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Updated: June 13, 2025
Francezka remained silent for a little while, and when she spoke it was with seriousness. "Your Grace asks me to give up the hope on which I live. I can not do it. My husband may be dead, but I have not been able to secure the smallest proof of it. It has been four years since he disappeared. But we know of strange disappearances lasting much longer.
But the soldiers, infuriated by the death of the great marshal, demanded Philipsburg as a sacrifice to his ashes, and the siege was conducted with the greatest fury. Within three weeks from the time I had parted from Francezka in Brabant I received a message from her. She was at a little village, three miles from Philipsburg, and desired to see me.
On this evening she seemed to hover near me, and it was not the Francezka I had last seen, the bravely patient, the undyingly courageous; but the Francezka of her first wild, sweet youth, high-hearted, all fire and dew, laughter and tears, haughty and merry the Francezka who claimed happiness as her right.
Especially did this come from the people who had declared Francezka to be wildly visionary and had severely condemned her course from the beginning. It was night when we reached the château of Capello. Afar off, we could see the windows blazing with lights and hear the heavenly thrilling of music.
And it was easy to see, in Francezka, those same sterling qualities of integrity, courage and generosity which distinguished Madame Riano, and with them infinitely more tact and suavity. The rains and the snows made all of us haunt the firesides of Capello. Every one of us felt that relaxing of the mind and body which accompanies a period of rest after action. Softer pleasures appealed to us.
She wore a gown of crimson brocade with a muslin kerchief crossed over her white neck; and she had on dainty shoes with red heels her favorite affectation. I had heard that Francezka gave great scandal to the ladies of Brabant by wearing silks and satins every day, which was contrary to their custom. Francezka, however, had a well-developed taste for luxury, which came with her warm Spanish blood.
"E la morte vien dietro a gran giornate. I recall that statue well." Whether he really remembered it, or being well learned in poetry, took up the thread from memory, I know not, but it delighted Francezka. She turned to him two lambent eyes. They both laughed with delight; neither one of them seemed to understand the gloom of the words they spoke so lightly.
But there was no panic among them, although it can not be denied that Francezka was admired for her virtue as for her wit, and, with such a fortune as hers, neither would be likely to remain under an eclipse. She was in the greatest demand at Versailles, too, and danced in all of the finest ballets given for the king.
As soon as Francezka saw us, she dropped her book, and ran toward us merrily, like a child, a thin white scarf floating cloudlike behind her. I think she felt that Gaston perhaps had some cause for complaint of her behavior at Radewitz, for never was woman kinder to a man than she to him at that meeting.
By midnight I had said farewell to Francezka and was again in the saddle. As I rode through the blackness and solitariness of the night I could but reflect upon the extraordinary courage and constancy of women when really put to the test. Francezka was the last woman in the world to be weak in the face of calamity. She had in her the making of ten good soldiers, including a general.
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