United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When I was told of thy arrival, I longed to fly away from Vienna, from rank and royalty, to some far country, some secluded spot, where no reasons of state policy would force me to give my hand to an unknown bride. Was I not a barbarian, sweetest, was I not an arch-traitor?" "No, thou wert only a boy-prince, writhing under the heavy load of thy royalty."
There can be no doubt, however, that after the battle, little honourable to either side, and lost by the King's party almost before begun, from which he fled in a panic so ignominious and fatal, there was a moment of great perplexity and dismay, when King James's fate remained a mystery, and the rebel nobles with the boy-prince among them knew not what to do or to say, in the doubt whether he was dead or alive, whether he might not reappear at any moment with a host from the Highlands or from France, or even England, at his back.
But as time wore, the faces of the thegns grew overcast; proud men and great satraps were they, and they liked it ill that the boy-prince kept them so long in the dismal ante-room.
It was a warm autumn day: the roads were dry and dusty, and, after a mile or so, the boy-prince brought from beneath the carriage seat a basket of grapes. With his handkerchief he flicked the dust from them, handed a bunch to the chief, and took one himself.
It would be unfair to compare him to that other personage of the parable, namely, the Pharisee, for the latter was obviously lacking in sincerity; but at the same time, William in his moments of religious fervor, invariably recalls to mind that pretty story told by the late Alphonse Daudet, entitled the "Dauphin's Deathbed," in which the little boy-prince, on the eve of his departure for a happier world, responds to the exhortations of his chaplain with the exclamation: "But one thing consoles me, M. l'Abbé, and that is that up there in the Paradise of the stars I shall still be the Dauphin.
Opposition, however, was futile; the following evening the boy-Prince was in his father's arms, and the weeping mother was left disconsolate. Thus robbed of her darling "Sacha," it was not long before the second blow fell. The divorce proceedings were rushed through the Synod.
Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue, with his army. So here was a strange family-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him!
They all run and leap in the merry morning-air, and, as we watch them more nearly, we know them to be the royal family out larking before Paris is astir. Play on, great Emperor, sweet lady, and careless boy-prince! You have hung up a picture in our gallery of memory, very pleasant to look at, this cold night in America. May you always be as happy as when you romped together in the garden!
But as time wore, the faces of the thegns grew overcast; proud men and great satraps were they, and they liked it ill that the boy-prince kept them so long in the dismal ante-room.
"My sister, this is indeed a wilful invention of sorrow for thine own scourge. Why, ere this, believe me, the boy-prince hath forgotten thy very name." "Not so, Isabel," said Anne, colouring, and quickly, "and perchance, did all rest here, I might have outgrown my weakness. But last year, when we were at Rouen with my father " "Well?"
Word Of The Day