THE DUCHESS OF BELGARDE
Never was a bride less burdened with the details of her marriage than
was Mademoiselle Trimousette. Her grandmother arranged the settlements,
provided the trousseau, and did not even let Trimousette see the
marriage presents, which the duke sent in a couple of large hampers,
until the day before the wedding.
The duke did not take the trouble to see his little bride in advance
of the formal betrothal, which took place the week after Trimousette
had sat and stitched by the old sundial in the garden. The betrothal
ceremony took place in the grandest of all of the grand saloons in the
hotel of Madame de Floramour. Everything was done in splendor, and the
bride herself, for the first time in her life, was expensively dressed
and wore jewels. When she entered the grand saloon on Victor’s arm, her
eyes were downcast, and she felt as if she were under some enchanting
spell. She saw nothing but her adorable duke, with his laughing eyes,
and dashing figure, and slim, sinewy hands over which fell lace ruffles.
The duke glanced at his bride with good-humored indifference. She
was too young, too unformed to reveal what she might yet become, but
she looked so gentle, so unresisting, that she appeared to be a very
suitable duchess for a duke who took his pleasure wherever he found
it. The only thing he noticed especially about her were her dainty
feet, in little white satin shoes, and her black eyes, hidden under
her downcast lids. He recognized the melancholy glory of her eyes, but
thought them too tragic for everyday use. Personally, he much preferred
Madame de Valençay’s blue orbs, languid, yet sparkling. That charming
lady was present, and appeared in nowise chagrined. Shortly before the
betrothal, she had suggested to the duke that she should put the Count
de Valençay out of the way, in order to make a vacancy in his shoes for
the duke; de Valençay was always ailing, and could easily be made a
little more so. The duke declined the proposition, as every other man
has done to whom it has been made since the dawn of time. But he had
assured Madame de Valençay that neither a husband nor a wife counted
in an all-consuming passion such as theirs, and she believed him. The
future duchess pleased Madame de Valençay quite as much as Trimousette
pleased the duke. Surely, that small, timid, almost voiceless creature
ought not and should not stand in the way of two determined lovers like
the Duke of Belgarde and Madame de Valençay.
Few persons present took any more notice of the young bride than did
the prospective bridegroom. The betrothal ceremony was soon over and
then a great dinner was served, at which the future Duchess of Belgarde
sat next the duke at table. Amid the crowd of merry faces, the cheerful
noise and commotion of a betrothal dinner, the lights and the flowers,
Trimousette saw only the duke’s handsome, laughing, careless face, and
heard only his ringing voice. She was so quiet and still during it all
that it touched the duke a little, although he had frankly determined
in advance he would not trouble himself very much about his future
duchess. He was impelled, however, by a certain careless kindness,
which was a part of his nature, to pay her a few small compliments.
The blood rushed to Trimousette’s face and she raised her black eyes
to his with an expression of adoration at once desperate and shy, so
that the duke privately resolved not to encourage her to fall in love
with him any more than she was already. Nothing was more inconvenient,
thought the duke, than a wife who is in love with her husband, except
perhaps a husband who is in love with his wife.
The next night the wedding was celebrated. First there was a great
supper and ball preceding the ceremony, which took place at midnight,
according to the fashion of the age, at Notre Dame. It was a very grand
wedding indeed. The King and Queen were represented, and half the old
nobility of France was present. In fact, there was so much of rank and
grandeur that the bride was as nearly insignificant as a bride could
well be. Her costume was very gorgeous; she blazed with jewels, which
came from she knew not where, and she was attended by six young ladies
of the highest rank, whom she had never before seen. When Trimousette
entered the first of the magnificent saloons, her eyes timidly traveled
over the splendors before her. Some of the great rooms were devoted to
cards, others to dancing, where an orchestra of twenty-four violins
played, after the manner of the orchestra of Louis the Fourteenth, at
whose court Madame de Floramour had been a shining light. In another
huge hall a superb supper was served by a hundred liveried lackeys,
wearing wedding favors.
But the only familiar faces the little bride saw were her brother
Victor’s and her grandmother’s iron countenance, grimly resplendent
under a towering headdress of diamonds and red feathers. Yes, there
was another face she knew well, though she had seen it but twice--the
lovely rosy-lipped Madame de Valençay. Trimousette, for all her
outward timidity, had a shy and silent courage, which appeared when
least expected. She did not really fear Madame de Valençay, with all
her wit and beauty, for love is the universal conqueror. So thought
simple Trimousette. The duke was quite civil to his bride, and she
mistook his civility for the beginnings of love, and thought him more
adorable than ever.
Half an hour before midnight a great string of coaches, with running
footmen carrying torches, started for the Cathedral of Notre Dame,
where the Archbishop of Paris, with the assistance of a whole batch of
cardinals, was to perform the marriage ceremony. The night, radiant
and rose-scented, was the loveliest of June nights. The crowds along
the streets hustled and pushed and scrambled good-naturedly to get a
sight of the young bride. All agreed that she was not half handsome
enough for the beautiful, superb Duke of Belgarde, and such, indeed,
was the bride’s own opinion. The duke was in the gayest spirits. The
more he saw of his bride, the better she seemed suited to him. She
was certainly the meekest, most inoffensive creature on earth, and if
only she would not insist on making love to him, it would be an ideal
marriage--for the Duke of Belgarde. He congratulated himself that he
had not yielded to the seductions of Madame de Valençay when that
spirited and fascinating lady had offered to put her husband out of the
way to please the duke.
The wedding train, as it swept up the great aisle of Notre Dame, blazed
with splendor. In it was the Count d’Artois, who not only milked the
cow charmingly at the Little Trianon, but danced adorably on the tight
rope. The main altar of the old Cathedral, with its thousands of
candles, sparkled like a single jewel. The huge organ thundered under
the echoing arches, and the great bells in the towers clashed out
joyfully their wedding music to the quiet stars in the heavens. The
melody, the beauty, the glory of it all found an echo in the tender,
simple heart of the new Duchess of Belgarde.
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_PART TWO_
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