'Tis safe to
say the Duchess was most concerned as to his fortune, which was
enormous. He was a trifle old, however, for Mademoiselle d'Azay, he
being near sixty-five, and she but eighteen."
"Gracious Heaven!" ejaculated Calvert. "What a cruel wrong to so young a
creature! What a marriage!"
"Upon my word, I believe only the recital of wrong has power to stir
that cold American blood of thine," said Beaufort, laughing again. "But
do not excite yourself too much. After all 'twas scarcely a marriage,
for, within an hour after the ceremony, the elderly bridegroom was alone
in his travelling coach on his way to Madrid, sent thither at the
instant and urgent command of the King on important private business
connected with the Family Compact. From that journey he never returned
alive, being attacked with a fatal fluxion of the lungs at a great
public banquet given in his honor by Count Florida Blanca. His body was
brought back to France, and his soi-disant widow mourned him decorously
for a year. Since then she has been the gayest, as she is the fairest,
creature in the great world of Paris.
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