CHAPTER XXXI.
THE STORY OF EULALIE.
My father, Marie-Dominique Louis de Mazancy, Sieur de St. Valliere, was a gentleman of Lower Dauphiny, and the lineal descendant of that unfortunate M. de Mazancy, whom M. le Terrail slew in presence of Henry IV., before the windows of the gallery of the Louvre, and whose death so deeply affected that monarch, who, as history records, loved and respected him beyond all his courtiers. My father was chef de bataillon of the Régiment de Dauphiné, of the French line, and having served in all the wars of the late king's reign, was a chevalier of St. Louis and all the royal orders. He was the bosom friend and brother soldier of the brave Comte de Lusignan, colonel of the Régiment de Flandre (which was entirely composed of persons of the second order of nobility), whose venerable head became the foot-ball of a Parisian mob.
I was named Marie Domenica, after my father, and Eulalie, after my poor mother, Mademoiselle de Losme, sister of the unfortunate major of the terrible Bastille. M. le Major de Losme was a brave and worthy officer, who, by his extreme gentleness and compassion, had done much to alleviate the sorrows of the unhappy prisoners who pined in the towers and dungeons of that dreaded fortress; yet this availed him nothing, when it fell before the cannon and beneath the execrations of the people. He perished with the Governor, M. de Launay, in the hands of a frenzied multitude in the Place de la Grève.
I was educated at a little distance from Paris in an Ursuline convent, situated among the vine-covered hills of Mont l'Hery; and while there enjoyed the friendship of Mademoiselle de Karalio, one of the most celebrated ladies in France, authoress of a history of Elizabeth of England, and many other works—a lady whose pen vigorously defended the demolition of the Bastille, and exculpated the miserable M. Danry, who was incarcerated there for life for having offended——
I interrupted her,
"The king, of course?"—
"No; for something then esteemed much more serious; his royal father's mistress."
"Madame de Pompadour?"
"Yes."
"And a life was required to expiate this!"