Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
At last she let me read the letter, and a cruel one it was, beginning 'Madame, and giving her the choice of returning to Chateau d'Aubepine under the supervision of Madame Croquelebois, or of entering a convent, and sending her son to be bred up at the Chateau under a tutor and the intendant.
To her there was only one king the husband who deserved so little from her. She had given him her whole devotion, soul and body, and was utterly incapable of seeing anything else. And Madame Croquelebois, being equally devoted to M. le Comte, was thus more in her confidence than we were.
But I had some trust that his English blood would be guilty of no foul play. I was much more afraid of the Dominican; only one good thing was that the man was not a priest. So went by Good Friday and Easter Eve. They would not let me go to church for fear I should speak to any one. Madame Croquelebois and my mother's old smirking tire-woman, Bellote, took turns to mount guard over me.
She was expecting her own share in the matter all along, and presently she had the delight of seeing twenty more men coming with Croquelebois at their head, and by his side, on a little pony, her own little Maurice, the Chevalier d'Aubepine. Was not Cecile a proud woman then?
She told us at last with a thousand thanks that she had resolved on offering her services to the Princesses, and that she should send the children with Madame Croquelebois into Anjou; where she thought they would be safer than at Paris. We were sorry, but there was a determination now in our little Cecile that made her quite an altered woman.
It was an absolute insult to us all, and as I saw at once was the work of Madame Croquelebois, accepted by the young Count as a convenient excuse for avoiding the ennui and expense of setting up a household with his wife, instead of living a gay bachelor life with his Prince.
Perhaps neither of them had expected the matter to be taken up so seriously, and an old country-bred Huguenot as Madame Croquelebois had originally been, thought that as we were at Court, gallantry was our natural atmosphere. Having brought them to confession, we divided them.
I had been startled by passing in the street a face which I was almost sure belonged to poor Cecile's former enemy, Mademoiselle Gringrimeau, now the wife of Croquelebois, the intendant of the estate; and setting old Nicole to work, I ascertained that this same agent and his wife were actually at the Hotel d'Aubepine, having come to meet their master, but that no apartments were made ready for him, as it was understood that being on the staff he would be lodge in the Hotel de Conde.
My mother declared that M. d'Aubepine would fare the better if we left her alone and did not excite the jealousy of Madame Croquelebois, who would be quite capable of carrying her off into the country if she were interfered with. Indeed it was not an easy or a pleasant thing to go about Paris just then, and we were obliged to stay at home.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking