“One thing perplexes me,” Clémence resumed thoughtfully. “I remember to have heard you say that for generations the first daughter of our house has been always called Victoire. Now, _I_ am not Victoire. Nor do I bear your name, mother, nor that of my father’s mother, Léonie.” “Child, ere thou wert born, the name Victoire had become a sound of woe to thy father’s ear. Once, perhaps, it may have been too sweet;--I cannot tell. Brought up together as they were, and with the grateful, reverential love he bore to all the De Talmonts of Vernier, it would have been but natural if--Still, when all things changed--” “Mother, how was it that they changed so sadly? What could Cousin Victoire have done to grieve my father? As for Cousin Louis, I know that he became a Jacobin, a _bonnet rouge_.” “Too true. Louis de Talmont--the child of a family of unstained honour and unshaken loyalty, the nephew of the gallant prince who died so nobly on the scaffold for his King[22]--betrayed every sacred memory of the past, every holy hope for the future. I marvel that the dust of his ancestors did not rise from the battle-fields of their country to curse the wretch who bore part in the murder of his King.” A red glow suffused the pale cheek of Madame de Talmont as she spoke, showing how hotly the fire of passion burned beneath its covering of proud and dignified self-control. With this lady of the old _régime_ the affections of the heart were strong, but the traditions and prejudices of a class were stronger yet. “But Victoire?” Clémence ventured after a pause. “Ah, Victoire! Poor child! she was more sinned against than sinning. But her life was wrecked; and that sin lies at the door of Louis de Talmont. In those early days of the Revolution many foreigners came to Paris. With one of these, who was young, brilliant, wealthy, and noble, Louis formed, after his fashion, a violent friendship. M. le Prince, as we used to call him, had a fine figure, a handsome face, and the most splendid diamonds I have ever seen. But _there_ was an end of his perfections; and great as they may have been, they could scarcely atone for a head and heart as empty as air. Being a stranger, with nothing to lose, and no knowledge of our past to restrain him, he went farther than even his misguided teachers. There was no excess of the mob, in those evil days, in which he did not bear a part. In the Jacobin halls his voice was the loudest, his counsel the most violent; and ever on his lips was that misused, delusive cry, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’ It was to this man that Louis de Talmont must needs give the hand of his sister, the cherished daughter of his house.” “Poor Victoire! How terrible for her! How miserable she must have been! And this foreign prince--did he perish on the scaffold, like our Cousin Louis?”