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30 antipodes instead of Paris, they could not have listened with less interest to my tidings. I soon took pity upon them and on myself, and rode off; but before I had crossed the aforesaid green glade, I heard their voices and laughter rising gaily as before. Very impertinent!"

"I hear," said the Duc de Mercœur, "that they are extremely poor."

"Most imprudently so," replied De Joinville; "what a neglect of the future in them to marry!"

"Were there not some unusual circumstances connected with the marriage?" asked Francesca.

"Why, the chevalier, finding the parents on both sides inexorable, ran off with the fair lady; and really that was a degree of violent exertion to which now-a-days we are little accustomed. Both in the desperation before, and the love afterwards, they are at least a hundred years behind their age."

"I propose that they should be maintained," said Mercœur, "at the public expense, for setting so good an example."

"They certainly," continued De Joinville, "cannot be maintained at their own. Ah! the Roman emperor, who desired that his slavery might be alleviated by his fetters being made of