Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He anxiously awaited the news which Cartier brought, and his first enquiries naturally were for his friend, De Pontbriand. "Ill, and in danger?" he exclaimed, when Cartier had repeated to him De Roberval's words. "I must go to him at once." "Have I not just told you," said Cartier, "that no one can see him? De Roberval refused me that privilege, and think you that he will grant you permission?
"Monsieur, let me help you to your feet," said La Pommeraye, and, as he spoke, placed his strong arm under the reclining nobleman, and raised him as if he had been a babe. De Roberval was as one in a dream. He seemed hardly to realise what had happened until he saw Cartier and Pontbriand standing by. "What brings you here?" he almost shouted.
Do not let them perceive that they have changed masters. Be their protector as I have been their father." Bishop Pontbriand, himself fast sinking with mortal disease, attended his deathbed and administered the last sacraments. He died peacefully at four o'clock on the morning of the fourteenth. He was in his forty-eighth year.
De Roberval looked a little perturbed. "You must have been mistaken," he said to Claude. "There certainly cannot have been anyone here. At all events," he went on, "the affair must now be considered at an end. De Pontbriand, you must get into no quarrels. We shall have need of all our good men if we embark upon this Canadian expedition, which I have now in mind."
She had not been long on deck before she became aware of the presence of a man who was not one of the common sailors. For a moment she thought the motionless figure with its back towards her was her uncle; but a second glance told her it was De Pontbriand.
His old sunny smile had left him, and when he spoke, his once full, mellow voice had a hard, metallic ring. Cartier scarce recognised him, and his questions received but scant answers, which kept him from enquiring further. "De Pontbriand may still live," said Charles. "Mdlle. de Roberval may still live, and I must restore them to France, or make sure that they are dead.
But he is not far wrong this time. The man who could defeat De Roberval is indeed a monarch among men." There was a steel-like ring in his voice as he spoke; Cartier and De Pontbriand looked at each other, and both wondered what fate he had in store for La Pommeraye. "But," he continued, "we have much work before us to-night, let us settle down to it at once.
'Every one here is puffed up with the greatest vanity, wrote the intendant Duchesneau in 1681; 'there is not one but pretends to be a patron and wants the privilege of naming a cure for his lands, yet they are heavily in debt and in extreme poverty. None of the great bishops of New France Laval, St Vallier, or Pontbriand had much sympathy with this seigneurial right of patronage or advowson, and each did what he could to break down the custom.
With all his haste he was only just in time. As he rounded the projecting spur that formed one side of the bay, the water, which had at first covered only one of Marie's arms, reached her hair, and in a few minutes more must have risen over her face. De Pontbriand drew the bruised and senseless form higher up the rocks, and eagerly felt her heart.
"I have long felt that De Pontbriand there in the hold was the gravest menace to the success of our colony. Already I have discovered several plots for his release, and I have long known that only his death could bring us safety. But do not proceed with his execution till the morrow. To-night I will sound the faithful, and have them ready to strike down any one offering the least resistance.
Word Of The Day