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Updated: June 3, 2025
Seguin, with the remnant of his band, had met them at El Paso, and hurried them forward on the Navajo trail. It was from him Saint Vrain had heard of my capture; and in hopes of rescuing me had joined the expedition with about forty or fifty employes of the caravan. Most of Seguin's band had escaped after the fight in the barranca, and among the rest, I was rejoiced to hear, El Sol and La Luna.
There, facing the avenue, was the sumptuous Renaissance facade with eight lofty windows on each of its upper floors; there, inside, was the hall, all bronze and marble, conducting to the spacious ground-floor reception-rooms which a winter garden prolonged; and there, up above, occupying all the central part of the first floor, was Seguin's former "cabinet," the vast apartment with lofty windows of old stained glass.
But Valentine, Seguin's wife, came in, laughing and making an exhibition of masculine ways, which it had cost her much trouble to acquire. "Ah! you people; you must not bear me any malice, you know. That girl Celeste takes such a time over everything!" At five-and-twenty Valentine was short, slight, and still girlish.
The 1250 acres of uncultivated soil which Seguin's father, the old army contractor, had formerly purchased in view of erecting a palatial residence there were now, thanks to unremitting effort, becoming fruitful from end to end. The enclosure belonging to the Lepailleurs, who stubbornly refused to sell it, alone set a strip of dry, stony, desolate land amid the broad green plain.
They, like Seguin's daughter, had been Indianised. There were many Mestizoes, half-bloods, the descendants of Indians and their Mexican captives, the offspring of many a Sabine wedding. We were carried through the streets, and out to the western side of the village. The crowd followed us with mingled exclamations of triumph, hatred, and curiosity.
This was the only plan practicable; at least, the most likely to succeed. It was adopted. It was not Seguin's intention to make a night attack, but only to surround the buildings, keeping at some distance out, and remain in ambush till the morning. All retreat would thus be cut off, and we should make sure of taking our captives under the light of day.
A second despatch from General Houston gave Fanning the option of retiring behind the Guadalupe; or, if his men wished it, of marching to the relief of the Alamo, in which latter case he was to join Houston and his troops at Seguin's Rancho, about forty miles from St Antonio.
The woman had a tall, plump figure, and was certainly more than sixty years of age; but she evidently took care of her person, and had a smiling mien, with a long, full face and almost venerable white hair. One might have taken her for some worthy, well-to-do provincial bourgeoise in full dress. "Celeste," said she. "Celeste, Madame Seguin's former maid."
All was disaster in his home. Celeste the maid had long since been dismissed, and the children were now in the charge of a certain German governess called Nora, who virtually ruled the house. Her position with respect to Seguin was evident to one and all; but then, what of Seguin's wife and Santerre?
And then, on Seguin's hands, there still remained nearly two hundred and fifty acres of woods in the direction of Lillebonne, together with the moorlands stretching to Vieux-Bourg, in which Lepailleur's few acres were enclosed. It was on the occasion of the visits which he paid Seguin in reference to these matters that Mathieu became acquainted with the terrible break-up of the other's home.
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