The campaign being concluded with great honor and advantage on the part of the French, with the aid of the young and enterprising Castilian, both armies were compelled by the severity of the season to retire into winter quarters, and, with the chief part of the general officers and cavaliers, our noble adventurer sought the gaieties of Paris.
In order to celebrate his successes in the most popular way, the king sent an invitation to all his chief lords and barons to be present with their ladies at an appointed festival, along with their followers and companions-in-arms. First in the train of favorite nobles, magnificently arrayed in the honors he had won, appeared the Count d`Armagnac, accompanied by his lovely and only daughter, whose charms attracted every eye.
Count`s fair daughter
The joyous and splendid feast began, and was celebrated throughout many happy days with all the pleasures which love, and mirth, and music could afford; and still the star whose brightness eclipsed the beauties of the rest was the eye of the Count`s fair daughter. And as if to show that her taste was in no way inferior to her beauty and accomplishments, having glanced her eye through the ranks of youth and chivalry marshalled around her, it ever returned and rested on the fine features of the Spanish cavalier, the music of whose fame and virtues had already sounded sweet in her ears.
Too incautiously dwelling on these, the idea took her fancy captive, until she at last became so deeply interested in him, that whenever she passed the day without seeing or conversing with him she felt her existence a burden to her. Possessing no one in whom she could confide, in spite of all her struggles, her feelings, when in his presence, half betrayed the secret which preyed upon her heart: her eyes, her voice, and her very motions, when in his presence, or addressing him, all expressed far deeper and softer emotions than language dared to reveal.
Nor was the object of them either so cold or so inexperienced as not to be sensible of the impression he had made. But although he thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the numerous favors he had received from the Count, her father, were so great as to banish every idea of his own gratification in attaching her affections to himself. With this virtuous resolve, he affected to misunderstand the nature of her impassioned feelings, assuming an apparent calmness in his manners, and a coldness, which struck a pang to the unhappy lady`s heart.
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