Of some few individuals, places at court for themselves, commissions for their sons, or honours which sometimes little deserved the name, for their daughters, made, if not converts, hypocrites. Far greater was the number of the good and faithful servants who left all and followed their Master. Alexander D’Esmiers, Seigneur D’Olbreuse, a gallant Protestant gentleman of Poitou, preferred exile and loss of estate to apostacy. When he crossed the frontier, a banished man, he brought small worldly wealth with him, but therewith one child, a daughter, who was to him above all wealth; and, to uphold his dignity, the memory of being descended from the gallant Fulques D’Esmiers, the valiant and courteous Lord of Lolbroire. Father and daughter sojourned for a time beyond the northern frontier of the kingdom, having their native country within sight. There they tabernacled in much sorrow, perplexity, and poverty, but friends ultimately supplied them with funds; and M. D’Esmiers, Seigneur D’Olbreuse, found himself in a condition to appear in Brussels without sacrifice of dignity. Into the gay circles of that gay city he led his daughter Eleanora, who was met by warm homage from the gallants, and much criticism at the hands of her intimate friends--the ladies. The sharpest criticism could not deny her beauty; and her wit and accomplishments won for her the respect and homage of those whose allegiance was better worth having than that of mere _petits maîtres_ with their stereotyped flattery. Eleanora, like the lady in Göthe’s tragedy, loved the society and the good opinion of wise men, while she hardly thought herself worthy of either. She was a Frenchwoman, and consequently she was not out of love with gaiety. She was the fairest and the liveliest in the train of the brilliant Duchess of Tarento, and she was following and eclipsing her noble patroness at a ball, when she was first seen by George William, second son of George, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, and heir to the pocket but sovereign dukedom of Zell. The heir of Zell became an honest wooer. He whose gallantry had been hitherto remarkable for its dragooning tone, was now more subdued than Cymon in the subduing presence of Iphigenia. He had hated conversation, because he was incapable of sustaining it; but now love made him eloquent. He had abhorred study, and knew little of any other language than his own; but now he took to French vocabularies and dictionaries, and long before he had got so far as to ask Eleanora to hear him conjugate the verb _aimer_ ‘to love,’ he applied to her to interpret the difficult passages he met with in books; and throughout long summer days the graceful pair might have been seen sitting together, book in hand, fully as happy and twice as hopeful as Paolo and Francesca.