“No, madame.”
“At Paris, then?”
“Yes.”
“In this room?”
“No, madame; my father, Baron de Valois, great-nephew of the King Henry III., died of misery and hunger; and not even in this poor retreat, not in his own bed, poor as that was. No; my father died side by side with the suffering wretches in the Hôtel Dieu!”
The ladies uttered an exclamation of surprise and distress.
“From what you tell me, madame, you have experienced, it is evident, great misfortunes; above all, the death of your father.”
“Oh, if you heard all the story of my life, madame, you would see that my father’s death does not rank among its greatest misfortunes.”
“How, madame! You regard as a minor evil the death of your father?” said the elder lady, with a frown.
“Yes, madame; and in so doing I speak only as a pious daughter, for my father was thereby delivered from all the ills which he experienced in this life, and which continue to assail his family. I experience, in the midst of the grief which his death causes me, a certain joy in knowing that the descendant of kings is no longer obliged to beg his bread.”