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Updated: June 15, 2025
Perhaps, he added drily, it was to inquire after his own health, which, he was glad to assure monsieur le comte and all his cousins of Vaufontaine, was never better. The face was like a leather mask, telling nothing of the arid sarcasm in the voice.
But for himself, now heir to the principality of Vaufontaine, and therefrom, by reversion, to that of Bercy, it had no importance. He had but one passion now, and it burned clear and strong, it dominated, it possessed him. He would have given up any worldly honour to see it succeed. He had idled and misspent too many years, been vaurien and ne'er-do-well too long to be sordid now.
I speak in the name of our order, I speak for Frenchmen, I speak for France. If Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, be not secured in his right of succession to the dukedom of Bercy, France will not cease to protest till protest hath done its work. From France the duchy of Bercy came. It was the gift of a French king to a Frenchman, and she hath some claims upon the courtesy of the nations."
Then, by command of the Duke, the President of the States read aloud the new order of succession: "1. To the Hereditary Prince Leopold John and his heirs male; in default of which to The Prince successor, Philip d'Avranche and his heirs male; in default of which to The heir male of the House of Vaufontaine."
"Don't gossip of what his Highness says, but do his bidding, Pergot. What a fool are you to babble thus! How d'ye know but I'm one of Fouche's or Barere's men? How d'ye know but there are five hundred men beyond waiting for my whistle?" The man changed instantly. His hand was at his side like lightning. "They'd never hear that whistle, monsieur, though you be Vaufontaine or no Vaufontaine!"
He comes to offer you a love of which your own soul must be the only judge, for you have eyes that see and a spirit that knows. The Chevalier needs you, and the Duc de Mauban needs you, but Detricand of Vaufontaine needs you a thousand times more." "Oh, hush but no, you must not!" she broke in, her face all crimson, her lips trembling. "But yes, I must," he answered quickly.
"I unseated Philip d'Avranche," he continued, "because he acquired the duchy through a misapprehension; because the claims of the House of Vaufontaine were greater. We belonged; he was an alien. He had a right to his adoption, he had no right to his duchy no real right in the equity of nations.
"What was that adventurer saying to you, Guida? In the suite of the Prince of Vaufontaine, my faith! What did he come here for?" Guida looked at him in surprise. She scarcely grasped the significance of the question. Before she had time to consider, he pressed it again, and without hesitation she told him all that had happened it was so very little, of course between Detricand and herself.
This is not justice, this is a gift for which there is no example in the world's history." "I thought it best," he went on quietly, "to govern Bercy myself during these troubled years. So far its neutrality has been honoured, but who can tell what may come! As a Vaufontaine it is my duty to see that Bercy's interests are duly protected amidst the troubles of Europe."
When the Duke entered upon him in the library, he was under the immediate influence of a stimulating talk with Philip d'Avranche and the chief officers of the duchy. With the memory of past feuds and hatreds in his mind, and predisposed against any Vaufontaine, his greeting was courteously disdainful, his manner preoccupied.
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