Without
being sad or melancholy, she seemed to have little natural enjoyment.
Reflectiveness, order, a sense of duty, the three chief expressions of
Flemish nature, were the characteristics of a face that seemed cold at
first sight, but to which the eye was recalled by a certain grace of
outline and a placid pride which seemed the pledges of domestic
happiness. By one of those freaks which physiologists have not yet
explained, she bore no likeness to either father or mother, but was
the living image of her maternal great-grandmother, a Conyncks of
Bruges, whose portrait, religiously preserved, bore witness to the
resemblance.
The supper gave some life to the ball. If the military disasters
forbade the delights of dancing, every one felt that they need not
exclude the pleasures of the table. The true patriots, however,
retired early; only the more indifferent remained, together with a few
card players and the intimate friends of the family. Little by little
the brilliantly lighted house, to which all the notabilities of Douai
had flocked, sank into silence, and by one o'clock in the morning the
great gallery was deserted, the lights were extinguished in one salon
after another, and the court-yard, lately so bustling and brilliant,
grew dark and gloomy,--prophetic image of the future that lay before
the family. When the Claes returned to their own appartement,
Balthazar gave his wife the letter he had received from the Polish
officer: Josephine returned it with a mournful gesture; she foresaw
the coming doom.
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