Strongly illumined by a last ray of the setting sun, these silent men composed a picture of aged melancholy fertile in contrasts.

The sombre and solemn chamber, where nothing had been changed in twenty-five years, made a frame for this poetic canvas, full of extinguished passions, saddened by death, tinctured by religion.
"The Marechal d'Ancre has been killed on the Pont du Louvre by order of the king, and--O God!" "Go on!" cried the duke.
"Monsieur le Duc de Nivron--" "Well ?" "Is dead!" The duke dropped his head upon his breast with a great sigh, but was silent.

At those words, at that sigh, the three old men looked at each other.

It seemed to them as though the illustrious and opulent house of Herouville was disappearing before their eyes like a sinking ship.
"The Master above," said the duke, casting a terrible glance at the heavens, "is ungrateful to me.

He forgets the great deeds I have performed for his holy cause." "God has avenged himself!" said the priest, in a solemn voice.
"Put that man in the dungeon!" cried the duke.
"You can silence me far more easily than you can your conscience." The duke sank back in thought.
"My house to perish! My name to be extinct! I will marry! I will have a son!" he said, after a long pause.
Though the expression of despair on the duke's face was truly awful, the bonesetter could not repress a smile.