Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Leaning heavily upon the arm of one of the lacqueys, the Chevalier moved painfully towards the courtyard, where the carriage was being prepared for him. At the last moment he turned and beckoned the Vicomte to his side. "As God lives, Monsieur de Lavedan," he swore, breathing heavily in the fury that beset him, "you shall bitterly regret having taken sides to-day with that Gascon bully.
This was a young man of good presence, save, perhaps, a too obtrusive foppishness, whom Monsieur de Lavedan presented to me as a distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. He was very tall of fully my own height and of an excellent shape, although extremely young.
What shall I do with your body what time your soul is at Lavedan? I doubt me you are in haste to get you there. So go, Marcel. Get you wed, and live out your amorous intoxication; marriage is the best antidote. When that is done, return to me." "That will be never, Sire," I answered slyly. "Say you so, Master Cupid Bardelys?" And he combed his beard reflectively. "Be not too sure.
I cried, giving him back defiance for defiance. A breathless silence fell. "Then have it so. Listen, gentlemen, that you may be witnesses. I do here pledge my castle of Bardelys, and my estates in Picardy, with every stick and stone and blade of grass that stands upon them, that I shall woo and win Roxalanne de Lavedan to be the Marquise of Bardelys. Does the stake satisfy you, Monsieur le Comte?
Yet, not so much because of that as because it was suddenly revealed to me as the easier course, did I determine to pursue it. What thereafter might become of me I did not know, nor in that hour of my heart's agony did it seem to matter overmuch. "There is much, mademoiselle, much, indeed, to hold me firmly at Lavedan," I pursued at last. "But my my obligations demand of me that I depart."
You are at Lavedan. I am the Vicomte de Lavedan at your service." Although it was no more than I might have expected, yet a dull wonder filled me, to which presently I gave expression by asking stupidly "At Lavedan? But how came I hither?" "How you came is more than I can tell," he laughed. "But I'll swear the King's dragoons were not far behind you.
If you could see the fine demoiselles we have in Paris, if you could listen to their tenets and take a deep look into their lives, you would not marvel at me. I had never known any but these. On the night of my coming to Lavedan, your sweetness, your pure innocence, your almost childish virtue, dazed me by their novelty. From that first moment I became your slave.
My father had been on more than friendly terms with the Vicomte de Lavedan, and upon this I built my hopes of a cordial welcome and an invitation to delay for a few days the journey to Toulouse, upon which I should represent myself as bound. Thus, then, stood my plans. And they remained unaltered for all that upon the morrow there were wild rumours in the air of Montauban.
This Saint-Eustache is driving a brisk trade, by God, and some fine prizes have already fallen to his lot. But if you add them all together, they are not likely to yield as much as this his latest expedition. Unless you intervene, Bardelys, the Vicomte de Lavedan is doomed and his family houseless." "I will intervene," I cried. "By God, I will!
Mademoiselle de Lavedan grew to be openly discussed, and even the Count's courtship of her came to be hinted at, at first vaguely, then pointedly, with a lack of delicacy for which I can but blame the wine with which these gentlemen had made a salad of their senses. In growing alarm I watched the Count. But he showed no further sign of irritation. He sat and listened as though no jot concerned.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking