FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>  
d his wife felt much annoyance at it. But after communications of that kind there was scarcely any course open to be taken than that of acquiescence. Monsieur conveyed the news to his beloved daughter, and, on hearing that she was to be made Queen of Spain, this amiable child uttered loud lamentations. When she went to Versailles to thank the King, her uncle, her fine eyes were still suffused with tears. The few words which she uttered were mingled with sighing and weeping; and when she saw the indifference of her cousin, who felicitated her like the rest, she almost fainted with grief and regret. "My dear cousin," said this dull-witted young lord, "I shall count the hours until you go to Spain. You will send me some 'touru', for I am very fond of it?" The King could not but find this reflection of his son very silly and out of place. But intelligence is neither to be given nor communicated by example. His Majesty had to support to the end this son, legitimate as much as you like, but altogether in degree, and with a person which formed a perpetual contrast with the person of the King. It was my Duc du Maine who should have been in the eminent position of Monseigneur. Nature willed it so. She had proved it sufficiently by lavishing all her favours on him, all her graces; but the laws of convention and usage would not have it. His Majesty has made this same reflection, groaning, more than once. Marie Louise, having been married by proxy, in the great Chapel of Saint Germain, where the Cardinal de Bouillon blessed the ring in his quality of Grand Almoner of France, left for that Spain which her young heart distrusted. Her beauty and charms rendered her precious to the monarch, utterly melancholy and devout as he was. He did not delay subjecting her to the wretched, petty, tiresome, and absurd etiquette of that Gothic Court. Mademoiselle submitted to all these nothings, seeing she had been able to submit to separation from France. She condemned herself to the most fastidious observances and the most sore privations, which did not much ameliorate her lot. A young Castilian lord, almost mad himself, thought fit to find this Queen pretty, and publicly testify his love for her. The jealousy of the religious King flared up like a funeral torch. He conceived a hatred of his wife, reserved and innocent though she was. She died cruelly by poison. And Monseigneur le Dauphin probably cried, after his mann
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>  



Top keywords:

person

 

France

 

cousin

 

Majesty

 

Monseigneur

 

reflection

 

uttered

 

devout

 

precious

 

melancholy


monarch

 

beauty

 

distrusted

 

charms

 

rendered

 

utterly

 

Louise

 

groaning

 
convention
 

married


Bouillon

 
blessed
 

quality

 

Cardinal

 

Chapel

 

Germain

 

Almoner

 

religious

 

jealousy

 
flared

funeral
 

testify

 

thought

 

pretty

 
publicly
 
conceived
 
hatred
 

Dauphin

 
poison
 

innocent


reserved

 

cruelly

 

Castilian

 

Mademoiselle

 

submitted

 

nothings

 

Gothic

 

etiquette

 

wretched

 

subjecting