"The Admiral, our bravest soldier, our greatest leader, a Christian hero, slaughtered as he lay wounded! And how many others of our noblest and best! And you say orders have been sent, over all France, to repeat this horrible massacre?
"But enough, for the present.

I am forgetting my duties as hostess.
Mademoiselle de Valecourt, we are alike mourners--you for your noble father, I for my son, both of us for France and for our religion.

Yet I welcome you to Laville.

For you, brighter days may be in store.

My nephew is a gallant gentleman, and with him you may find a home far away from this unhappy country.