Volume IV Part 51 (1/2)
”M Tolosan brought this reply to me, and I told hiuarantee my safety She replied, however, that she knew her husband too well to dare to have us both under the saain did M Tolosan endeavour to obtain my father's consent, but to no purpose A few days after he left Lyons, telling us that he was first going to Aix and then to Turin, and as it was evident that he would never give his consentto marry me as soon as we reached Geneva By ill luck we travelled through Savoy, and thus e and called tome in his arms to protect me my father stabbed hi thatpeople to our rescue, and probably believing that ain and rode off at full speed I can chew you the sword still covered with blood”
”I a how I can obtain his consent”
”That's of no consequence; we can ht not to despise your dower”
”Good heavens! what dower? He has no money!”
”But on the death of his father, the Marquis Desarmoises”
”That's all a lie My father has only a s served thirty years as a Governer His father has been dead these thirty years, and my mother and my sister only live by the work they do”
I was thunderstruck at the i, had himself putJust then ere told that supper was ready, and we sat at table for three hours talking the matter over The poor wounded s on the subject His young mistress, as witty as she was pretty, jested on the foolish passion of her father, who had loved her madly ever since she was eleven
”And you were always able to resist his attes too far”
”And how long did this state of things continue?”
”For two years When I was thirteen he thought I was ripe, and tried to gather the fruit; but I began to shriek, and escaped froe with my mother, who froain”
”You used to sleep with hiht that there was anything cri about it I thought that what he did to me, and what he made me do to him, were mere trifles”
”But you have saved the little treasure?”
”I have kept it forhed at this speech of hers, and she ran to him and covered his face with kisses All this excited me intensely Her story had been told with too much simplicity not to move me, especially when I had her before my eyes, for she possessed all the attractions which a wo she was his daughter and falling in love with her
When she escorted an to laugh; but as o
Early next hter had resolved not to leave her lover, as only slightly wounded, that they were in perfect safety and under the protection of the law at Cha them to be well matched, I could only approve of the course they had taken When I had finished I went into their roo the fair runaway at a loss how to express her 'gratitude, I begged the invalid to lethis aruise of paternal affection I embraced the lover, and then more amorously I performed the saold, telling theeon came in, and I retired to hter arrived, preceded by Le Duc on horseback, who announced their approach by numerous s her for obliging ave me was that Mdlle Roman had become mistress to Louis XV, that she lived in a beautiful house at Passi, and that she was five one with child Thus she was in a fair way to become queen of France, as my divine oracle had predicted
”At Grenoble,” she added, ”you are the sole topic of conversation; and I advise you not to go there unless you wish to settle in the country, for they would never let you go You would have all the nobility at your feet, and above all, the ladies anxious to know the lot of their daughters Everybody believes in judicial astrology now, and Valenglard triumphs He has bet a hundred Louis to fifty thatprince, and he is certain of winning; though to be sure, if he loses, everybody will laugh at hi”
”Is it quite certain?”
”Has not the horoscope proved truthful in the principal particular? If the other circureat hted to hear you say so”