Poor things! they were in sad
case, though how Cecile could break her heart over a fellow who had
used her so vilely, I could never understand. He repented, they
said. So much the better for him; but a pretty life he would have
led her if he had recovered. Why, what is there for a French noble
to do but to fight, dance attendance on the King, and be dissipated?
There is no House of Lords, no Quarter-Sessions, no way of being
useful; and if he tried to improve his peasantry he is a dangerous
man, and they send him a lettre de cachet. He has leave to do
nothing but oppress the poor wretches, and that he is fairly obliged
to do, so heavy are his expenses at Court. The King may pension him,
but the pension is all wrung out of the poor in another shape!
Heaven knows our English nobles are far from what they might be, but
they have not the stumbling-blocks in their way that the French have
under their old King, who was a little lad then, and might have been
led to better things if his mother had had less pride and more good
sense.
Gaspard de Nidemerle does the best he can. He is a really good man,
I do believe, but he has been chiefly with the army, or on his own
estate. And he can effect little good, hampered as he is on all
sides.
In those days, Clement Darpent was sad enough at heart, but he did
not quite despair of his country, though things were getting worse
and worse. Mademoiselle had saved the Prince and his crew, besotted
as she was upon them; and finely they requited Paris, which had
sheltered them.
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