Germains, in France. Then came the 'sweet bindwith,'
the royal maid, the Prince Sobieski's beauteous daughter, to give her
nuptial hand to the only son of the exiled king; and so, most
remarkably, was united the equally extraordinary destinies of the
regal race of the heroic John Sobieski with that of our anointed
warrior, Robert Bruce, in the person of his princely descendant,
James Fitz-James, in diplomatic parlance styled the Chevalier de St.
George; and from that blended blood, and by family connection, sprung
from the same branching tree, I feel sanguinely confident that the
claim I have set up for myself and gentle nephew, whose kindred
spirit the warm heart of the Count Sobieski has already acknowledged,
will not be deemed an old man's dream."
A short silence ensued.
Thaddeus had been riveted with an almost breathless attention to this
part of the narrative, some of its public circumstances having found
a dim recollection in his mind; but his apprehensive mother had
always turned him aside from any line in his historical reading which
might particularly engage his ever-wakeful interest to the chivalrous
nation of his own never-avowed parentage, and from which a father's
desertion had expatriated him even before his birth. But now, how
ample had been the atonement, the restitution, to this forsaken son?
Not being able to express any of the kindled feelings this narration
had suggested, added to the daily increasing claims the blessing of
such an atonement were hourly making on his best affections, he could
only grasp the hand of the venerated speaker with a fervent pressure
when he ceased.
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