e rose in her soul, especially
during the last days of her life, a terrible struggle between those
nearly balanced feelings, of which the one became, as it were, an enemy
of the other. The tears and the terror that marked her face at the
moment when this tale of a domestic drama then lowering over the quiet
house begins, were caused by the fear of having sacrificed her children
to her husband.

In 1805, Madame Claes's brother died without children. The Spanish law
does not allow a sister to succeed to territorial possessions, which
follow the title; but the duke had left her in his will about sixty
thousand ducats, and this sum the heirs of the collateral branch did not
seek to retain. Though the feeling which united her to Balthazar Claes
was such that no thought of personal interest could ever sully it,
Josephine felt a certain pleasure in possessing a fortune equal to that
of her husband, and was happy in giving something to one who had so
nobly given everything to her. Thus, a mere chance turned a marriage
which worldly minds had declared foolish, into an excellent alliance,
seen from the standpoint of material interests. The use to which this
sum of money should be put became, however, somewhat difficult to
determine.

The House of Claes was so richly supplied with furniture, pictures, and
objects of art of priceless value, that it was difficult to add anything
worthy of what was already there. The tastes of the family through long
periods of time had accumulated these treasures. One generation
followed the quest of noble pictures, leaving behind it the necessity
of completing a collection still unfinished; and thus the taste became
hereditary in the family. The hundred pictures which adorned the gallery
leading from the family building to the reception-rooms on the first
floor of the front house, as well as some fifty others placed about the
salons, were the product of the patient researches of three centuries.
Among them were choice specimens of Rubens, Ruysdael, Vandyke, Terburg,
Gerard Dow, Teniers, Mieris, Paul Potter, Wouvermans, Rembrandt,
Hobbema, Cranach, and Holbein. French and Italian pictures were in a
minority, but all were authentic and masterly.

Another generation had fancied Chinese and Japanese porcelains: this
Claes was eager after rare furniture, that one for silver-ware; in fact,
each and all had their mania, their passion,--a trait which belongs in
a striking degree to the Flemish character