rm my soldiers once more, and, with Maximilien at my
side, Normandy shall--"

"Sit down, my good seigneur," said Beauvouloir, uneasy at seeing the
duke give way to an excitement that was dangerous to a convalescent.

"Read it, Maitre Corbineau," said the old man, holding out the missive
to his confessor.

These four personages formed a tableau full of instruction upon human
life. The man-at-arms, the priest, and the physician, all three standing
before their master, who was seated in his arm-chair, were casting
pallid glances about them, each presenting one of those ideas which end
by possessing the whole man on the verge of the tomb. Strongly illumined
by a last ray of the setting sun, these silent men composed a picture
of aged melancholy fertile in contrasts. The sombre and solemn chamber,
where nothing had been changed in twenty-five years, made a frame for
this poetic canvas, full of extinguished passions, saddened by death,
tinctured by religion.

"The Marechal d'Ancre has been killed on the Pont du Louvre by order of
the king, and--O God!"

"Go on!" cried the duke.

"Monsieur le Duc de Nivron--"

"Well?"

"Is dead!"

The duke dropped his head upon his breast with a great sigh, but was
silent. At those words, at that sigh, the three old men looked at each
other. It seemed to them as though the illustrious and opulent house of
Herouville was disappearing before their eyes like a sinking ship.

"The Master above," said the duke, casting a terrible glance at the
heavens, "is ungrateful to me. He forgets the great deeds I have
performed for his holy cause."

"God has avenged himself!" said the priest, in a solemn voice.

"Put that man in the dungeon!" cried the duke.

"You can silence me far more easily than you can your conscience."

The duke sank back in thought.

"My house to perish! My name to be extinct! I will marry! I will have a
son!" he said, after a long pause.

Though the expression of despair on the duke's face was truly awful, the
bonesetter could not repress a smile. At that instant a song, fresh as
the evening breeze, pure as the sky, equable as the color of the ocean,
rose above the murmur of the waves, to cast its charm over Nature
herself. The melancholy of that voice, the melody of its tones shed,
as it were, a perfume rising to the soul; its harmony rose like a vapor
filling the air; it poured a balm on sorrows, or rather it consoled them
by expressing them. The voice mingled w