Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise, Yonge [love books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Yonge
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I had never seen her look so well as she did, with that little spirit of mischief upon her, lighting her beautiful eyes and colouring her cheeks. Madame de Rambouillet whispered to me that she was a perfect nymph, with her look of health and freshness. Then M. Darpent came in, and his grave face blushed with satisfaction as he saw his friend, my Lord Walwyn, present.
His was a fine face, though too serious for so young a man. It was a complete oval, the hair growing back on the forehead, and the beard being dark and pointed, the complexion a clear pale brown, the eyes with something of Italian softness in them, rather than of French vivacity, the brows almost as if drawn with a pencil, the mouth very grave and thoughtful except when lighted by a smile of unusual sweetness. As a lawyer, his dress was of plain black with a little white collar fastened by two silken tassels (such as I remember my Lord Falkland used to wear). It became him better than the gay coats of some of our nobles.
The circle being complete by this time, the young orator was placed in the midst, and began to read aloud his manuscript, or rather to recite it, for after the fire of his subject began to animate him, he seldom looked at the paper.
It was altogether grand and eloquent discourse upon the loyalty and nobility of holding with unswerving faith to the old laws and constitutions of one’s country against all fraud, oppression, and wrong, tracing how Cicero’s weak and vain character grew stronger at the call of patriotism, and how eagerly and bravely the once timid man finally held out his throat for the knife. It might be taken as the very highest witness to the manner in which he had used his divine gift of rhetoric, that Fulvia’s first thought was to show her bitter hatred by piercing his eloquent tongue! ‘Yes, my friends,’ he concluded, with his eyes glancing round, ‘that insult to the dead was the tribute of tyranny to virtue!’
Annora’s hands were clasped, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glanced with the dew of admiration, and there were others who were carried along by the charm of the young orator’s voice and enthusiasm; but there were also anxious glances passing, especially between the divine Arthenice and her son-in-law, M. de Montausier, and when there had been time for the compliments the discourse merited to be freely given, Madame de Rambouillet said: ‘My dear friend, the tribute may be indeed the highest, but it can scarcely be the most appreciable either by the fortunate individual or his friends. I therefore entreat that the most eloquent discourse of our youthful Cicero of admires who have listened to it.’
Everybody bowed assent, but the young man himself began, with some impetuosity: ‘Madame will believe me that I had not the slightest political intention. I spoke simply as a matter of history.’
‘I am perfectly aware of it, Monsieur,’ returned the Marquise; ‘but all the world does not understand as well as I do how one may be carried away by the fervour of imagination to identify oneself and one’s surroundings with those of which one speaks.’
‘Madame is very severe on the absent,’ said M. Darpent.
‘Monsieur thinks I have inferred more treason than he has spoken,’ said Madame de Rambouillet gaily. ‘Well, be it so; I am an old woman, and you, my friend, have your career yet to come, and I would have you remember that though the great Cesar be dead, yet the bodkin was not in his time.’
‘I understand, Madame, after the lion comes the fox. I thank you for your warning until the time—’
‘Come, come, we do not intend to be all undone in the meantime,’ exclaimed Madame de Rambouillet. ‘Come, who will give us a vaudeville or something joyous to put out the grand serious, and send us home gay. My dear Countess,’ and she turned to a bright-looking young lady, ‘relate to us, I entreat of you, one of your charming fairy tales.’
And the Countess d’Aulnoy, at her request, seated herself in a large arm-chair, and told us with infinite grace the story I have so often told you, my grandchildren, of the White Cat and the three princes.
CHAPTER XIV. — COURT APPOINTMENT
The expected descent on the Isle of Wight did not take place, for though Prince Rupert was High Admiral, so large a portion of the fleet was disaffected that it was not possible to effect anything. Before long, he went back to the ships he had at Helvoetsluys, taking the Prince of Wales with him. My brother Walwyn yielded to an earnest entreaty that he would let us take care of him at Paris till there was some undertaking really in hand. Besides, he was awaiting the issue of his cause respecting the Ribaumont property in Picardy, to which the Count de Poligny set up a claim in right of a grant by King Henry III. in the time of the League. It must be confessed that the suit lingered a good deal, in spite of the zeal of the young advocate, M. Clement Darpent,—nay, my mother ad my brother De Solivet sometimes declared, because of his zeal; for the Darpent family were well known as inclined to the Fronde party.
They had been Huguenots, but had joined the Church some twenty years before, as it was said, because of the increased disabilities of Huguenots in the legal profession, and it was averred that much of the factious Calvinist leaven still hung about them. At this time I never saw the parents, but Eustace had contracted a warm friendship with the son, and often went to their house. My mother fretted over this friendship far more, as Annora used to declare, than if he had been intimate with the wildest of the roistering cavaliers, or the most dissipated of the petits maitres of Paris. But Eustace was a man now, made older than his twenty-five years by what he had undergone, and though always most respectful to my mother, he could not but follow his own judgment and form his own friendships. And my mother’s dislike to having Clement Darpent at the Hotel de Nidemerle only led to Walwyn’s frequenting the Maison Darpent more than he might have done if he could have seen his friend at home without vexing her.
I do not think that he much liked the old Counsellor, but he used to say that Madame Darpent was one of the most saintly beings he had ever seen. She had one married daughter, and two more, nuns at Port Royal, and she was with them in heart, the element of Augustinianism in the Jansenist teaching having found a responsive chord in her soul from her Calvinist education. She spent her whole time, even while living in the world, in prayers, pious exercises, and works of charity, and she would fain have induced her son to quit secular life and become one of those recluses who inhabited the environs of Port Royal, and gave themselves to labour of mind and of hand, producing works of devotion and sacred research, and
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