Avril

Book Excerpt: ...d terrible government: at last a wild adventure out beyond the hills: Fornovo, Pavia. Their story is like the manuscripts, which beyond all other things they loved and collected, and which they were the last to possess or to have made; for while it contains in vivid pictures the noblest and the basest subjects: (Joan of Arc and also her betrayal, their country dominant and almost engulfed, Marigano, and then again Pavia) it always glitters with hard enamelled colours against skies of gold, and is drawn and sharp and clean as a thing can be. Such is the whole line, but look at this one Valois and you see all the qualities of his race toned by a permanent sadness down to a good and even temper, not hopeful but still delighting in beauty and possessed as no other Valois had been of charity. Less passionate and therefore much less eager and useful than most of his race, yet the taint of madness never showed in him, nor the corresponding evil of cruelty, nor the uncreative luxury of his immediate anc..