Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/23

 Blanchefleure was as much at home with these distinguished spirits, as a butterfly which one shelters in a hot house from the cold of winter. The death sentence transforms commonplace people into sad figures of tragedy. But these people—the most finely constructed the world has ever seen—played it through like a comedy. They met death defiant and brave, with head erect—en rococo—just as they had lived.

And now about my great grandfather, Primus Thaller! Since that first of May he had not been able to forget little Blanchefleure, with the flower face. He thought at first that it was just gratitude on his part, and carried her picture about as a monk would the likeness of the Virgin. The great Revolution swept away, along with impertinent, merry Versailles, and the old nobility, every vestige of the plan for the dairy at La Réole. But the little Marquise remembered about honest Primus Thaller who nearly lost his life because of the ancient decree. He became an officer, a captain upon the spot. He was assigned to a regiment, all whose distinguished leaders had been killed, and in their places saloon keepers, errand boys, and street urchins had been put; in fact all the distinguished do-nothings who had been elevated by the Revolution. He did not feel very comfortable, but he took the money and that pleased him. But he kept thinking all the time: “I wonder what has become of little Blanchefleure?”

Then he heard that the Marquis had been beheaded, and that the little widow was in the dungeon of the Temple awaiting, perhaps, a similar end. Ah!—at