Angelique - Part 2. Marriage in Toulouse Chapter 13 - Read online

THERE WAS REJOICING IN THE AIR, in Angelique’s house as well as throughout the kingdom. The Archbishop of Toulouse, busy with more important matters, called of f for a while the suspicious watch he kept on his rival, the Comte de Peyrac.
In fact, Monseigneur de Frontenac had just been summoned, together with the Archbishop of Bayonne, to escort Cardinal Mazarin on his journey towards the Pyrenees.
The whole of France echoed with the news: with a display of pomp fit to make the world tremble, the Cardinal was proceeding towards an island in the Bidassoa, in the Basque country, to negotiate peace with the Spaniards. So at last there would be an end to that eternal war which sprang up every year with the flowers in spring. But even more than this, an unbelievable project filled even the humblest craftsman in the kingdom with joy. As a peace token, haughty Spain had agreed to of fer her Infanta as spouse to the young King of France. In consequence, in spite of reticence and jealous glances, everyone preened himself on both sides of the Pyrenees, for in the Europe of the day, which consisted of England in revolt, a multitude of tiny German and Italian principalities, and those common ‘seafaring* Flemings and Dutch, only these two royal descendants were truly worthy of each other.
Upon what other King could the Infanta, the only daughter of Philip IV, that pure pearly-skinned idol, brought up in the austere shadow of sombre palaces, be bestowed? And as a bride for this young prince of twenty summers, the hope of one of the greatest nations, what Princess of fered so many guarantees of nobility and so many advantages by alliance?
The provincial Courts commented on these tidings with passion, and the ladies of Toulouse said that the young King wept a great deal in secret, for he was madly in love with a little childhood friend, the dark-haired Marie Mancini, the Cardinal’s niece. But reasons of State were imperative.
Under the circumstances, the Cardinal demonstrated in striking fashion that, as far as he was concerned, the glory of his royal pupil ind the good of the kingdom came first and foremost. He desired peace as the crowning accomplishment of the intrigue that his Italian hands had woven for years. His family was mercilessly set aside; Louis XIV would marry the Infanta.
So it was that, with eight carriages for his person, ten carts for his luggage, twenty-four mules, one hundred and fifty servants in livery, one hundred riders and two hundred foot-soldiers, the Cardinal travelled down towards the emerald banks of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
On his journey he required the presence of the Archbishops of Bayonne and Toulouse with all their retinue, in order to add to the lustre of the delegation. Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountains, Don Luis de Haro, the representative of His Most Catholic Majesty, countered this great display with lofty simplicity, and crossed the table-land of Castille carrying in his coffers only rolls of tapestries depicting scenes that recalled —to whom it might concern—the glory of the ancient kingdom of Charles V.
Nobody was in a hurry, neither of the two wishing to be the first arrival, reduced to the humiliation of waiting for the other. Finally they advanced yard by yard, and by a miracle of etiquette the Italian and the Spaniard reached the banks of Bidassoa on the same day and at the same hour. A long time passed in indecision. Who would be the first to launch a boat on to the water to set out for Pheasant Island in the middle of the river, where the meeting was to take place? Each found a solution that was to safeguard his pride. The Cardinal and Don Luis de Haro sent word to each other simultaneously that they were ill. The stratagem having mis¬carried from excess of concord, there was nothing to do, in decency, but wait for the ‘illnesses* to be cured; but neither of them wished to be cured.
The world was on tenterhooks. Would peace be made? Would the marriage take place? The slightest gesture was commented on.
In Toulouse, Angelique followed matters from afar. She was absorbed in the joy of a private event, which seemed to her far more important than talk of the King’s marriage.
In fact, as her love for Joffrey grew each day, she began ardently to wish for a child. Then only, it seemed to her, would she really be his wife. However much he assured her that he had never loved a woman to the point of showing her his laboratory and talking to her of mathematics, she remained sceptical and had fits of retrospective jealousy which made him laugh and, incidentally, secretly delighted him.
She had come to know the sensitiveness of his bold personality, to measure the courage he had displayed in mastering his ugliness and his infirmity. Slfe admired him for having won such a batde. It seemed to her that, had he been handsome and invulnerable, she would not have loved him nearly so passionately. She wanted to give him a child to make him perfectly happy. As the days passed, she began to fear that she was barren.
When, finally, in the early winter of 1658, she found herself with child, she cried with happiness.
Joffrey did not hide his enthusiasm and his pride. That winter, while there was a great general fuss over the preparations for the still un¬announced royal wedding, life was very quiet at the Palace of Gay Learning. Between his research and his young wife, the Comte de Peyrac called a halt to the life of fashion at his residence. Eventually, with¬out mentioning it to Angelique, he turned the Archbishop’s absence to account by again taking in hand the public affairs of Toulouse, to the great satisfaction of a good many members of the Parliament and the population in general.
For her confinement, Angelique moved to a small chateau that the Comte owned in Beam, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where it was cooler than in town. Naturally, the parents-to-be discussed at great length the Christian name they would give their son, heir to the Comtes de Toulouse. Joffrey wanted to call him Cantor, after the famous troubadour of Languedoc, Cantor de Marmont, but as his birth came in the midst of the festivities which accompanied the Floral Games being held in Tou¬louse, they called him Florimond.
He was a dark-complexioned little boy, with plenty of black hair. For several days Angelique bore him a grudge for the anguish and pain of childbirth. The midwife assured her, though, that for a first-born things had gone very well. But Angelique had rarely been ill and did not know physical pain. During the long hours of waiting she had gradually felt engulfed in this elemental suffering, and her pride had rebelled. She was alone on a road on which neither love nor friendship could help her, ruled over by an unknown child who already claimed her entirely. The faces around her became those of strangers.
This hour foreshadowed for her the dreadful solitude that she was to face one day. She did not know it, but her being had a premonition of it, and for twenty-four hours Joffrey de Peyrac was worried by her pallor, her silence and her constrained smile.
Then, on the evening of the third day, as Angflique was bending curiously over the cradle in which her son slept, she recognised the finely- chiselled features which the unmarred side of Joffrey’s face had occasionally revealed to her. She imagined a cruel sabre coming down on this angel face, the graceful body hurled out of a window, crushed in the snow, on which flames rained down. The vision was so clear that she cried out in horror. Seizing the new-born baby, she clasped it convulsively against her bosom. Her breasts ached, for the milk was rising and the midwife had tightly bandaged them. Ladies of quality did not suckle their children. A sturdy, healthy young wet-nurse was to take Florimond away to her mountains, where he would spend the first years of his life.
But when, that evening, the nurse entered Angelique’s room, she threw up her arms in horror, for Florimond was already sucking heartily at his mother’s breast.
“Madame, you’re out of your mind! Now how shall we get rid of your milk? You’ll have a fever and your breasts will harden.”
“I shall feed him myself,” said Angelique fiercely. “I don’t wish him to be thrown out of a window!”
There was scandalised talk of a noble lady acting like a peasant-woman. Eventually it was agreed that the nurse would nevertheless be part of Madame de Peyrac’s household. She would supplement Florimond’s feeding, for he had a voracious appetite.
While this question was still the talk of the neighbourhood, Bernard d’Andijos arrived in Beam. The Comte de Peyrac had finally appointed him first gentleman of his household and had sent him to Paris to prepare the Comte’s residence there in expectation of the journey he proposed to make to the capital.
On his way back Andijos had gone straight to Toulouse to represent the Comte at the Floral Games. He was not expected in Beam and seemed much agitated. Flinging his horse’s reins to a lackey, he dashed up the stairs four steps at a time and strode into Angelique’s room. She was lying in bed, while Joffrey, propped against the window-seat, was strumming his guitar and singing softly.
Andijos had no eyes for this family picture.
“The King is coming!” he cried breathlessly.
“Where?”
“To your palace, the Gay Learning, in Toulouse! . . .”
Then he dropped into an arm-chair and wiped his face.
“Come, come,” said Joffrey de Peyrac, after playing a little air on Ins guitar to let the newcomer recover his breath, “don’t get excited. I have been told that the King, his mother and his Court have set out to join the Cardinal at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, so why should they be passing through Toulouse?”
“It’s quite a story! Don Luis de Haro and Monsieur de Mazarin are, it seems, wasting so much time in courtesies that they have not yet got down to broaching the subject of the marriage. It is said, moreover, that their relations are getting strained; there is trouble over the Prince de Cond£. Spain wants him to be welcomed back with open arms and wishes that not only his treason during the civil war be forgotten, but also the fact that this Prince of French blood has served for several years as a Spanish General. It's a bitter pill that is hard to swallow. The Kings arrival under these circumstances would be inappropriate. Mazarin advises him to travel. So they travel. The Court is going to Aix, where the King's presence will doubtless appease the revolt that has just broken out there. But all these great lords will pass through Toulouse. And you won't be there! Nor will the Archbishop! Parliament is in an uproar! . . .”
“It's not the first time, though, that they'll have received a great personage."
“You must be there,” begged Andijos. “I have come myself to fetch you. It seems that when the King learned that they'd be passing through Toulouse, he said: ‘So I’ll at last meet the Great Lame Man of Languedoc whom everyone’s been telling me about!’"
“Oh! I want to go to Toulouse!” cried Ang£lique, jumping up in bed. But she fell back with a grimace of pain. She was still too stiff and weak to be able to undertake a journey over the bad mountain roads and with¬stand the fatigue of a princely reception. Her eyes filled with tears of disappointment.
“Oh, the King in Toulouse! The King at the Gay Learning, and I shall not see him! . . ."
“Don’t cry, my darling," said Joffrey. “I promise you I shall be so deferential and courteous that they won’t be able to do other than invite us to the wedding. You will see the King at Saint-Jean-de-Luz in all his glory and not as a dust-covered traveller.”
When the Comte had left the room to give orders for his departure next morning at dawn, Andijos tried good-naturedly to console her.
“Your husband is right, dear friend. The Court, the King! Pah! What does it matter! A single meal at the Palace of Gay Learning is worth all the balls at the Louvre. Believe me, I have been there, and I felt so cold in the ante-room of the council chamber that the drip at the end of my nose turned into an icicle. You’d suppose the King of France hadn’t any forests to cut down for firewood. As for the of ficers of the royal household, they had such holes in their hose that I saw even the Queen's ladies lower their eyes, though goodness knows they aren't bashful.”
“Don't say the Cardinal did not wish his royal pupil to get accustomed to a luxury that was not in keeping with the country's means?”
“I don’t know what the Cardinal’s intentions were. All I know is that he never stinted himself when it came to buying diamonds, rough or cut, paintings, libraries, tapestries, engravings. But I have an idea that, for all his timid airs, the King is anxious to rid himself of this tutelage. He is sick of bean-soup and his mother’s remonstrances. He is sick of taking upon himself all the misfortunes of plundered France, and that is easily under¬stood, for he is a handsome youngster, and a King to boot. The time isn’t far of f when he will shake his lion’s mane.”
“What is he like? Do describe him,” demanded Angelique impatiently. “Not bad-looking. Not bad! He has presence and majesty. But because of chasing from town to town at the time of the Fronde, he has remained as ignorant as a farm-hand, and if he weren’t the King I’d say that I believe him to be a bit underhanded. Moreover he’s had small¬pox and his face bears the marks of it.”
“Oh! You're trying to discourage me!” cried Angelique. “And you talk like those Gascon, Beamais and Albigeois devils who still wonder why Aquitaine has not remained an independent kingdom, separate from the realm of France. For you there’s nothing like Toulouse and its sun¬shine. But I’m dying to know Paris and see the King.”
“You will see him at his wedding. Maybe that ceremony will in¬augurate the true coming-of-age of our sovereign. But if you do go up to Paris, you must stop at Vaux on your way to greet Monsieur Fouquet. He is the true king of the day. What luxury, my dear! What splen¬dour!”
“So you, too, have been to pay court to that ill-bred, shady financier?” inquired the Comte de Peyrac, as he came in.
“I had to, my dear fellow. Not only is it necessary if you want to be received anywhere in Paris, for the Princes are devoted to him, but I confess I was consumed with curiosity to see the King’s great banker in his own setting, for he is certainly the outstanding figure in the kingdom at present, after Mazarin.”
“You might as well come right out and say ‘before Mazarin’. It’s common knowledge that the Cardinal has no standing with the money¬lenders, even when it’s a question of the country’s needs, whereas that fellow Fouquet enjoys everyone’s confidence.”
“The nimble Italian isn’t jealous, though. Fouquet brings money into the Royal Treasury to keep the wars going, and that’s all they ask of him —for the time being. He doesn’t worry whether the money is borrowed from usurers at twenty-five or even fifty per cent interest. The Court, the King, the Cardinal, all live of f these malpractices. Heaven knows when they’ll stop him, and meanwhile he’ll go on displaying his emblem, the squirrel, everywhere, as well as his motto Quo non ascendant ?—Whither will I not rise?”
Joffrey de Peyrac and Bernard d’Andijos continued discussing Fouquet’s unwonted ostentation for a while. Although he had made his start as Master of Petitions and then as a member of the Paris Parliament, he still remained the son of a mere Breton privateer. Angelique became pensive, for whenever there was mention of Fouquet she recalled the poison- casket, and the memory always left her with a disagreeable feeling.
The conversation was interrupted by a little serving-boy who was bringing a tray to the Marquis.
“Humph!” said the latter, burning his fingers on the hot brioches which miraculously enclosed a nut-sized piece of iced foie gras. “Nowhere but here does one eat such marvels. Here and at Vaux, as it happens. Fouquet has an outstanding chef, a certain Vatel.”
He exclaimed suddenly:
“Oh! that reminds me of a . . . curious encounter. Guess whom I ran into at that very place, deep in conversation with Monsieur Fouquet, Lord of Belle-Isle and other places and all but Vicer6y of Brittany. . . . Guess?”
“Hard to guess. He knows so many people.”
“Guess all the same. It’s someone of your household ... if one may say so.”
Angelique suggested it might perhaps be her brother-in-law, her sister Hortense’s husband, who was a man of law in Paris, just as the famous Superintendent of Finances had been long ago.
But Andijos shook his head.
“Ah, if I weren't so afraid of your husband, I'd bargain my information for a kiss, for you will never guess.”
“Well, take the kiss, for it is good manners to kiss a young mother when you see her for the first time, and do tell me, for you make me impatient.”
“All right, then. I caught your former major-domo, that Clement Tonnel whom you had in Toulouse for a couple of years, in secret conclave with the Superintendent.”
“You must have made a mistake. He only left us to go to Poitou,” said Angelique very quickly. “And there is no reason why he should be in touch with important people, unless he was trying to enter service in Vaux.”
“That's what I think I understood from their conversation. They mentioned Vatel, Fouquet's cook.”
“You see,” said Angelique, with a sense of relief she could not explain to herself, “he is merely looking for work under the direction of this Vatel,
who is supposed to be a genius. Still, I think he might have told us that he was not coming back to Languedoc. But what’s the use of expecting deference from such common people when they don’t happen to need you?”
“Quite so! Quite so!” agreed Andijos, though his mind seemed to be elsewhere. “Still, there was one detail that seemed odd to me. It so happened that I entered unexpectedly the room where the Superintendent was in conversation with that fellow Clement. I was one of a party of gentlemen whom wine had made rather gay. We apologised to the Superintendent, but I noticed that our man was talking to Monsieur Fouquet in a rather familiar way and quickly sat up in a more servile attitude when we came in. He recognised me. As we were going out, I saw him say a few quick words to Fouquet. The latter gave me a snake- cold stare, then said: ‘I don’t think it’s of any importance.' ”
“Was it you who were considered to be of no importance, my friend?” inquired Peyrac, who was casually plucking at his guitar.
“It seemed to me . . .”
“What a judicious opinion!”
Andijos made as if to draw his sword, and the conversation was resumed on a bantering note.
‘I simply must remember,’ thought Angelique. ‘It is there, in my head, buried deep down among my memories. And I know that it is very important. I must try and remember!’
She cupped her cheeks in both hands, closed her eyes, concentrated. The thing was far distant. It had occurred at the Chateau du Plessis: of that she was certain, but, beyond that, everything was shrouded in mist.
The fire in the hearth warmed her. She picked up a hand-screen of painted silk and fanned herself mechanically. Outside in the darkness a storm was raging, without lightning, but hurling packets of hail which, now and then, drummed against the windows. Unable to sleep, Angelique had sat down in front of die fire-place. Her back ached a little, and she was vexed with herself for not recovering her strength more quickly. The midwife kept hinting that her weakness was the result of her stubborn insistence on feeding the child, but Angelique turned a deaf ear; each time she pressed the baby against her breast and watched it suck, her joy in¬creased. The sight entranced her. It touched her heart, filled her with a feeling of gravity. She already saw herself as a solemn and indulgent matron, surrounded by toddling infants. Why did she so of ten recall her own childhood, just when the little Angflique seemed to be fading away
within her? ... It wasn’t a dim, inexplicable uneasiness she felt. The question gradually grew more precise: ‘There is something I simply must remember !*
Tonight she was waiting for her husband’s return: he had sent a courier to announce his coming, but the storm was holding him up so that he would probably not arrive before the next day. This thought almost made her weep with disappointment. She was looking forward so impatiently to his account of the reception for the King. It would have distracted her. The banquet and the ball, it was said, had been magnificent. What a pity she had not been able to attend, instead of staying here racking her brain to retrieve a wisp of her memories.
“It was at Plessis. In the room of the Prince deConde . . . while I was peeping through the window. I must try and visualise again everything from that moment onwards, point by point. . . .”
A door slammed and there was the sound of voices in the hall of the little chateau.
Angelique leaped to her feet and rushed out of the room. She recognised Joffrey’s voice.
“Oh, dearest, you at last! I am so happy!”
She raced down the stairs and he received her in his arms.
Sitting at his feet on a cushion, she nestled against him. When the servants had left, she demanded impatiently:
“Now tell me about it!”
“It went very well,” said Joffrey de Peyrac, munching some grapes. “The town outdid itself. But, without boasting, I believe that the re¬ception at the Palace of Gay Learning carried the day.”
“And the King? The King?”
“The King, why, he is a handsome young fellow who seems to enjoy the fuss that’s made of him. He has round cheeks, caressing brown eyes and a good deal of majesty. I believe he’s suffering from heartbreak: the little Mancini has inflicted on him a wound of love that is not likely to heal very soon, but as he has a lofty idea of his kingly of fice, he bows to reasons of State. I have seen the Queen Mother, who is beautiful, sad and a little on her dignity. I also saw the Grande Demoiselle and Little Monsieur bickering over questions of etiquette. What else can I tell you? I saw many beautiful names and ugly faces! ... As a matter of fact, nothing gave me as much pleasure as seeing little Peguilin again, the Chevalier de Lauzun, you know, the nephew of the Due de Gramont, who is Goveriior of the Beam. He used to be my little page in Toulouse before he went up to Paris. I still can see his cat-face when I instructed Madame de Vlrant to make a man of him.”
“Jofftey!”
“But he has fulfilled his promise and put into practice the teachings or our Courts of Love. I could see for myself that he was the rage among all those ladies. And his wit has earned him the friendship of the King, who cannot do without his buffooneries/*
“And the King? Tell me about the King! Did he express his satis¬faction at the way you received him?”
“He did, and very graciously. Andhe regretted your absence several times. Yes, the King was satisfied . . . too satisfied.”
“How so, too satisfied? Why do you say that with a wry grin?”
“Because the following was reported to me: when the King was mounting into his carriage, a courtier remarked to him that our fete could vie in splendour with those given by Fouquet. And His Majesty replied: *It could indeed, and I wonder whether it won’t soon be time to make these people disgorge a bit/ The good Queen cried out: ‘What a thing to say, my son, amidst all these rejoicings to please you !* To which the King replied: 1 am tired of seeing my subjects crush me with their display of wealth/ ”
“Well, really! What an envious boy!” exclaimed Angelique, indig¬nantly. “I can hardly believe it. Are you sure he said that?”
“My faithful Alphonso, who was holding the carriage-door, reported it to me himself.”
“The King couldn’t entertain such mean thoughts on his own. The courtiers must have biased his feelings and set him against us. Are you quite sure you did not show too much insolence towards some of them?”
“I was all sugar and honey, I assure you. I humoured them as much as I could. I even went so far as to leave a purse filled with gold in the room of every lord who was lodged at the palace. And I assure you none of those gentlemen forgot to pocket it.”
“You flatter them, but you despise them and they feel it,” said Angelique, thoughtfully shaking her head.
She rose and went to sit on her husband’s knees. Outside, the thunder-storm was still raging.
“Whenever the name of that man Fouquet is mentioned, I shiver,” she murmured. “I see that poison-casket again which had been out of my thoughts for years, and it comes back to haunt me.”
“You are nervous, my sweet! Am I to have a wife who trembles at the slightest breeze?”
“I must remember something,” moaned the young woman, closing her eyes.
She rubbed her cheeks against the warm, violet-scented hair, whose locks were curling from the damp.
“If only you could help me remember . . . but that’s impossible* If only I could remember, I feel I would know where to look out for danger.”
“There is no danger, my darling. Florimond’s birth has shaken you.”
“I see the room . . .” continued Angelique with closed eyes. “The Prince de Conde has just jumped out of bed because someone’s knocked at the door . . . but I hadn’t heard the knocking. The Prince has wrapped himself in his dressing-gown and shouted: ‘I am with the Duchesse de Beaufort. . . .’ But, at the far end of the room, the valet has opened the door and introduced a hooded monk. . . . That monk was called Exili. . . .”
She broke of f and suddenly stared in front of her with an intensity that frightened the Comte.
“Angelique!” he cried.
“Now I remember,” she said in a toneless voice. “Joffrcy, I remember. The valet of the Prince de Conde was . . . Clement Tonnel.”
“You’re raving, darling,” he said with a laugh. “That man’s been in our service for several years, and only now do you notice this re-* semblance.”
“I only caught a glimpse of him in the darkness. But his pock-marked face, his obsequious manners . . . Yes, Joffrey, I am certain it was he. I understand now why, ah the time he was in Toulouse, I could never look at him without a twinge of displeasure. Do you remember what you said one day, ‘The most dangerous spy is the one whom one does not suspect,1 and you began to sense that he was roaming around the house? That unknown spy was he.”
“You are becoming inordinately romantic for a woman who’s interested in science.”
He caressed her forehead.
“Aren’t you a litde feverish?” •
She shook her head.
“Don’t make fun of me. I am tortured by the idea that this man has been watching me for years. On whose orders was he acting? Monsieur de Condc’s? Fouquet’s?”
“You never spoke of this affair to anyone?”
“To you . . . once, and he overheard us.”
“All this is bygone history. Calm yourself, my treasure, I am sure* you’re fretting needlessly.”
However, several months later, when she was weaning Florimond, her husband said to her casually one morning:
“I wouldn’t like to force you to, but it would please me to know that you were taking one of these with your breakfast each morning.”
He opened his hand and she saw a small white pill gleaming in it.
“What is it?”
“Poison . . . an infinitesimal dose.”
Angelique looked at him.
“What are you afraid of , Joffrey?”
“Of nothing. But it’s a practice I’ve always found useful. The body gradually becomes accustomed to it.”
“Do you think someone may try to poison me?”
“I don’t think anything, my love. . . . It’s simply that I don’t believe in the powers of the unicorn’s horn.”
In the following month of May the Comte de Peyrac and his wife were invited to the royal wedding, which was to take place in Saint- Jean-de-Luz, on the banks of the river Bidassoa. King Philip IV of Spain would personally give away his daughter, the Infanta Maria- Theresa, to the young King Louis XIV. The peace was signed—or practically so. The French nobility crowded the roads en route to the little Basque town.
Joffrey and Angelique left Toulouse early one morning before it grew hot. Florimond also made the journey, together with his nurse, his cradle- rocker and a little blackamoor whose duty it was to make him laugh. He was now a healthy though not a fat baby, with the black eyes and locks of a delightful little Spanish saint.
The indispensable Margot watched over her mistress’s wardrobe in one of the carts. Kouassi-Ba, for whom three liveries had been made, each more dazzling than the one before, looked like a grand vizier on a horse as black as his skin. There was also Alphonso, the Archbishop’s ever- faithful spy, four musicians, to one of whom, little Giovanni, the fiddler, Angelique had taken a special fancy, and a certain Francois Binet, barber and wigmaker, without whom Joffrey de Peyrac never travelled. Valets, maids and lackeys completed the entourage, which was preceded by the suites of Bernard d’Andijos and Cerbalaud.
Absorbed in the excitement and details of their departure, Angelique hardly noticed that they were leaving the environs of Toulouse. As the carriage was passing over the bridge on the Garonne, she uttered a little cry and pressed her nose against the window-pane.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” asked Joffrey de Peyrac.
“I want to see Toulouse once more,” answered Angfiique.
She gazed at the rosy city spread on the banks of the river, with the tall arrows of its spires and the stiffness of its towers.
A sudden anguish gripped her heart.
“Oh, Toulouse!” she murmured. “Oh, the Palace of Gay Learning l9P She had a premonition that she would never see them again.