Anne,"
cried Philibert; "give me the peerless Lady Anne! As soon as ever I have
won spurs, I will ride all Christendom through, and proclaim her the
Queen of Beauty. Ho, Lady Anne! Lady Anne!" and so saying--but evidently
wishing to disguise some emotion, or conceal some tale his friend could
ill brook to hear--the reckless damoiseau galloped wildly forward.

But swift as was his courser's pace, that of his companion's enormous
charger was swifter. "Boy," said the elder, "thou hast ill tidings. I
know it by thy glance. Speak: shall he who hath bearded grim Death in a
thousand fields shame to face truth from a friend? Speak, in the name
of heaven and good Saint Botibol. Romane de Clos-Vougeot will bear your
tidings like a man!"

"Fatima is well," answered Philibert once again; "she hath had no
measles: she lives and is still fair."

"Fair, ay, peerless fair; but what more, Philibert? Not false? By Saint
Botibol, say not false," groaned the elder warrior.

"A month syne," Philibert replied, "she married the Baron de Barbazure."

With that scream which is so terrible in a strong man in agony, the
brave knight Romane de Clos-Vougeot sank back at the words, and fell
from his charger to the ground, a lifeless mass of steel.

II.

Like many another fabric of feudal war and splendor, the once vast and
magnificent Castle of Barbazure is now a moss-grown ruin. The traveller
of the present day, who wanders by the banks of the silvery Loire, and
climbs the steep on which the magnificent edifice stood, can scarcely
trace, among the shattered masses of ivy-covered masonry which lie among
the lonely crags, even the skeleton of the proud and majestic palace
stronghold of the Barons of Barbazure.

In the days of our tale its turrets and pinnacles rose as stately, and
seemed (to the pride of sinful man!) as strong as the eternal rocks on
which they stood. The three mullets on a gules wavy reversed, surmounted
by the sinople couchant Or; the well-known cognizance of the house,
blazed in gorgeous heraldry on a hundred banners, surmounting as many
towers. The long lines of battlemented walls spread down the mountain
to the Loire, and were defended by thousands of steel-clad serving-men.
Four hundred knights and six times as many archers fought round the
banner of Barbazure at Bouvines, Malplaquet, and Azincour. For his
services at Fontenoy against the English, the heroic Charles Martel
appointed the fourteenth Baron Hereditary