In the museum at Lille, somewhat aside from the bewildering mass of
pictures, stands, in a glass case, a masterpiece of unknown origin--the
"tete de cire,"--a maiden's bust moulded in coloured wax.
You will smile when you hear of a coloured wax bust and think of Madame
Tussaud's collection, or of a pretty, insignificant doll's head; but
should you ever see the "tete de cire," instead of laughing you will
fold your hands, and, instead of Madame Tussaud's glass-eyed puppets,
will think of a lovely girl cut off in her early bloom, whom you once
saw at rest on the hard pillow of her coffin. Pale, with exquisite
features, reddish brown hair, eyes slightly blinking, as if afraid of
too much sun, a painfully resigned smile about her mouth, and with neck
slightly bent forward, as if awaiting her death-stroke, full of
touching innocence and of a languid grace, this waxen bust stands out
of its dull gold case,--the image of an angel who had lived an earthly
life and whose heart was broken by a mortal pain.
Whence came this masterly production? Nobody knows! One ascribes it to
Leonardo, another to Raphael, while still others have sought for its
origin in antiquity. Upon one point only all agree,--that the bust was
made from a cast taken after death.
The painter, Wickar, brought it out of Italy into France. 'Twas said
that he found it in a Tuscan convent.
* * * * *
The lovely girl smiles, pleased at the critical debates of the curious,
who wish to attribute this graceful creation to one of the illustrious
Heroes of Art: smiles and dreams!
I
No, it could not be--'twould be a sacrilege!
He was forty-five and she scarcely seventeen. It could not be!
After a series of adventurous campaigns, after mourning over many
defeats and celebrating many victories, and finally losing his left leg
in the memorable battle of Marignano, Gottfried de Montalme, finding
himself disabled for the rough work of a soldier, had returned to
France and to his father's castle, whose gates his brother, the duke,
hospitably opened to him.
He found this brother a widower, and at the point of death; but beside
the dying man's couch was a lovely little maiden who offered her cheeks
to be kissed in welcome to the wanderer. She was the Duke of Montalme's
only child--Blanche, a heart's balm! the light of his eyes!
Leaving no male heir, the entire inheritance of the Duke of
Montalme--his castle and lands, with all the feudal rights appertaining
thereto,--would devolve upon the returned warrior, Gottfried. The
little maiden was badly provided for, and this the duke knew full well,
and it made his dying heart sad.
Gottfried sat by the bedside of his brother through the warm May
nights. He heard the ticking of the death-watch in the wainscoting of
the old walls, heard the dewdrops, as they slowly rustled through the
leaves of the giant lindens outside, heard the laboured breath of the
dying man--but more distinctly than all did he hear the beating of his
own heart.
Toward morning, when the first slant sunbeams shed a rosy glimmer into
the gray twilight of the sick man's room, this beating grew louder,
for, with the early sun, Blanche slipped into the chamber, and, leaning
compassionately over the sufferer, whispered, "Are you better, my
father?"
Ah! for the Duke of Montalme there was no better, and one night he laid
his damp, cold hand upon his brother's warm and powerful one, saying,
with the directness his near relationship warranted, "Gottfried, it
would be a great comfort to me if you would take Blanche for your
wife."
At this Gottfried blushed up to the roots of his gray hair, and
murmured, "What an idea to come into your head--I an old cripple, and
this young blossom! It would be a sacrilege!"
"She does not dislike you," said the duke.