Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/153

 tor Hugo's play, in countless poems and stories and novels, she has erred exhaustively for our entertainment. The image of an attractive young woman poisoning her supper guests is one which the world will not lightly let go.

And what is offered in return? Only the dull statements of people who chanced to know the lady, and who considered her a model wife and duchess, a little over-anxious about the education of her numerous children, but kind to the poor, generous to artists, and pitiful to Jews. "She is graceful, modest, lovable, decorous and devout," wrote Johannes Lucas from Rome to Ercole, the old Duke of Ferrara. "She is beautiful and good, gentle and amiable," echoed the Chevalier Bayard years later. Were we less avid for thrills, we might like to think of this young creature, snatched at twenty-one from the maelstrom of Rome, where she had