"Did he respect the oath?"
"Just so long as he loved Marie. I need not tell you that I suffered from his inconstancy. I was inexpressibly grieved; but pride upheld me, and Louis never received a word or look of reproach for his faithlessness. Meanwhile your father offered his hand, and before I accepted it he was made acquainted with the history of my heart. I concealed nothing from him, so that he was at once the confidant of my past sorrows, and their comforter."
"Thank you, dear, dear mother," said Eugene, tenderly. "In the name of all your children, let me thank you for your noble candor."
"I married the Prince de Soissons, and here, in presence of his assembled ancestors, I swear that I have kept unstained the faith I pledged him at the marriage-altar. Let the world belie me as it will, Olympia Mancini has ever been a spotless wife. So true is this, that Louis, when he had abandoned Marie, and had tired of his queen, returned to me with vows of a love which he swore had been the only genuine passion of his life; and when, as my husband's loyal wife, I repulsed the advances of his sovereign, that sovereign became my bitterest enemy. Not even after he had consoled himself with the insipid charms of that poor, flimsy creature, La Valliere, did Louis relent; his animosity, because of some witticism of mine on the subject of his hysterical mistress, has pursued me throughout life; not only me, but every member of my family. For a mere epigram I was banished from Paris, and your father stripped of a lucrative and honorable office. We managed after a time to return to court, but my enemies were more powerful than I. Through the jealousy of the Marquise de Montespan I was a second time banished; but before we left, your father fought two duels with noblemen who had circulated the calumnies which the marquise had originated concerning me. The Duke de Noailles was wounded, and the Chevalier de Grand Mercy killed. Although the challenges had been honorably sent and accepted, the Count de Soissons was summoned before the king and publicly rebuked. Oh, let me speak no longer of the contumely we endured during those bitter days! My husband died, blessing me, and cursing the selfish monarch who had ruined us both."
Eugene clinched his hand. "I shall remember the curse," cried he, "and it shall be verified if God give me strength, mother!"
"Yes, avenge us if you can, Eugene, but, until the day of reckoning come, we must be politic and wary. Be silent and discreet as I was, when, on being allowed to return to Paris, I humbled myself for my dear children's sake, and not only swore to write no more epigrams, but went in person to sue to Madame de Montespan for pardon and protection!"
"Mother, is it possible! Far better had it been for us to die obscurely in some provincial village, than purchase our admission to court at the price of such humiliation as that!"
"No, no—I had sworn to be revenged upon my persecutors, and no plan of vendetta could I carry out in a provincial village. Do you remember what I told my sons on the day of our return to the Hotel de Soissons?"
"Ay, mother, that do I. You said: 'Bow your heads in ostensible humility, but never forget that the Bourbons have robbed you of your inheritance. Never forget that if you are poor, it is because on some idle pretext of a conspiracy that never could be proved, Louis XIV. sequestered the estates of the Counts de Soissons.' These were your words, and you see that I have not forgotten them. They are the steel on which I have sharpened the hate I feel for the King of France. And now that its edge is keen, why may I not lift it against the man who belied my mother, and murdered my father? Oh mother, mother, why will you force me to become a priest?"
"What else could you become?" asked Olympia. "The king is your guardian, and he it is that from your childhood has destined you for the church."