Their mirth was extinguished, for none could wholly free their minds
from the superstition of their age. The good Doctor sat down, and
wiped his moistened eye-glasses. He would tell no more to-night, he
said. He had really gone too far, making jest of earnest and
earnest of jest, and begged pardon of Jumonville for complying with
his humor.
The young soldier laughed merrily. "If fame, immortality, and true
love are to be mine, what care I for death? It will be worth giving
up life for, to have the tears of the maids and matrons of New
France to lament your fate. What could the most ambitious soldier
desire more?"
The words of Jumonville struck a kindred chord in the bosom of
Hortense de Beauharnais. They were stamped upon her heart forever.
A few years after this prediction, Jumonville de Villiers lay slain
under a flag of truce on the bank of the Monongahela, and of all the
maids and matrons of New France who wept over his fate, none shed
more and bitterer tears than his fair betrothed bride, Hortense de
Beauharnais.
The prediction of the Sieur Gauthier was repeated and retold as a
strangely true tale; it passed into the traditions of the people,
and lingered in their memory generations after the festival of
Belmont was utterly forgotten.
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