new
courage to meet whatever Fate might send.

It may be pertinent to chronicle here, what history has already
recorded, the result of placing those dispatches in the King's hands.

The Duke of Maine, as all the world knows, disavowed his wife's act in
treating with Spain, and thus saved his own dainty carcass from sharing
her captivity in the Bastille. But both he and Madame were imprisoned
until he made most abject submission and apology to Orleans.

Madame de Chartrain was sent to a provincial fortress, and bore her
incarceration with great fortitude, winning even from her enemies the
admiration always accorded to firmness and virtue.

Philip of Orleans being once firmly established in the Regency, changed
his usual course, and pardoned many of those who had conspired against
him. Their prison doors were opened, and the Duke of Maine, becoming
reconciled to his haughty lady, forgave her and gained great credit
thereby in the vulgar mind. They spent their lives quietly at Sceaux
during the Regency, and naught else of them concerns this history.

Philip of Orleans possessed some of the virtues of a great man, and
many of a good man, but these he kept ever locked within his own bosom.
His mother, the rigid and austere Madame, said once of him:

"Though good fairies have gifted my son at his birth with numerous
noble qualities, one envious member of the sisterhood spitefully
decreed that he should never know how to use any of these gifts." Such
was the character of the Regent.

Of Jerome and Madame de Chartrain I would fain tell more, but during
the troubled times in America I completely lost sight of them, and my
inquiries developed nothing of sufficient verity to give credence to
here.

All Frenchmen know of Jerome's gallant death at Malplaquet. It is a
fireside legend now, and young French lads turn their moistened eyes
away at the hearing. Marshal Villars being sorely hurt and in peril of
capture, there fought beside his litter an unknown gentleman who,
without name or rank, yet bore himself so commandingly, the discouraged
guard rallied again and gave him willing obedience. Arrived at a
narrow bridge he urged the litter-bearers safely across, and fighting
at the rear to be himself the last to reach a place of safety, he was
struck and fell. Prince Eugene, the courteous enemy, who had himself
witnessed the incident, sent a guard of honor to the Marshal at
Valenciennes the next day with the body, deem