And now we have only to add, that a week later Isabelle and de Sigognac
were united in marriage in the chapel at Vallombreuse, which was
brilliantly lighted, and filled with fragrance from the profusion of
flowers that converted it into a very bower. The music was heavenly, the
fair bride adorably beautiful, with her long white veil floating about
her, and the Baron de Sigognac radiant with happiness. The Marquis de
Bruyeres was one of his witnesses, and a most brilliant and aristocratic
assemblage "assisted" at this notable wedding in high life. No one, who
had not been previously informed of it, could ever have suspected
that the lovely bride--at once so noble and modest, so dignified and
graceful, so gentle and refined, yet with as lofty a bearing as a
princess of the blood royal--had only a short time before been one of a
band of strolling players, nightly fulfilling her duties as an actress.
While de Sigognac, governor of a province, captain of mousquetaires,
superbly dressed, dignified, stately and affable, the very beau-ideal
of a distinguished young nobleman, had nothing about him to recall
the poor, shabby, disconsolate youth, almost starving in his dreary,
half-ruined chateau, whose misery was described at the beginning of this
tale.
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