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Updated: May 12, 2025
One day, Alfonso's health having slowly improved, Mariposa put in his hands a small pine cone, the size of a hen's egg, and said, "Three years go by from the budding to the ripening of the seed of the sequoias, or big trees." Alfonso did not know, till Mariposa told him that the big trees were called sequoia in honor of a Cherokee chief, Sequoyah, who invented letters for his people.
Even Don Ferrante, Alfonso's own brother, who had been his proxy when he married Lucretia in Rome, entered into the conspiracy. The plan was, first to despatch the cardinal with poison; and, as this act would be punished if the duke were allowed to live, he was to be destroyed at a masked ball, and Don Ferrante was to be placed on the throne.
It was late in the fall, grasses and leaves had browned, Alfonso's horse had grown thin, and being too weak and lame to go forward, finally died. His provisions had given out; his own strength and courage had failed; he needed water for his parched tongue and lips, but none was at hand; fever quickened his pulse.
I will tell him why he need not fear; because he has left out one very important condition in the statement of St. Alfonso and very applicable to my own case, even if I followed St. Alfonso's view of the subject. St. Alfonso says "ex justâ causâ;" but our "honest man," as he styles himself, has omitted these words; which are a key to the whole question. Blot thirty-nine.
While Leo talked with the mother, Alfonso listened to Christine, as she told much about the historic family with which she was connected, and in return she learned somewhat of young Harris's family and their visit to Europe. Christine, who was about Alfonso's age, had fair complexion, light hair, and soft blue eyes. Her beauty added refinement that education and wide travel usually furnish.
Alfonso the Great, on his entrance into Naples , declined the wreath of laurel, which Napoleon did not disdain to wear at his coronation in Notre-Dame. For the rest, Alfonso's procession, which passed by a breach in the wall through the city to the cathedral, was a strange mixture of antique, allegorical, and purely comic elements.
"Spain is a good country; its kings and lords are kindly and loving, generous and noble, of courteous company; other barons there are, noble and hospitable, men of sense and knowledge, valiant and renowned." Raimon Vidal of Bezaudun, a Catalonian troubadour has given a description of Alfonso's court in one of his novelas.
But in this he reckoned without his host. Berenguela conducted her affairs with the utmost discretion, conciliated the Leonese nobility, caused her son to be proclaimed king, and brought about a permanent union of the two countries without the loss of a single drop of blood. Having accomplished this task, her next care was to provide in some suitable way for Alfonso's two daughters.
Alfonso's Life, that he, who has the repute of being so lax a moralist, had one of the most scrupulous and anxious of consciences himself.
It was even whispered that this Ferdinand was the child of Catherine the wife of Alfonso's brother Henry, whom Margaret, to save the honor of the king, acknowledged as her own. Whatever may have been the truth of this dark history, it was known for certain that the queen had murdered her rival, the unhappy Margaret de Hijar, and that Alfonso never forgave her or would look upon her from that day.
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