Odd Bits of History: Being Short Chapters Intended to Fill Some BlanksWolff, Henry W. (Henry William)
History
Odd Bits of History: Being Short Chapters Intended to Fill Some Blanks
Wolff, Henry W. (Henry William)
History -- Miscellanea
Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage
it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to
"mettre deux folles à la raison." One _folle_, of course, was
Beatrix--whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take
into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had
distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third,
between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi,
aged twenty-seven. There were some utilitarian arguments to plead in
excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last _écu_, had sold every
bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to
boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary
proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of,
so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of
Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife,
before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That constituted, the
archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to
canon law.
Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal
form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word
which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and
key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture
with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held
from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which
the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it
was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must
necessarily have been given to Beatrix's _galants_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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