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Screw," he said sharply, "I am the well, never mind my name, you can find out from the people downstairs. I am an English gentleman, and I know who Dr. Claudius is. I knew his father; I brought him to this country in my yacht. I am prepared to go into court this minute and swear to the identity of the gentleman you are slandering. Slandering, sir! Do you hear me?" The ducal anger was hot.
Instead of giving one concert in Moscow, he gave six. Later he played in Bavaria, Saxony and other parts of Germany. He then settled in Weimar for a time, being made Grand Ducal Capellmeister. Then, in 1844-45, longing for more success, he toured Spain and Portugal. A generous act was his labor in behalf of the Beethoven monument, to be erected in the master's birthplace, Bonn.
And he always appeared to be struggling painfully with the consciousness that he had nothing to say. It was on one of these occasions that an American new arrival was presented to him by Mr. Maquay, the banker, who always did that office for Americans, the United States having then no representative at the Grand Ducal court.
And now to strange, solemn music, the sobbing of the 'cellos, the tenderer melancholy of the flute the long procession was moving up the Canal Grande the ducal barge and the gondola of the Patriarch not keeping decorous line, for the roughness of the waters.
It mattered little to her if she entered her duchy surreptitiously, provided she was sovereign there. She would have time later to assume a lofty air under her ducal coronet; meanwhile, she would act with humility while wearing the wreath of orange blossoms. She had discharged Jean and Justine with considerable presents, thinking it undesirable to keep any longer about her people who knew Vaudrey.
But, in order to be superb, it is not necessary to wear, like Yvon, the ducal morion, to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, father of Polydamas, to have brought back from Ephyra a good suit of mail, a present from the king of men, Euphetes; it suffices to give one's life for a conviction or a loyalty.
He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience, augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities; then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made his conclusion thus: "Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously as indeed was her desert and, turning to me, said, 'Take this signet-ring, son of the Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you, said he, touching my temple, 'preserve this brain, France has use for it; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be hooped with a ducal coronet one day. I took the ring, and knelt and kissed his hand, saying, 'Sire, where glory calls, there will I be found; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when France and the throne need help well, I say nothing, for I am not of the talking sort let my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.
Instead of a bleak bare country-side, with the ducal seat a mean tower in the midst of it, he saw a wide expanse of thickly-wooded and inhabitable country speckled for miles with comfortable dwellings, the castle itself a high embattled structure, clustered round by a town of some dimensions, and at its foot a harbour, where masts were numerous and smoke rose up in clouds.
More especially was he struck by what a later verse writer described as "that most pompous room called Paradise", a room which, according to the ducal description, "captivates the eyes of all who enter by the dazzling of pearls of all kinds", and "in particular there is one apartment belonging to the Queen, in which she is accustomed to sit in state, costly beyond everything; the tapestries are garnished with gold, pearls, and precious stones one table-cover alone is valued at above fifty thousand crowns not to mention the royal throne, which is studded with very large diamonds, rubies, sapphires and the like that glitter among other precious stones and pearls as the sun among the stars".
He almost doubled the territory of France, and he lost fewer men in battle than any enterprising monarch of whom I know. Within forty-eight hours of receiving the safe conduct, King Louis was sitting beside Mary on the dais of the ducal throne in the great hall. She was heavily veiled, being in mourning for her father. At her left stood Hymbercourt, Hugonet, Max, and myself.
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