The noble auditory had that habitude of reserve, that empire, or rather
tyranny, over all outward manifestations of internal emotions, which
belongs to high aristocratical breeding. The declaration of the archbishop,
therefore, was received as one of the most natural and ordinary things in
the world, and all knelt down and received the pontifical benediction with
perfect decorum. As soon, however, as they were released from the
self-restraint imposed by etiquette, they amply indemnified themselves; and
nothing was talked of for a month, in the fashionable saloons of Paris, but
the loves of the handsome Viscount and the charming Henrietta; the
wickedness of the canoness; the active benevolence and admirable address of
the Princess de Beauvau; and the great wisdom of the archbishop, who was
particularly extolled for his delicacy in defeating this maneuver without
any scandal to the aristocracy, or public stigma on the name of De
Rupelmonde, and without any departure from pastoral gentleness, by adroitly
seizing upon an informality, and turning it to beneficial account, with as
much authority as charitable circumspection.
As to the Canoness de Rupelmonde, she was defeated at all points in her
wicked plans against her beautiful niece. In consequence of the caveat of
the archbishop, her superior ecclesiastic, the Abbess de Panthemont,
formally forbade Mademoiselle de Lenoncour to resume the white veil and the
dress of a novitiate, and instead of a novice's cell established her in a
beautiful apartment as a boarder. The next morning the Canoness de
Rupelmonde called at the convent to take away her niece; but, to her
confusion, the abbess produced a lettre-de-cachet, which she had just
received, and which forbade mademoiselle to leave the convent with any
other person save the Prince de Beauvau.
Under the auspices and the vigilant attention of the prince, the whole
affair was wound up in the most technical and circumstantial manner. The
Countess de Rupelmonde, by a decree of the Grand Council, was divested of
the guardianship of her niece. All the arrears of revenues accumulated
during Mademoiselle de Lenoncour's minority were rigorously collected, the
accounts scrutinized and adjusted, and her noble fortune placed safely and
entirely in her hands.
In a little while the noble personages who had been invited to the ceremony
of taking the veil received another invitation, on the part of the Countess
dowager de Gondrecourt, and the Marshal Prince de Beauvau, to attend the
marriage of Adrien de Gondrecourt, Viscount of Jean-sur-Moselle, and
Henrietta de Lenoncour, Countess de Hevouwal, etc., which duly took place
in the chapel of the archiepiscopal palace at Paris.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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