[Libweb-devel] apparently rich,

[Mendicino U. <en...@sa...>]

O cunning to show his despair he eyed them silently, and cursed them;
but the old tree was left still, and that was something,--company and
music. A day or two after this barbarous counterplot, Cesarini was
walking in the gardens towards the latter part of the afternoon (just
when in the short days the darkness begins to steal apace over the chill
and western sun), when he was accosted by a fellow-captive, who had
often before sought his acquaintance; for they try to have
friends,--those poor people! Even _we_ do the same; though _we_ say we
are _not_ mad! This man had been a warrior, had served with Napoleon,
had received honours and ribbons,--might, for aught we know, have
dreamed of being a marshal! But the demon smote him in the hour of his
pride. It was his disease to fancy himself a monarch. He believed, for
he forgot chronology, that he was at once the Iron Mask, and the true
sovereign of France and Navarre, confined in state by the usurpers of
his crown. On other points he was generally sane; a tall, strong man,
with fierce features, and stern lines, wherein could be read many a
bloody tale of violence and wrong, of lawless passions, of terrible
excesses, to which madness might be at once the consummation and the
curse. This man had taken a fancy to Cesarini; and, in some hour