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Updated: May 12, 2025
The hatchet was plied vigorously, hands were scratched, clothes torn, many a fall taken and many a fight had with the clinging vines, as they crawled and clambered through, and came out at a fallen wicket in the wall of the courtyard, passing which Château Courance stood close before them.
There are imitations of this exquisite glass now made, but there were none a hundred years ago, and these are unquestionably genuine. A remarkable chalice also attracted our notice, and we decided it to be either the bridal or the christening-cup of the Courance family.
The intendant thawed out rapidly, warmed by the generous supper and perhaps an extra sip or two of rare old Beaujolais. Allowing himself to be prompted by M. Gambeau junior, he entertained his guests with many a tradition of the Courance family their heroism in war, their wisdom in peace, their conspicuous splendor at court, their kindness and liberality at home.
The general spent his days between Courance, where he directed the rehabilitation of the château, and La Pontoise, where he became the most devoted of cavaliers.
His final command, made imperative and solemn, was that no human being should ever be permitted to come within the walls of the park. From Paris he sent back an express bearing a royal mandate repeating and confirming his injunction prohibiting entry to Courance. Then passed into oblivion Raoul Boismonard du Guesclin, count de Courance.
It appears also that during his last campaigns he adopted into his military family the younger son of an old Courance neighbor, Henri d'Armagnac de Foix, a cadet of the house of Pontoise.
The wedding-guests scattered in consternation; the friends of the murdered lovers took up their dead and departed; the master of Courance summarily dismissed every living creature from the place, instructed the intendant to close the château, and at nightfall he too left his home, to return no more.
It is probable that most of his active life was passed in the Austrian service, as he won distinguished honors and was a chief of cavalry in the Seven Years' War. Home interests were not neglected, however, as the Courance estates were improved under his management, while the neighboring domains were drifting to ruin.
The children doubtless had prunes, figs, "courance," and I know they had "Raisins of the Sun" and "Bloom Raisins" galore. Advertisements of all these fruits appear in the earliest newspapers. Though "China Oranges" were frequently given to and by Judge Sewall, I have not found them advertised for sale till Revolutionary times, and I fancy few children had then tasted them.
The intendant could tell us nothing positive, and everything is so black and encrusted with dust that we could not see with certainty: but it is probable that what appears to be family plate, literally covering these tables, is the Courance heirloom silver. Much of it is very old, as shown by the antique designs and the marks of wear.
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