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Updated: May 17, 2025
The old physician signed to the old mother to look at his daughter, nodding his head with satisfaction as if to say, "How sweet she is!" What father would not have felt Beauvouloir's emotion on seeing the young girl as she stood there in the Norman dress of that period?
At that moment the moonlight fell full upon her, and enabled Etienne to note the points of her resemblance to his mother, the late duchess. Like Jeanne de Saint-Savin, Beauvouloir's daughter was slender and delicate; in her, as in the duchess, sadness and suffering conveyed a mysterious charm.
Beauvouloir's house at Forcalier had a southern exposure on the slope of one of those gentle hills which surround the vales of Normandy; a thick wood shielded it from the north; high walls and Norman hedges and deep ditches made the enclosure inviolable.
"Complain aloud," said the leech to the lady; "cry! scream! Jarnidieu! that man has a necklace that won't fit you any better than me. Courage, my little lady!" "Touch her lightly!" cried the count. "Monsieur is jealous," said the operator in a shrill voice, fortunately drowned by the countess's cries. For Maitre Beauvouloir's safety Nature was merciful.
"Impudent scoundrel! your science which makes you the accomplice of men who steal inheritances is all that prevents me from depriving Normandy of her sorcerer." So saying, and to Beauvouloir's great satisfaction, the count replaced the dagger in its sheath.
Seeing Etienne so timid, so humble, for he, on his part, had magnified Beauvouloir's daughter, Gabrielle was embarrassed with the sceptre he placed in her hands; and yet she was profoundly touched and flattered by such submission. Women alone know what seduction the respect of their master and lover has for them.
Never, perhaps, in his life had he felt such violent anger as when the last despatch of the baron told him with what rapidity Beauvouloir's plans were advancing, the baron attributing them wholly to the bonesetter's ambition. A few days before his arrival a rumor was spread about the country by what means no one seemed to know of the passion of the young Duc de Nivron for Gabrielle Beauvouloir.
The day after Beauvouloir's return he went to see his young master and blamed him gently for shutting himself up in a single room, pointing out to him the danger of leading a prison life in place of his former free life in the open air. "But this air is vast," replied Etienne. "The spirit of my mother is in it."
As he looked at his daughter a tear rolled from Beauvouloir's eyes, furrowed his cheeks which seldom wore a serious aspect, and fell upon his shirt, which, after the fashion of the day, his open doublet exposed to view above his breeches. He threw off his felt hat, adorned with an old red plume, in order to rub his hand over his bald head.
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