Читать книгу Человек, который смеется / The Man Who Laughs. Уровень 4 - Виктор Мари Гюго, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 14

There was, in those days, an old tradition. That tradition was Lord Clancharlie. He was one of the peers of England – few in number – who accepted the republic. He had retired into Switzerland, and dwelt in a sort of lofty ruin on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. It was the sketch of a madman. Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, some laughed out aloud, others could not restrain their anger. Lord Clancharlie had never had any brains. Everyone agreed on that point.

Lord Clancharlie. was walking, his hands behind him, along the shores of the Lake of Geneva. In London they sometimes spoke of the exile. He was accused before the tribunal of public opinion. They pleaded for and against him.

But Lord Clancharlie had not always been old and proscribed. He had had his phase of youth and passion. He had a natural child, a son. This son was born in England in the last days of the republic, just as his father was going into exile. Hence he had never seen his father. This bastard of Lord Clancharlie had grown up at the court of Charles II. Then he prospered under James II.

The king is dead. Long live the king! It was on the accession of the Duke of York that he obtained permission to call himself Lord David Dirry-Moir, from an estate which his mother had left him.

Lord David was head of the king’s granary. He had the management of the race-horses. He was a brave lord, handsome, generous, and majestic in look and in manner. His person was like his quality. He was tall in stature as well as high in birth.

The king had no objection to raise Lord David Dirry-Moir to the Upper House. He wanted to transform Lord David Dirry-Moir, lord by courtesy, into a lord by right.

The opportunity occurred.

One day it was announced that several things had happened to the old exile, Lord Clancharlie, the most important of which was that he was dead. People related what they knew, or what they thought they knew, of the last years of Lord Clancharlie. What they said was probably a legend. King James declared, one fine morning, Lord David Dirry-Moir sole and positive heir, and by his royal pleasure, of Lord Clancharlie, his natural father. So the king instituted Lord David Dirry-Moir in the titles, rights, and prerogatives of the late Lord Clancharlie, on the sole condition that Lord David should wed, when she attained a marriageable age, a girl who was, at that time, a mere infant a few months old, and whom the king had, in her cradle, created a duchess. This little infant was called the Duchess Josiana.

It was to this little duchess that the king granted the peerage of Clancharlie. Besides the Clancharlie inheritance, Lady Josiana had her own fortune. She possessed great wealth, much of which was derived from Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans, the lady of highest rank in France after the queen.

Lord David prospered under Charles and James, and he prospered under William. A poet, like everyone else; a good servant of the state, a good servant to the prince; assiduous at feasts, at galas, at ladies’ receptions, at ceremonies, and in battle; servile in a gentlemanlike way; very haughty; inclined to integrity; obsequious or arrogant, as occasion required; frank and sincere on first acquaintance; careless before a sword; always ready to risk his life on a sign from his Majesty with heroism and complacency; a man of courtesy and etiquette; a courtier on the surface, a paladin below; quite young at forty-five. Lord David sang French songs, loved eloquence and fine language[25].