And the district in which the Chateau de
Thorens stands possesses all these attractions for an English eye. Not
that any English people lived in the chateau; the De Thorens were
French, or rather Norman, to the backbone, descended from the great
duke, and proud as Lucifer of their birth. Pride and poverty are
generally supposed to go together; and though poor is perhaps hardly the
word to apply to people who could afford to live in the ease and luxury
which prevailed at Chateau de Thorens, yet for their rank the De Thorens
were not rich, and, consequently, after the fashion of many French
families, there were three generations of them now all living under the
ancestral roof.
First there was the old baroness, a picturesque old lady with very white
hair and piercing black eyes, with whom we have very little to do; then
there was her eldest son, the present baron, for his father had been
dead some years, and his beautiful young wife, whom he was so
passionately fond of that he was jealous--dreadfully jealous--of her
love for her baby, a little girl a few months old; and, lastly, there
were the baron's three younger brothers, who with Pere Yvon, the
chaplain, made up the family party.
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