Des Arc weekly citizen., 1869-03-23

surely justify Charles de La-Hire in
 casting back her preferred hand, but which at the worst was venial, and de- serving no such doom as the soul-chill- ing cloister.
 She had, they said, in no respectpar- ticipated in the guilt, or shared the treacheries of Armand--on the contra ry--she, the victim of his fraud, had been the first to dcnounce, to spit al, to defy him x*
 Moreover it was understood tn .6 although de-La- Hire had refused her hand, several of equal and even higher birth than he had offered to redeem her from the cloister by taking heYtou " of their free choice--Jarnac had claim ed the beauty--and it was whispered that the Duke de Meyers had sued to Henry vainly for the fair hand of the unwilling novice.
 But the King was relentless. "Either the wife of De -Hire--or the bride of God in the cloister!' was his unvary- ing feply. No farther answer would f he give--no disclosure of his motives would he'make even to his wisest councillors. Some indeed augured that the good meuarch's anger was but feigned, and that leeming her sufii- ciently punished already he was desir- ous still of forcing her to,be the bride of him to whom she had been destined, and whom she still, despite her brief inconstancy, unquestionably worship ped in her heart. For all men stillt supposed that at the last Charles would forgive the hapless girl, and so relieve her from the living tombthat even now seemed yawning to enclose her. But others--and they were those who understood the best mood of Frances second Henry-vowed that the wrath was real and felt, that, though no man could fathom the cause of his stern ire. he never would forgive the guilty girl, whose frailty, as he swore, had caused such strife and bloodshed.
 But now it was high noon, and forth filed from the palace gates long and glittering train-Henry and all his court, with all the rank and beauty of the realm. knights, nobles, peers and princes, damsels and dames--thc pride of France and Europe. But at the monarch's right walked one, clad in no gay attire-pale, languid wounded and victor. A sad deep gloom o'ercast his large dark eye, and threw a shadow over his massy forahaa1----hiss liia had forgot to smile his glance to Tighten, yet was there no remorse, no doubt, no wayering in his calm, noble fea- Itures--only fixed, settled sorrow. His long and waving hair of the dark est chesnut evenly parted on his crown, fell down on either cheek, and flowed over the broad plain collar of his shirt which, decked with no em- broidery lace, was folded back over the cape of a plain black pourpoint, made of fine cloth indeed, but neither laced nor passemented, nor even slashed with velvet--a broad scarf of black taffeta supported his weapon--a heavy double-edged straight broadsword, and served at the same time to support his left arm, the sleeve of which .hung open, tied in with points of Il lbbon
 His trunk-hose and his neither stocks of plain black silk, black velvet shoes and slouched hat, with niethcrfeather nor cockade, completed the suit of melancholy mourning which he wore. In the midst of the trainw yet sad der sight, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, sobed in the snsw-white vestments of a novice, with all her glorious ringlcts flowing in loose rebundanee over her shoulders and her bosom, soon to be cut close by the fatal scissors--paic as the monumental stone and only not as rigid. A hard d-feathered grayheaded monk, supported her on rither hand land long train of priests swept after with crucifix and~fosary and censer.
 Scarce had this strange procession issued from tho great gates of les lTournelles, the death bells tolling still from every tower and steeple,s before another train, gloomier yet and sadder, filed out from the gate of the royal tilt yard, at the farther end of which stood a superb pavilion. Sixteen black Bencdictine monks led the array chan ting the mornful miserere--next behind these, strange contrast !-strode on the grim gaunt form, clad in his blood- stained tabard, and bear'Ng full dis played his broad twoAXhded axe fell emblem of his odious calling 1.-the Ipublic executioner of Paris. Immedia- Itely in the rear of this dark functionary, not borne by his bold captains, nor fol-
 lowed by his gallant vassals with arms
 reversed and signs of martial sorrow,
 but ignominiously supported by the
 grim-visaged ministers of the law,
 came on the brier of Armand, the last \ Count de Laguy.
 |. Stretched in a coffin of the rudest
 material and construction, with his pale visage bare, displaying still in it's dis n II. Z-. |. ..