I'd show her making a sensation by her horsemanship and
beauty. Then I'd take her through the years, till the dazzling
Florentine came to trouble her peace, the adored, yet disappointed
divinity who cried, "If my mother had brought me to France instead of
marrying me to Castiglione, an Italian, not a Spaniard, would have
shared the throne with Napoleon, and there would have been no
Franco-Prussian War!"
What a brilliant background Compiegne of those days would make for that
pair, the beautiful young Empress and the more beautiful
Countess!--Compiegne when the palace was crowded with the flower of
Europe, when great princes and brave soldiers romped through children's
games with lovely ladies, if rain spoiled the hunting; when Highland
nobles brought their pipers, and everyone danced the wildest reels, if
there were time to spare from private theatricals and _tableaux
vivants_! I think I would make my story end, though, not there, but far
away; the Castiglione lying dead, with youth and beauty gone, dressed by
her last request in a certain gown she had worn on a certain night at
Compiegne, never to be forgotten.
When at last we did go out to walk and see the wonderful timbered houses
and the blown-up bridges, what I had expected to happen did happen:
Julian O'Farrell contrived to separate me from the others.
"Haven't I been clever?" he asked, with his smile of a naughty child.
"So far as I know of you," I answered, "you are always clever.
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