A mail-clad warrior, terrible and powerful, whose will may not be resisted, whose gold glitters in her father's eyes, or whose chains clank in his ears, has seen and coveted her for his own, and her simple dream must be dispersed in air to make way for waking terrors.

The unfortunate father trembles while he feebly resists, he listens to the duke's proposal, he has yet a few words of entreaty for his child: he dares not tell her what her fate must be, he hopes that time and new adventures will efface Arlette from the mind of her dangerous lover; but, again, he is urged, heaps of gold shine before him, how shall he turn from their tempting lustre?
Is there not in yonder tower an _oubliette_ that yawns for the disobedient vassal?
He appeals to Arlette, she has no reply but tears; men at arms appear in the night, they knock at the skinner's door and demand his daughter, they promise fair in the name of their master; they mount her on a steed before the gentlest of their band, his horse's hoofs clatter along the rocky way--the father hears the sobs of his child for a little space, and his heart sinks,--he hides his eyes with his clenched hand, but suddenly he starts up--his floor is strewn with glittering pieces--he stoops down and counts them, and Arlette's sorrows are forgotten.
Arlette returns no more to her father's cottage.

She remains in a turret of the castle, but not as a handmaiden of the duchess; her existence is not supposed to be known, though the childless wife of Duke Robert weeps in secret, over her wrongs.
All this is pure fancy, and may have no foundation in reality.
"Look here upon this picture and on that." Perhaps Arlette did not repine at her fate; she might have been ambitious and worldly, vain and presuming, have possessed cunning and resolve, and have used every artifice to secure her triumph.

Some of the stories extant of her would seem to prove this, and some to exculpate her from blame, inasmuch as she believed herself to have fulfilled a sacred duty in conforming to her master's will.

When she told her lover that she had dreamt "a tree sprang from her bosom which overshadowed all Normandy," there was more evidence of policy than simplicity in the communication which was so well calculated to raise the hopes of a great man without an heir; and perhaps it was she herself who dictated the saying of the _sage femme_ at her son's birth, who, having placed him _on straw_ by her side, and observing that the robust infant grasped in his tiny hands as much as he could hold, cried out--"_Par Dieu_! this child begins early to grasp and make all his own!" At all events the little hero was "honourably brought up," and treated as if legitimate.
Another version of the story of Arlette is given by an ancient chronicler, (Benoit de St Maur,) which is certainly a sufficient contrast to the view I ventured to take of the affair, probably with but little correctness, considering the manners of the period.
It appears that the scruples of the fair daughter of _Vertpres_, the skinner, for his name seems to be known, were dispersed by the advice and injunction of her uncle, a holy personage, of _singular_ piety, who dwelt in a hermitage in the wood of Gouffern.