"Pardon me, my lord, on the contrary, they greatly interest me; so pray go on."
"Now, the Count de Saulay--alive at that time--was an impetuous partisan of the Guises, and a very intimate friend of the Duke of Mayence; the count had three children--two sons, who fought in the ranks of the army of the League, and a daughter who was maid of honour to the Duchess of Montpensier, the sister of the Duke of Mayence. The siege of Paris lasted a long time, it was even abandoned, then resumed by Henry IV, who eventually bought for ready money a city which he despaired of seizing, and which the Duc de Brissac, Governor of the Bastille for the league, sold him. Many of the officers serving under the Duke de Mendoza, Commander of the Spanish troops, and that general himself, had their families with them. In short, the younger son of my ancestor fell in love with one of the Spanish general's nieces, asked her in marriage, and obtained her hand; while his sister consented, by the persuasion of the Duchess of Montpensier, to give hers to one of the general's aides-de-camp. The artificial and politic duchess, thought by these alliances to keep the French nobility aloof from him whom she called, the Béarnais and the Huguenot, and retard his triumph if she did not render it impossible. As usually happens in such cases, her calculations proved to be false. The king re-conquered his kingdom, and those gentlemen most compromised in the troubles of the league, found themselves compelled to follow the Spaniards on their retreat, and leave France with them. My ancestor easily obtained his pardon of the king, who even deigned at a later date to give him an important command, and take his elder son into his service; but the younger, in spite of the entreaties and injunction of his father, never consented to return to France, and settled permanently in Spain. Still, though separated, the two branches of the family continued to maintain relations, and to intermarry. My grandfather married during the emigration a daughter of the Spanish branch: it is now my turn to contract a similar alliance. You see, my dear sir, that all this is very prosaic, and not at all interesting."
"Then you are willing, with your eyes shut as it were, to marry a person you have never seen, and whom you do not even know?"