what faith has it kept,
tender heart! If love lives through all life; and survives through all
sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all
darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever,
and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of
the faithful bosom--whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death;
surely it shall be immortal? Though we who remain are separated from
it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we
altogether lose those we love? Forty years have passed away. Youth and
dearest memories revisit her, and Hope almost wakes up again out of its
grave, as the constant lady holds the young man's hand, and looks at the
son of Thomas Newcome.
CHAPTER XLVI. The Hotel de Florac
Since the death of the Duc d'Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots,
the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal title,
does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the world by
his old name. The old Count's world is very small. His doctor, and his
director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his daughter's
children, who amuse him by their laughter, and play round his chair in
the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two friends as
old as himself, form his society. His son the Abbe is with them but
seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father, who can
little comprehend the religionism of the new school. After going to
hear his son preach through Lent at Notre-Dame, where the Abbe de Florac
gathered a great congregation, the old Count came away quite puzzled at
his son's declamations. "I do not understand your new priests," he says;
"I knew my son had become a Cordelier; I went to hear him, and found
he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my good Leonore. My
director answers for me, and plays a game at trictrac into the bargain
with me." Our history has but little to do with this venerable nobleman.
He has his chamber looking out into the garden of his hotel; his
faithful old domestic to wait upon him; his House of Peers to attend
when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help him to pass the
evening. The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son, the Vicomte de
Florac, and Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, his daughter-in-law.
When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed
a new title--as a means of reconciliation
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