The Rescue. A Story of the Huguenots

Time for another round of Victorian evangelical fiction.  The Rescue.  A Story of the Huguenots was published by the Religious Tract Society in 1882; according to the inscription, this copy was given to young Walter Stackwood in 1885 as a prize for attendance at St. Barnabas Sunday School.  If nothing else, the choice of this text as a prize for a boy suggests that some Sunday School teachers were not paying much attention to gender, because The Rescue is very much a novel about women--specifically, women's Christian heroism.

Although The Rescue opens with a favorite Protestant heroine, Jeanne of Navarre, the focus quickly shifts to her former maid of honor, Constance de Blanchville.  This is a novel for children, and the plot is simple: the Queen must somehow send word to a Huguenot garrison, captained by Constance's husband, that she is aware of their predicament (hostile Catholic forces loom) and will send additional soldiers shortly.  But no trustworthy courtiers can be found.  How to save the garrison? Enter Constance, a woman whose carriage brings "to Jeanne's mind the martial bearing of her father" (14), who takes secretly takes it upon herself to carry the Queen's message to her husband, the Count de Blanchville.  Constance, who is "endowed with a strength beyond the common strength of womankind" (18), convinces herself that her ability to even imagine such a thing indicates that God must be sending her a sign: "And surely He must mean her to be such an instrument, or He would not have put this bold thought into the heart of her, a woman; surely He with whom she had walked ever since her earliest days, would lead her in safety through this peril" (18-19).  Leaving her son, Constance journeys to the cottage of her old nurse, Marie, who alerts Constance to the existence of a secret passage once used by wives to visit their enlisted husbands.  With the assistance of Marie's deaf-mute son, Constance enters the passage, but--terrifed by the sight of a mysterious figure--faints and, on awakening, takes the wrong turn.  This mistake proves providential, however, for she encounters the last member of a robber band, hiding in the tunnels; the former robber, converted to Christianity by Constance's spur-of-the-movement evangelism, donates his secret stash of supplies to the garrison, which, between the food and Constance's message, can now hold out until help arrives.

While it may come as a surprise to some readers, there's absolutely nothing unusual about the anonymous author's interest in female heroism; after all, both Catholic and Protestant texts have traditionally liked to dwell on the paradox that the lowliest may, in reality, be the most steadfast.  Although the novel hardly challenges Victorian norms of femininity, given that it singles out Constance as an unusual woman (not to mention a woman who faints when frightened), it nevertheless adopts elements from the boy's adventure novel--an unsafe ride through the country, a perilous trip through secret passages--and insists that, when called, women have every right to take an interest in religious and national affairs.  In fact, Constance elevates her duty to God over that to her young son, whom she is willing to leave in the hands of Providence rather than allow the garrison to fall; motherhood does not trump an obligation to the faith.  (Similarly, Marie has lost all but one of her sons in religious wars.)  Jeanne of Navarre knows her troop movements, Constance can navigate treacherous landscapes, and Marie knows the secret that will ultimately save the garrison, while the male characters find themselves mostly pushed to the margins.  Ultimately, this novel puts the safety of the Reformation itself in the hands of its female adherents.