Note 242 — Chapter VIII

At this precise moment a new and grave misfortune tended to augment the eagerness of the Maréchal d'Ancre to carry out his project. His daughter, through whose medium he had looked to form an alliance with some powerful family, and thus to fortify his own position, was taken dangerously ill, and in a few days breathed her last. His anguish was ungovernable; and while his wife wept in silence beside the body of her dead child, he, on the contrary, abandoned himself to the most vehement exclamations, strangely mingling his expressions of fear for his future fate with regret for the loss which he had thus sustained. "Signore," he replied vehemently to Bassompierre, who vainly attempted to console him, "I am lost; Signore, I am ruined; Signore, I am miserable. I regret my daughter, and shall do so while I live; but I could support this affliction did I not see before me the utter ruin of myself, my wife, my son, and my whole house, in the obstinacy of Leonora. Were you not aware of my whole history I should perhaps be less frank, but you know that when I arrived in France, far from owning a single sou, my debts amounted to eight hundred crowns; now we possess more than a million in money, with landed property and houses in France, three hundred thousand crowns at Florence, and a similar sum in Rome. I do not speak of the fortune accumulated by my wife; but surely we may be satisfied to exist for the remainder of our lives upon the proceeds of our past favour. Had you not been well informed as to my previous life I might seek to disguise it from you, but you cannot have forgotten that you saw me at Florence steeped in debauchery, frequently in prison, more than once in exile, generally without resources, and continually lost in disorder and excess. Here, on the contrary, I have acquired alike honour, wealth, and favour, and I would fain disappoint my enemies by leaving the country without disgrace; but the Maréchale is impracticable; and were it not that I should be guilty of ingratitude in separating my fortunes from those of a woman to whom I owe all that I possess, I would forthwith leave the country and secure my own safety and that of my son." [242]