'And now, Monseigneur,' concluded the Magistrate impressively, 'in the name of your Council, I herewith make acceptance of His Royal Highness, Hercule François of Valois, Duc d'Alençon et d'Anjou, prince of the House of France, defender and saviour of Cambray, to be the future husband and guardian of Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, our ward.'
Monseigneur the governor now drew his sword, held it upright and placed on it a hat and round his arm a mantle; then he took the ring, which had been borrowed from the city treasury for the occasion, and hung it on a projecting ornament of his sword-hilt. After which he said, with great solemnity:
'With these emblems I hereby entrust to His Royal Highness Hercule François de Valois, Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, prince of the House of France, the defender and saviour of Cambray in the hour of her gravest peril, the custody of my ward Jacqueline, Dame de Broyart et de Morchipont, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramèse, d'Espienne et de Wargny; and as I have been her faithful custodian in the past, so do I desire him to become her guardian and protector henceforth, taking charge of her worldly possessions and duly administering them faithfully and loyally.'
After which he lowered his sword, put down the hat and the mantle and presented the ring to Jacqueline, together with seven gloves, saying the while:
'Jacqueline, take these in exchange for the emblems of marital authority which I herewith hold for and on behalf of your future lord, and in the presence of all the people of Cambray here assembled, I demand that you do plight your troth to him and that you swear to be true and faithful unto him, to love and cherish him with your heart and your body, to obey and serve him loyally as his wife and helpmate, until death.'
Jacqueline, by all the canons of this quaint custom, should have held the ring and the gloves in her left hand and taken the solemn oath with her right raised above her head. Instead of which, Manuchet assures us that she laid down the ring and the gloves upon the chair nearest to her, and clasped her two hands together as if in prayer. She raised her small head and looked out upon the sky—there where the setting sun hid its glory behind a filmy veil of rose-tinted clouds.
'In the name of the living God who made me,' she said, with solemn and earnest fervour, 'I do hereby plight my troth to my lord, the noble and puissant hero who defended Cambray in the hour of her gravest peril, who saved her from destruction and taught her citizens how to conquer and to endure, and I swear upon my life and upon my every hope of salvation that I will be true and faithful unto him, that I will love and cherish him with my heart and with my body and will serve him loyally and unswervingly now and alway until our souls meet in the presence of God.'
A great hush had fallen on the vast courtyard while Jacqueline de Broyart made her profession of faith; nor did a sound mar the perfect stillness which lay over the heavy-laden city. This was a time of great silences—silence of sorrow, of anxiety and pain. The women frankly gave way to tears; but they were tears that fell soundlessly from hollow eyes. The men did not weep—they just set their teeth, and culled in that one woman's fervour fresh power for their own endurance.
The city dignitaries crowded round Jacqueline, kissing and pressing her hands. Monseigneur the governor was looking greatly relieved. From the tower of Notre Dame, the bells set forth a joyous peal—the first that had been heard for many months. And that peal was presently taken up, first by one church tower and then another, from St. Waast to St. Martin, Ste. Croix to St. Géry. The happy sound echoed and reverberated along the city walls, broke with its insidious melody the gloomy silence which had lain over the streets like a pall.
Far away in the west the sun was slowly sinking in a haze of translucent crimson, and tipped every church spire, every bastion and redoubt with rose and orange and gold. For the space of a few more minutes the citadel with its breathless and fervid crowd, with its waving banners and grey walls, was suffused as with a flush of life and hope. Then the shadows lengthened—longer and longer they grew, deeper and more dense, like great, drab arms that enfold and conceal and smother. Slowly the crimson glow faded out of the sky.