The first day out it seemed as if the voyage was to be a calm and safe one. When the novelty of gazing at the blue waters had worn off, the princess and her ladies took their embroidery frames and passed their time with their needles, laughing and chattering together. As soon as she had ceased to be overcome, the Lady Clotilde joined them. When the conversation turned to the perils of the ocean, she declared that she, for one, did not fear them, being a true representative of a family that knew no fear. She related a number of incidents when, according to her story, she had stood within the very jaws of death without the slightest thrill of fear.
Le Glorieux, who was sitting at the feet of his young mistress playing with the silk-and-gold threads of her embroidery, remarked, "That is because you spend so much of your time in pious reading, Cousin Clotilde. Did you bring with you the silver book about the saints?"
The princess tried to frown at him, but he saw the twinkle of a smile under her long, dark lashes.
But these were the last peaceful hours they spent for many days. In the darkness of the night the storm demon came forth, shrieking in the wind, and beating the waves into fury, holding the ships a trembling instant on the crest of the wave, then dashing them into the trough of the sea, sending some of them down to destruction.
Half dressed, the passengers of the Lady Marguerite's ship rushed out into the salon. They forgot that they were the great ones of the earth and that to them had been given the honor of escorting a princess to her bridegroom. They knelt on the floor, and moaned, and told their beads, just as so many peasants might have done.
The Lady Marguerite was calm, though very pale; close beside her stood Le Glorieux, self-possessed, but no longer jesting. "If the good God is ready to take me now, I could not have a happier death than to go down with my little princess," said he.
Cunegunda held her lady's hand, which, forgetting her own danger, she stroked, with words of endearment, while Brutus crept to her feet, and putting his head on her lap, looked into the face of his mistress as if to say that he, too, was ready to die with her.
The storm did not abate with the approach of day, nor did it cease the next day, nor for many days, and it seemed as if their ship must be rent to pieces by the combined forces of wind and wave.
Once Le Glorieux seized Cunegunda by the shoulders and bawled into her ears, "You are always crying; cry now, when there is some reason for it." But strange to say, Cunegunda shed no tears, though the Lady Clotilde shrieked and wept continuously, seeming to forget all the traditions of her family.
When learning that a number of the vessels had been lost, and that none could tell at what moment her own ship would go down, Marguerite put certain jewels on her fingers, neck, and arms that had long been in the possession of the house of Hapsburg. "The body of a princess is not different from that of a peasant," she said to her faithful attendants, "and it may be that the fury of the storm will spare me some of these jewels; so that if I am washed ashore I shall be identified." Then she smiled to keep up the courage of the others and said, "It seems that with all the planning of nations I am never to be a wife."