Our mother had a presentiment that events would one day serve her wishes.  It may be that the longing of a mother constitutes a pact between herself and God.  Was she not, moreover, one of those mysterious beings who can hold converse with Heaven and bring back thence a vision of the future?  How often have I not read in the lines of her forehead that she was coveting for Fernand the honors and the wealth of Felipe!  When I said so to her, she would reply with tears, laying bare the wounds of a heart, which of right was the undivided property of both her sons, but which an irresistible passion gave to you alone.

Her spirit, therefore, will hover joyfully above your heads as you bow them at the altar.  My mother, have you not a caress for your Felipe now that he has yielded to your favorite even the girl whom you regretfully thrust into his arms?  What I have done is pleasing to our womankind, to the dead, and to the King; it is the will of God.  Make no difficulty then, Fernand; obey, and be silent.

P.  S. Tell Urraca to be sure and call me nothing but M. Henarez.  Don’t say a word about me to Marie.  You must be the one living soul to know the secrets of the last Christianized Moor, in whose veins runs the blood of a great family, which took its rise in the desert and is now about to die out in the person of a solitary exile.

Farewell.

VII

LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE

WHAT!  To be married so soon.  But this is unheard of.  At the end of a month you become engaged to a man who is a stranger to you, and about whom you know nothing.  The man may be deaf—­there are so many kinds of deafness!—­he may be sickly, tiresome, insufferable!

Don’t you see, Renee, what they want with you?  You are needful for carrying on the glorious stock of the l’Estorades, that is all.  You will be buried in the provinces.  Are these the promises we made each other?  Were I you, I would sooner set off to the Hyeres islands in a caique, on the chance of being captured by an Algerian corsair and sold to the Grand Turk.  Then I should be a Sultana some day, and wouldn’t I make a stir in the harem while I was young—­yes, and afterwards too!

You are leaving one convent to enter another.  I know you; you are a coward, and you will submit to the yoke of family life with a lamblike docility.  But I am here to direct you; you must come to Paris.  There we shall drive the men wild and hold a court like queens.  Your husband, sweetheart, in three years from now may become a member of the Chamber.  I know all about members now, and I will explain it to you.  You will work that machine very well; you can live in Paris, and become there what my mother calls a woman of fashion.  Oh! you needn’t suppose I will leave you in your grange!

Monday.

For a whole fortnight now, my dear, I have been living the life of society; one evening at the Italiens, another at the Grand Opera, and always a ball afterwards.  Ah! society is a witching world.  The music of the Opera enchants me; and whilst my soul is plunged in divine pleasure, I am the centre of admiration and the focus of all the opera-glasses.  But a single glance will make the boldest youth drop his eyes.