Among the letters which arrived that day in Douai, was one for
Balthazar from Monsieur de Wierzchownia, then in Dresden and dying, he
wrote, from wounds received in one of the late engagements. He
remembered his promise, and desired to bequeath to his former host
several ideas on the subject of the Absolute, which had come to him
since the period of their meeting. The letter plunged Claes into a
reverie which apparently did honor to his patriotism; but his wife was
not misled by it. To her, this festal day brought a double mourning:
and the ball, during which the House of Claes shone with departing
lustre, was sombre and sad in spite of its magnificence, and the many
choice treasures gathered by the hands of six generations, which the
people of Douai now beheld for the last time.
Marguerite Claes, just sixteen, was the queen of the day, and on this
occasion her parents presented her to society. She attracted all eyes
by the extreme simplicity and candor of her air and manner, and
especially by the harmony of her form and countenance with the
characteristics of her home. She was the embodiment of the Flemish
girl whom the painters of that country loved to represent,--the head
perfectly rounded and full, chestnut hair parted in the middle and
laid smoothly on the brow, gray eyes with a mixture of green, handsome
arms, natural stoutness which did not detract from her beauty, a timid
air, and yet, on the high square brow an expression of firmness,
hidden at present under an apparent calmness and docility.
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