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him from Adeline, and marry him herself. But she had failed, and he was on the point of marriage with a lady selected for him by his father. The letter concluded by the announcement, that she was about to retire to a convent where she should, in due time, take the veil.
"Monseiur de Givry assumed this to be a mere ebullition of shame and disappointment; but she kept her word. Mademoiselle de Lignerolles, some years later, married the Baron de Montjerac, from whom, said Monsieur de Venacour, I heard the story. By him she had two sons; but the constant apprehension that in the eldest will be fulfilled the mauvais destin entailed on the heirs of Givry, preys, it is said, on her mind and health, and is the cause of the expression of melancholy for which her fine countenance is so remarkable.
"Some centuries earlier, when power was irresponsible, Count Armand de Givry, a cruel and oppressive lord of the soil, who then inhabited Château Noir, had put to death one of his serfs, and turned his wife and two children out of doors in inclement weather, forbidding any of his tenants to shelter or assist them. The children were without clothes, and the three poor creatures perished from cold and starvation, but leaving behind them a terrible retribution, in the form of a curse pronounced by the wretched woman's lips in her dying agonies, which, strange to say, seems to have been pretty literally fulfilled.
"When they were nearly at the last extremity, some good Christian had had the courage to write a pathetic letter for her, which, however, it was necessary she should deliver herself, as no one else durst do it. She watched her opportunity; concealed herself in the park, and waylaid the Count as he returned one day from shooting. But instead of taking the letter, he set his dogs upon her, who would have torn her to pieces, but for the courageous interference of one of his followers.
"The curse ran, that never should the heir of Givry prosper till one of them took the letter; and that the last scion of the house should Renier le croix et se vouer à l'Enfer.
"Since that, it was said that, no eldest son or daughter of the house of Givry had lived and prospered, whilst the letter, in some way or other had been offered to every one of them; but as the cadets of the family lived and married and prospered like other people, they did not choose to believe in the story; at least, whatever their secret thoughts on the subject may have been, they publicly threw ridicule on the tradition, whenever it was alluded to; but Monsieur de Givry had sufficient faith in it to believe, that if Adeline had been the daughter of Robertine Collet, she would never have been visited by the ghost of Madeleine Dogue and her children."
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