Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

36
some emotion, or conceal some tale his friend could ill brook to hear—the reckless
damoiseau galloped wildly forward.
But swift as was his courser's pace, that of his companion's enormous charger was swifter.
"Boy," said the elder, "thou hast ill tidings. I know it by thy glance. Speak: shall he who
hath bearded grim Death in a thousand fields shame to face truth from a friend? Speak, in
the name of heaven and good Saint Botibol. Romane de Clos-Vougeot will bear your
tidings like a man!"
"Fatima is well," answered Philibert once again; "she hath had no measles: she lives and is
still fair."
"Fair, ay, peerless fair; but what more, Philibert? Not false? By Saint Botibol, say not
false," groaned the elder warrior.
"A month syne," Philibert replied, "she married the Baron de Barbazure."
With that scream which is so terrible in a strong man in agony, the brave knight Romane de
Clos-Vougeot sank back at the words, and fell from his charger to the ground, a lifeless
mass of steel.
II.
Like many another fabric of feudal war and splendor, the once vast and magnificent Castle
of Barbazure is now a moss-grown ruin. The traveller of the present day, who wanders by
the banks of the silvery Loire, and climbs the steep on which the magnificent edifice stood,
can scarcely trace, among the shattered masses of ivy-covered masonry which lie among
the lonely crags, even the skeleton of the proud and majestic palace stronghold of the
Barons of Barbazure.
In the days of our tale its turrets and pinnacles rose as stately, and seemed (to the pride of
sinful man!) as strong as the eternal rocks on which they stood. The three mullets on a gules
wavy reversed, surmounted by the sinople couchant Or; the well-known cognizance of the
house, blazed in gorgeous heraldry on a hundred banners, surmounting as many towers.
The long lines of battlemented walls spread down the mountain to the Loire, and were
defended by thousands of steel-clad serving-men. Four hundred knights and six times as
many archers fought round the banner of Barbazure at Bouvines, Malplaquet, and
Azincour. For his services at Fontenoy against the English, the heroic Charles Martel
appointed the fourteenth Baron Hereditary Grand Bootjack of the kingdom of France; and
for wealth, and for splendor, and for skill and fame in war, Raoul, the twenty-eighth Baron,
was in no-wise inferior to his noble ancestors.