There was, however, to be no doubt nor mistake about Beranger and

Eustacie de Ribaumont being man and wife. Every ceremony,

religious or domestic, that could render a marriage valid, was gone

through with real earnestness, although with infinite gaiety, on

the part of the court. Much depended on their union, and the

reconcilement of the two branches of the family had long been a

favourite scheme of King Henri II.

Both alike were descended from Anselme de Ribaumont, renowned in

the first Crusade, and from the brave Picard who had received the

pearls; but, in the miserable anarchy of Charles VI.'s reign, the

elder brother had been on the Burgundian side--like most of the

other nobles of Picardy--and had thus been brought into the English

camp, where, regarding Henry V. as lawfully appointed to the

succession, and much admiring him and his brother Nedford, he had

become an ardent supporter of the English claim. He had married an

English lady, and had received the grant if the castle of Leurre in

Normandy by way of compensation for his ancestral one of Ribaumont

in Picardy, which had been declared to be forfeited by his treason,

and seized by his brother.

This brother had always been an Armagnac, and had risen and thriven

with his party,--before the final peace between France and England

obliged the elder line to submit to Charles VII. Since that time

there had been a perpetual contention as to the restitution of

Chateau Ribaumont, a strife which under Louis XI. had become an

endless lawsuit; and in the days of dueling had occasioned a good

many insults and private encounters. The younger branch, or Black

Ribaumonts, had received a grant from Louis XI. of the lands of

Nid-de-Merle, belonging to an unfortunate Angevin noble, who had

fallen under the royal displeasure, and they had enjoyed court

favour up to the present generation, when Henri II., either from

opposition to his father, instinct for honesty, or both, had become

a warm friend to the gay and brilliant young Baron de Ribaumont,

head of the white or elder branch of the family.

The family contention seemed likely to wear out of its own accord,

for the Count de Ribaumont was an elderly and childless man, and

his brother, the Chevalier de Ribaumont, was, according to the

usual lot of French juniors, a bachelor, so that it was expected

that the whole inheritance would centre upon the elder family.

However, to the general surprise, the Chevalier late in life

married, and became the father of a son and daughter; but soon

after calculations were still more thrown out by the birth of a

little daughter in the old age of the Count.




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