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.

That the Baron Raoul levied toll upon the river and mail upon the shore; that he now and then ransomed a burgher, plundered a neighbor, or drew the fangs of a Jew; that he burned an enemy’s castle with the wife and children within; — these were points for which the country knew and respected the stout Baron. When he returned from victory, he was sure to endow the Church with a part of his spoil, so that when he went forth to battle he was always accompanied by her blessing. Thus lived the Baron Raoul, the pride of the country in which he dwelt, an ornament to the Court, the Church, and his neighbors.

But in the midst of all his power and splendor there was a domestic grief which deeply afflicted the princely Barbazure. His lovely ladies died one after the other. No sooner was he married than he was a widower; in the course of eighteen years no less than nine bereavements had befallen the chieftain. So true it is, that if fortune is a parasite, grief is a republican, and visits the hall of the great and wealthy as it does the humbler tenements of the poor.

***

“Leave off deploring thy faithless, gad-about lover,” said the Lady of Chacabacque to her daughter, the lovely Fatima, “and think how the noble Barbazure loves thee! Of all the damsels at the ball last night, he had eyes for thee and thy cousin only.”

“I am sure my cousin hath no good looks to be proud of!” the admirable Fatima exclaimed, bridling up. “Not that I care for my Lord of Barbazure’s looks. MY heart, dearest mother, is with him who is far away!”

“He danced with thee four galliards, nine quadrilles, and twenty-three corantoes, I think, child,” the mother said, eluding her daughter’s remark.

“Twenty-five,” said lovely Fatima, casting her beautiful eyes to the ground. “Heigh-ho! but Romane danced them very well!”

“He had not the court air,” the mother suggested.

“I don’t wish to deny the beauty of the Lord of Burbazure’s dancing, mamma,” Fatima replied. “For a short, lusty man, ’tis wondrous how active he is; and in dignity the King............