper; but the charges were never substantiated, and could, therefore, only proceed from envy and malice.  Whatever Madame Bonaventure’s religious opinions might be, she kept her own council so well that no one ever found them out.

But evil days were at hand.  Hitherto, all had been smiling and prosperous.  The prospect now began to darken.

Within the last twelve months a strange and unlooked for interference had taken place with our hostess’s profits, which she had viewed, at first, without much anxiety, because she did not clearly comprehend its scope; but latterly, as its formidable character became revealed, it began to fill her with uneasiness.  The calamity, as she naturally enough regarded it, arose in the following manner.  The present was an age of monopolies and patents, granted by a crown ever eager to obtain money under any pretext, however unjustifiable and iniquitous, provided it was plausibly coloured; and these vexatious privileges were purchased by greedy and unscrupulous persons for the purpose of turning them into instruments of extortion and wrong.  Though various branches of trade and industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no means of redress.  The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them down as they pleased, farming out whole districts, and dividing the spoil.