Читать книгу Court Life From Within онлайн

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My grandmother, Queen Maria Cristina—the widow of Ferdinand VII. of Spain—was living in retirement in Normandy; she had lost her throne by marrying a Spanish officer of her escort; and she would tell me that she had never been so happy in Courts—never as happy as since she had been exiled with the man she loved. We went to visit her very often during our summers—a very clever old lady with a mind of her own—and I liked her the best of all my relatives.

Her story of her marriage with the officer (which she told me herself) made a deep impression on me. She had been on a journey through the mountains near Madrid, and the altitude had given her a bleeding at the nose. The ladies-in-waiting had given her their handkerchiefs, and she had used all her own, but the bleeding still continued, and she turned to the officer of her escort riding beside her carriage and asked him for his handkerchief. She did not know him; she had never spoken to him before; but she was in such distress that when he gave her his handkerchief she passed all the others to him without knowing what she was doing. He kissed them and put them in his breast. Then the ladies said to themselves, “Ah, the poor officer! Now he will be sent away to Cuba or the Philippines!” And they were sorry for him, because he was a very handsome man and very well liked.