Biographical fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of
the coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois’s death occurring at the same
time as that of Suzanne’s mother. The chevalier died with the monarchy,
in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at Nonancourt,
and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles, Casterans,
d’Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken with him fifty
thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings then amounted. He offered
them to one of the faithful friends of the king for transmission to his
master, speaking of his approaching death, and declaring that the money
came originally from the goodness of the king, and, moreover, that the
property of the last of the Valois belonged of right to the crown. It is
not known whether the fervor of his zeal conquered the reluctance of the
Bourbon, who abandoned his fine kingdom of France without carrying away
with him a farthing, and who ought to have been touched by the devotion
of the chevalier. It is certain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary
legate of the old man, received from his estate only six hundred francs
a year. The chevalier returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and
by fatigue; he died on the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign
shore.
Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of
the vengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remain
incognito in the village where Suzanne’s mother died. At the sale of the
chevalier’s effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne, anxious to
obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed up the price
of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down to her for a
thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza was alone worth
that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making a collection
of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained from Madame du
Val-Noble the chevalier’s treasure. The charming confidant of many a
love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition in a species
of private museum. If the dead could know what happens after them, the
chevalier’s head would surely blush upon its left cheek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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