Belleisle

“ They are proud women, especially the two younger; with ambition in them, with a bravura magnanimity, of the theatrical or operatic kind; of whom Louis is very fond. "To raise France to its place, your Majesty; the top of the Universe, namely!" "Well; if it could be done,—and quite without trouble?" thinks Louis. Bravura magnanimity, blown upon by Belleisle, prevails among these high Improper Females, and generally in the Younger Circles of the Court; so that poor old Fleury has had no choice but to obey it or retire. ”

“ Prince de Soubise is pretty much a blank to everybody:—and no sooner are we loose of him, than (what every reader will do well to note) 4. Our Herren Travellers are introduced to a real Notability: Monseigneur, soon to be Marechal, the Comte de Belleisle; whom my readers and I are to be much concerned with, in time coming. "A tall lean man (LANGER HAGERER MANN) , without much air of quality," thinks Geusau; but with much swift intellect and energy, and a distinguished character, whatever Geusau might think. "Comte de Belleisle was very civil ”

“ He borrowed 180,000 livres, ordered his jewels to be pawned, and, without the knowledge either of his father or the French ministry, embarked at Belleisle in the Doutelle, one of two ships lent to a private individual to cruise on the Scottish coast. ”

“ Her captain, who thus rose to his opportunity, was one of the two to whom Hawke addressed the enthusiastic compliment that they had "behaved like angels." Hawke himself was at this moment south of Belleisle, with several ships ahead of him; while the French admiral was leading his fleet, in order better to pilot them over dangerous ground, and by his own action show more surely than was possible by signal what he wished done from moment to moment. At the southern extreme of the shoals which act as a breakwater to Quiberon Bay are some formidable rocks, known as the Cardinals. ”

“ On October 8, Murray still reports the ‘attachment’ of Choiseul and Belleisle. He adds that neither his brother (Lord Elibank) nor any other Scotch Jacobite will stir if an invasion of Scotland is undertaken without a landing in England. On October 21 he declares that Conflans has orders to attack the English fleet lying off Havre. The sailing of Thurot is also announced: ‘I cannot comprehend the object of so small an embarkation.’ As late as October 26, Charles was still left in the dark as to the intentions of France. ”

“ The Dutch correspondent of the ‘Scots Magazine,’ writing on May 22, 1759, said that a French expedition for Scotland was ready, and that Charles was to sail with it, but the Prince would not lend himself to this scheme. All through the summer he had his agents, Elliot, Holker, and Clancarty, at Dunkirk, Rouen, and Boulogne. They reported on the French preparations, but, writes Charles on July 22, ‘I am not in their secret.’ He corresponded with the Duc de Choiseul and the Maréchal de Belleisle, but they confined themselves to general assurances of friendship. ”

“ He soon saw active service, and, young as he was, wrote a manual on partisan warfare, the manuscript of which passed with Folard’s other papers to Marshal Belleisle on the author’s death. In 1702 he became a captain, and aide-de-camp to the duke of Vendôme, then in command of the French forces in Italy. In 1705, while serving under Vendôme’s brother, the Grand Prior, Folard won the cross of St Louis for a gallant feat of arms, and in the same year he distinguished himself at the battle of Cassano, where he was severely wounded. ”

“ Bessie dressed for the world, not for herself, certainly not for Bellair. Without, in the world—streets, restaurants, theatres—there existed an abstraction which must be satisfied. She had not yet entered upon that perilous adventure of dressing for the eyes of one man. She did not think of Bellair as she lifted her arms to her hair. On no other morning could she have been so far from the sense of him in her room. Empires have fallen because a woman has lifted her naked arms to her hair with a man in the room. ”

“ This was New York—among men—food and drink and warmth. This, too, was life; these were men who toil every day, who cannot take months to dream in, who cannot cross the sea and observe heroes and saints, but men who crowd and toil and fight, even expire, for their pleasures—such were the surgings of Bellair’s brain in the midst of the music. Bessie was the arch of it all—the arch of the old home, New York,—not this Bessie, but the Bessie that might be, the significant woman it was his work to make and mould. ”

“ If I go back to Hazelhurst, she is put under a cloud as a deserted woman—to say nothing of her feelings. And if I go back to Bellevale—my God, Judge, how can I go back, and take my place in a society where every one knows me, and I know nobody; and be a lover to a girl who may be—anything, you know; but who has the highest sort of claims on me, and a nature, I'm sure, capable of the keenest suffering or pleasure—how can I? ”

“ He was, as you know the only scion of the old house of Aubepine, his father having been killed in a duel, and his mother dying at his birth. His grandparents bred him up with the most assiduous care, but (as my husband told me) it was the care of pride rather than of love. When still a mere boy, they married him to poor little Cecile de Bellaise, younger still, and fresh from her convent, promising, on his vehement entreaty, that so soon as the succession should be secured by the birth of a son, he should join the army. ”

“ I should think that Belleville has nearly four thousand inhabitants; and, as it is the outlet of a rich back country, and on the main road from Kingston to Toronto, it will increase most rapidly. The worst feature about Belleville in 1837 was that it was the focus of American saddle-bag preachers, teachers, and rebelliously disposed folks; but I am told that most of these uneasy loafers have left it, and that its character has improved wonderfully. What a nuisance are peddling, meddling, politicians of the lowest grade? Wherever they plant their feet, a moral pestilence follows. ”

“ The Duke of Belleville had been for a year or two an eager collector of antique plate, and had acquired some fine specimens in both gold and silver. Some of these were now in the villa, and the young man scrutinised them with close attention.
“Dear me,” said he in a vexed tone, as he returned to the hearth, “I thought the Queen Bess flagon was here. Surely I sent it here from Belleville Castle!”
The Duke smiled; the Queen Bess flagon had never been at Belleville Castle, and it was now in a small locked cabinet which stood on the mantelpiece. He made no remark ”

“ As Belle ran out to see what was wanted of them, a well-dressed lady, seated in the tonneau, smiled and said:
“I alighted at Greenville by mistake. I was directed to a country place beyond White Plains, where I hear I can buy some antiques. I am in the business in New York, but I haven’t time now to wait for another train and go on to visit this lady. Your young friend here thought the one named Belle might possibly undertake this commission for me, as she was at liberty to sell her time. Which of you is Belle?” ”

“ Oh, you’re quite in the dark, I see; we mean to stir heaven and earth to get him in. My father gives him all his interest—Bellefield is coming down to look up the tenantry. You know we (that is, Belle and the Governor, worse luck) have large estates in the county. Belle can do a little bit of love-making in between whiles, and so kill two birds with one stone. And who else do you think is coming?—a very great man, I can assure you; no less a personage, in fact, than—ar—the De Grandeville! ”

“ Bellair never forgot that, or rather what she had meant to say.
“Singing is what drew me to you, Bessie. What I object to is what the world tries to do with its singers, and that so many singers fall for it.”
“The world lets you more or less alone—until you make good. Plenty of time after that to answer back.”
She yawned. It was as near reality as they had gotten, and Bellair, who asked so little, had a glimpse again of the loveliness he had first taken to sea—even to the kiss at the last. ”

“ The Duke of Belleville was thirty years of age; he was unmarried: he had held the title since he was fifteen; he seemed to himself rather old. He was at this moment yawning. Now when a man yawns at ten o'clock in the evening something is wrong with his digestion or his spirits. The Duke had a perfect digestion.
"I should define wealth," murmured the Duke, between his yawns. "as an unlimited command of the sources of ennui, rank as a satirical emphasizing of human equality, culture as a curtailment of pleasures, knowledge as the death of interest." ”

“ Among the many who played unconscious on the surface of that gulf of destruction, were the young creatures whose chief thought in the pageant was the glance and smile from the gallery of the Queen’s ladies to the long procession of the English ambassador’s train, as they tried to remember their own marriage there; Berenger with clear recollection of his father’s grave, anxious face, and Eustacie chiefly remembering her own white satin and turquoise dress, which indeed she had seen on every great festival-day as the best raiment of the image of Notre Dame de Bellaise. ”

“ M. Bellestre was a large, fair man with auburn hair and hazel eyes, generous, kindly, good-tempered. The child is dark, and has a passionate nature, beats her playmates if they offend her, though it is generally through some cruel thing they have done. She has noble qualities but there never has been any training. Yet every one has a good word for her and a warm side. ”

“ Had Lord Bellefield been living at a period when the state of society allowed the hand to act out the feelings of the heart, he would at that moment have sprung upon the Due d’Austerlitz, and seizing him by the throat, have held on remorselessly till life became extinct. As it was, he merely returned the nod by a bow, smiled, kissed the tips of his gloves to Angélique, and drove on; so that, after all, civilisation has its advantages. ”

“ But Bessie became blurred. He did not understand. Either his brain had another picture, or the original of the singing girl was fading.... A New York voice, no passion, but ambition, an excellent voice—and such a beautiful, girlish breast.... Bellair tried to shake this coldness from him. This was not being true. He had a faint suspicion that a man’s woman is more apt to depart from him while he is at her side than when he is away. It is because another has come, if passion for the old dies, when one is away. Alone and apart, man is more ardent, in fact, unless a new picture composes.... ”

“ They were so young, so very young, this girl and boy, and neither of them really meant what they said, Belle especially, with her vicious retort: "I am not your cousin, and I'm glad of it. I'm glad that I have nothing to do with you."
As before her harshness overreached itself, and made a man of him. "You want to put me out of your life altogether, Belle," he said more steadily, "because I have made you angry. You have a right to be angry, and I will go. But not for always. You don't wish that yourself, I think, for you are kind. Oh Belle! be like yourself! ”

“ Belleville then danced forward with great levity of manner to Fraulein Marshal, who stood by the side of her father; without saluting her, he seized her hand.
“Come, ma toute belle,” said he, “you have played the marble statue long enough for one day; it is time that you should awake to life in my arms. Come, then, and dance with me your lascivious Dutch waltz, which no respectable woman in France would dare to dance! Come! come!” ”

“ I came back to New York to help you——”
She picked up his glass and smelled it, her eyes twinkling. “Splendid,” she said, “but are you quite sure you haven’t a stick in this ginger-ale?”
Bellair leaned back. He hadn’t touched it yet. Perhaps something would come, better than words. It was not straight-going—this work that he had dreamed; always a shock in bringing down dreams from Sinai; always something deadly in meeting the empirical. He smiled. “Just ginger-ale, Bessie, but you are a stimulant. You are more beautiful than before. ”

“ Belleville bared his teeth just as I have seen a jackal grin. "You know how women love to glorify the objects of their admiration," he said slowly. "In their opinion the men they—they love—are always the wisest, the strongest, the most astute and the best. I am free to admit, my dear Pinsent, that you are by no means a fool. You have no doubt a fairly keen intelligence—but Miss Ottley has placed you on an alabaster pedestal—pedestal do I say? ”

“ She was a woman who could feel but not reason; and, though she loved Nid de Merle, and had been proud of it, Berenger’s description of the ill-used Sieur de Bellaise had the more effect on her, because she well remembered the traditions whispered among the peasants with whom her childhood had been passed, that the village crones declared nothing had gone well with the place since the Bellaise had been expelled, with a piteous tale of the broken-hearted lady, that she had never till now understood. ”

“ My brother has spoken to me of you," said M. de Bellegarde, "and as you are also acquainted with my sister it was time we should meet." He turned to his mother and gallantly bent over her hand, touching it with his lips; after which he assumed a position before the chimney-piece. With his long lean face, his high-bridged nose and small opaque eyes he favoured, in the old phrase, the English strain in his blood. His whiskers were fair and glossy and he had a large dimple, of unmistakeable British origin, in the middle of his handsome chin. ”