Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/110

100 Talmont rather bitterly. "And an evil friend he proved himself to thy dear father."

"Yet, mother, he must have been one of the most lovable of men."

"He was fascinating, I do not deny. Besides, he was the head of our house—or, at least, he became so on the death of his father. And thy father could never forget that his own orphaned childhood and youth had been protected by the parents of Louis, and surrounded with an atmosphere of love and tenderness. Often has he talked to me of his happy boyhood at Vernier, where he and his cousin Louis were like brothers, and Victoire was the cherished sister of both."

"Cousin Victoire! Ah, mother, I wish you would tell me more about her. I have always felt such a romantic interest in this beloved and beautiful sister of Cousin Louis, and yet, somehow, I know very little about her."

"There is little to know, child," said the mother, with perhaps a shade of embarrassment.

"One thing perplexes me," Clémence resumed thoughtfully. "I remember to have heard you say that for generations the first daughter of our house has been always called Victoire. Now, I am not Victoire. Nor do I bear your name, mother, nor that of my father's mother, Léonie."

"Child, ere thou wert born, the name Victoire had become a sound of woe to thy father's ear. Once, perhaps, it may have been too sweet;—I cannot tell. Brought up together as they were, and with the grateful, reverential love he bore to all the De Talmonts of Vernier, it would have been but natural if—Still, when all things changed—"

"Mother, how was it that they changed so sadly? What could Cousin Victoire have done to grieve my father? As for Cousin Louis, I know that he became a Jacobin, a bonnet rouge."

"Too true. Louis de Talmont—the child of a family of