Étampes

“ Ascanio, in fine, appeared to the Duchesse d'Etampes, as he really was, an exquisite, fascinating personality, so long as he remained in a pure, untroubled atmosphere; he was an adorable child, who would never become a man. He could devote himself to sentiments, but never to ideas; born to enjoy the outpourings of a mutual affection, he would inevitably go down in the first terrific onset of the struggle for supremacy and power. He was the man needed to satisfy Madame d'Etampes's passion, but not to keep pace with her in her ambitious schemes. ”

“ Yes, I love Ascanio."
"In that case I pity you, madame," rejoined Colombe softly, "for Ascanio loves me."
"Yes, it is true, Ascanio does love you; but by seduction if I can, by falsehood if I must, by a crime if it becomes necessary, I will steal his love away from you, mark that! I am Anne d'Heilly, Duchesse d'Etampes!"
"Ascanio, madame, will love the one who loves him best."
"In God's name hear her!" cried the duchess, exasperated by such sublime confidence. "Would not one think that her love is unique, and that no other love can be compared to it?" ”

“ Beyond Etampes, as one approaches Fontainebleau, the scenery grows extremely picturesque, with bold outcroppings of blackened rock, fields of golden broom, groves of birch and pine—first hints of the fantastic sandstone scenery of the forest. And presently the long green aisles opened before us in all the freshness of spring verdure—tapering away right and left to distant ronds-points, to mossy stone crosses and obelisks—and leading us toward sunset to the old town in the heart of the forest. ”

“ Madame d'Etampes did not believe, did not choose to believe, in Ascanio's profound passion for Colombe.
"A child who has no conception of what he really wants," she said to herself, "who falls in love with the first pretty girl he sees, who has come in collision with the high and mighty airs of an empty-headed little fool, and whose pride takes offence at the least obstacle. Oh! when he realizes what true love is, ardent, clinging love,—when he knows that I, Duchesse d'Etampes, whose caprice rules a kingdom, love him!—Ah! ”

“ Nothing is easier: look, all that is necessary is to press this invisible spring. The stalk opens, as you see, and in the heart of the flower we find, not a gnawing worm, as in some natural flowers and some false hearts, but something similar, worse it may be,—the dishonor of the Duchesse d'Etampes, written with her own hand and signed by her. ”

“ Anne was sprightly, pretty, witty and cultured, and succeeded in keeping the favour of the king till the end of the reign (1547) . The liaison received some official recognition; when Queen Eleanor entered Paris (1530) , the king and Anne occupied the same window. In 1533 Francis gave her in marriage to Jean de Brosse, whom he created duc d’Étampes. The influence of the duchesse d’Étampes, especially in the last years of the reign, was considerable. She upheld Admiral Chabot against the constable de Montmorency, who was supported by her rival, Diane de Poitiers, the dauphin’s mistress. ”

“ Go on! ‘I, Angelique-Louise de Guerchi, was visited, in the rooms which—I occupy, in the mansion of the Duchesse d’Etampes, corner of the streets Git-le-Coeur and du Hurepoix, about half-past seven o’clock in the evening, in the first place, by Messire Jeannin de Castille, King’s Treasurer; in the second place, by Commander de Jars, who was accompanied by a young man, his nephew, the Chevalier de Moranges ”

“ Give it to me, Sire, and I promise you that if there is a secret I will find it."
Her slender, active fingers, to which hatred lent additional subtlety, passed over all the rough places on the jewel, felt in all the hollows, while the Duchesse d'Etampes, half fainting, followed with haggard eyes her investigations, which for a moment were without result. But at last, whether by good luck, or a rival's instinct of divination, Diane touched the precise spot on the stalk.
The flower opened.
The two women cried out again at the same moment; one with joy, the other with dismay. ”

“ The King determined to revive it for Montmorency. Margaret, never shrewd or suspicious, rejoiced in this triumph of her friend. The news gave general pleasure at Court, for the Dauphin was Montmorency's close ally, and Queen Leonor and Madeleine de Montmorency were near and zealous companion.
These were all for the Grand Master. No one else was powerful enough to hazard a remonstrance. Yes; there was one—one unlikely and ridiculous Cassandra. Madame d'Étampes, hearing of the King's determination, prayed, wept, urged, implored Francis not to give that post to Montmorency. ”

“ The most notable towns in the department are Versailles, the capital, Corbeil, Sèvres, Étampes, Mantes, Pontoise, Rambouillet, Argenteuil, Poissy, St Cloud, St Cyr, St Germain-en-Laye, Meudon, Montmorency, Rueil and Marly-le-Roi (see separate articles) . Other places of interest are Montfort-l'Amaury, which has a Renaissance church with fine stained glass, a gateway of the 16th century and a ruined château once the seat of the powerful family of Montfort ”

“ No, my father knows nothing, suspects nothing, I am sure, and although he has never shown me any great affection, he would never with his own hand plunge me into shame and misery."
"Forgive me, Colombe," rejoined Ascanio, "but your father is not accustomed to see misery in increased wealth. A title would conceal the shame, and in his courtier-like pride he would deem you happier as a king's mistress than as an artist's wife. It is my duty to hide nothing from you, Colombe: Comte d'Orbec told Madame la Duchesse d'Etampes that he would answer for your father." ”

“ The red half-sunken sun shed a solemn splendour on the everyday houses, and crimsoned the windows of Dempster's projecting upper storey.
Suddenly a loud murmur arose and spread along the stream of church-goers, and one group after another paused and looked backward. At the far end of the street, men, accompanied by a miscellaneous group of onlookers, were slowly carrying something—a body stretched on a door. Slowly they passed along the middle of the street, lined all the way with awe-struck faces, till they turned aside and paused in the red sunlight before Dempster's door. ”

“ He noticed that the great beast cocked up his ears all the time, as if he were listening for something, and he asked him why he did so. Just then a gnat came humming by, and the Elephant said, “Do you see that wretched little buzzing insect? I’m terribly afraid of its getting into my ear: if it once gets in, I’m dead and done for.” The Lion’s spirits rose at once when he heard this: “For,” he said to himself, “if the Elephant, huge as he is, is afraid of a gnat, I needn’t be so much ashamed of being afraid of a cock, who is ten thousand times bigger than a gnat.” ”

“ Emmet lives in it, and outlives. It is the compensation of a lot cast in a planet where even our own honourable action has a trick of turning hostile and smearing us, that there is something in the best of us which cannot be smeared. Robert Emmet’s large soul has, like a magician, pieced together his broken body, the symbol of his broken, mistimed, and because mistimed, unhallowed effort. But only his own soul [89] has done it, and by a power within, shaking herself clear of censure. Mr. Henry Curran devotes to him a reticent paragraph obliquely affectionate. ”

“ This Englishman, whatever his eminence of courage and skill might be, had been the husband of Emmet’s sweetheart; and Emmet was an Irish rebel and felon. The young soldier had probably weighed well what he was inheriting, before his marriage, and found all that endurable enough, until he died. In a world where earthly accidents wither away at a breath, and men of like temper see each other as they are, Henry Sturgeon must have smiled from the blood-wet Spanish grass straight into Robert Emmet’s eyes. ”

“ From the showman I learnt nothing about the Elephant Man, except that he was English, that his name was John Merrick and that he was twenty-one years of age.
As at the time of my discovery of the Elephant Man I was the Lecturer on Anatomy at the Medical College opposite, I was anxious to examine him in detail and to prepare an account of his abnormalities. I therefore arranged with the showman that I should interview his strange exhibit in my room at the college. I became at once conscious of a difficulty. The Elephant Man could not show himself in the streets. ”

“ But the people drove out King Athamas, because he had killed his child; and he roamed about in his misery, till he came to the Oracle in Delphi. And the Oracle told him that he must wander for his sin, till the wild beasts should feast him as their guest. So he went on in hunger and sorrow for many a weary day, till he saw a pack of wolves. The wolves were tearing a sheep; but when they saw Athamas they fled, and left the sheep for him, and he ate of it; and then he knew that the oracle was fulfilled at last. ”

“ On such an evening the bandage of old wounds which we bear about in us flies open. Gustavus arrived at the village in silence; at the entrance of the garden which half enclosed Ottomar's palace, stood a boy, grinding out the sublime melody of a sublime song [80] on a hand-organ to the ear of a canary bird, which he was teaching to sing it. "I shall get a good deal, when he can whistle it," said the winsome organist. Leaning against a tree stood Ottomar, facing the far evening-redness and these evening tones; the sun of the outer world sank within him behind a great leaden cloud. ”

“ For Emmet, finely gifted though he was, was just a young man with the same limitations, the same self-questionings, the same falterings, the same kindly human emotions surging up sometimes in such strength as almost to drown a heroic purpose, as many a young man we have known. ”

“ Emmet has been misreported in one important particular. He had a fine understanding of the uses of irony; but it is his praise that he was also scrupulously, persistently, and invincibly courteous. To know him is to know that sentences such as those figuring in some reports of his speech, about “that viper,” meaning (Mr. Plunkett) , or “persons who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your (that is, Lord Norbury’s) [52] blood-stained hand,” are, as attributed to him, all but impossible. ”

“ On the foothills across the valley was a considerable forest, extending as far as the eye could reach; but I could not doubt that the wood in mid-valley, to the right of me, being so like the description which Atupo, the priest, had given me, was the Wood of the Red Fish.
And then and there I set forward running, for I was young and hot-headed, and had not yet learned that time is but the slave of man, and that patience and caution are of more worth than eager haste. ”

“ Accordingly, he hid his bow and quiver full of arrows in a hollow tree, with all of his clothing and other weapons, so that [95] he might appear quite naked and harmless before the timid Elk people. They saw that he was unarmed, and they stood still as he approached.
"Here comes Unktomee," said they doubtfully to one another.
"Ah, brothers!" he pleaded with them, "you have enough; you are at peace with the tribes; you overlook the valley and all its dwellers are below you! None is so happy as you. Will you not make me one of you?" ”

“ The bear’s only answer to her prayer was a low growl, but having eaten the meat, he turned and clumsily departed.
In the meantime Antelope had set himself to master the geography of that region, to study the outlook for game, and ascertain the best approaches to their secret home. It was already settled in his mind that he could never return either to his wife’s people or to his own. His fellow-warriors would not forgive his desertion, and the Rees could not be expected to welcome as a kinsman one of the foremost of their ancient foes. ”

“ THE ELEPHANT IN FAVOR
ONCE upon a time the Elephant stood high in the good graces of the Lion. The forest immediately began to talk of the matter, and, as usual, many guesses were made as to the means by which the Elephant had gained such favor.
“It is no beauty,” say the beasts to each other, “and it is not amusing; and what habits it has! what manners!”
“If it had possessed such a bushy tail as mine, I should not have wondered,” says the Fox.
“Or, sister,” says the Bear, “if it had gotten into favor on account of its claws, no one would have found the matter at all extraordinary ”

“ Dempster has a strong constitution, you know; in a few days these symptoms may be allayed, and he may do well. Let me beg of you to keep out of the room at present: you can do no good until Mr. Dempster is better, and able to know you. But you ought not to be alone ”

“ You do me honour overmuch. You have given to the subaltern all the credit of the superior.” He [91] turned half-smiling to the presiding judge. “There are men concerned in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conception of yourself, my lord.” At the final moment of his life Emmet stood motionless with a handkerchief in his hand, the fall of which was to be the signal for the cart to be drawn away. ”

“ Mounted upon an elephant,—on which was likewise her daughter, a beautiful maiden, in the prime and freshness of youth—armed with a bow and arrows, she plunged fearlessly into the stream. The Empress was followed by several nobles, who, ashamed at beholding the resolution of a woman, followed her into the river, and made for the further side. Urging her elephant to the middle of the channel, she waved a scarf to encourage the Vizier’s troops. Undaunted at the carnage before her, she stood in the howdah, and discharged her arrows with fatal aim at the foe. ”