The Chevalier's Daughter

I WAS born in the year of grace 1660, at the Tour d'Antin, a château not very far from the little village of Sartilly in Normandy.

My father was the Chevalier d'Antin, a younger son of the Provençal family of De Fayrolles.

My mother was an English lady, daughter of a very ancient Devonshire family. Her name was Margaret Corbet, and the branch of that tribe to which she belonged had settled in Cornwall. I remember her as a very beautiful woman, with crispy waved blonde hair and a clear white skin more like alabaster than marble, and no tinge of color in her cheeks. I never saw any other person so pale as she, though her lips were always red. She had beautiful gray eyes, with long black lashes, and clearly defined arched eyebrows meeting above her nose, which gave a very serious and even solemn expression to her face. This expression accorded well with her character, which was grave and thoughtful and very deeply religious. I never saw any person whose faith was so much like sight as hers. Nevertheless, she could smile very sweetly, and even laugh merrily at times, but not very often. For a shadow hung over our house from my earliest years—the same shadow which darkened so many other French families at that time.

My father was a pleasant, lively, kindhearted gentleman, who worshipped his beautiful wife, and treated her as if she were indeed some fragile statue of alabaster which might be broken by rough usage.