"
"Then," exclaimed Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, "then I renounce
the melancholy fortune of being, perchance, one day queen. Then I do
not subscribe to this law, which wants to guide my heart and limit
my will. What! shall the daughter of King Henry of England allow her
ways to be traced out by a miserable strip of parchment? and shall a
sheet of paper be able to intrude itself between me and my heart? I
am a royal princess; and why will they compel me to give my hand
only to a king's son? Ay, you are right; it is not my father that
has made this law, for my father's proud soul has never been willing
to submit to any such constraint of miserable etiquette. He has
loved where he pleased; and no Parliament--no law--has been able to
hinder him in this respect. I will be my father's own daughter. I
will not submit to this law!"
"Poor child!" said Catharine, "nevertheless you will be obliged to
learn well how to submit; for one is not a princess without paying
for it. No one asks whether our heart bleeds. They throw a purple
robe over it, and though it be reddened with our heart's blood, who
then sees and suspects it? You are yet so young, Elizabeth; you yet
hope so much!"
"I hope so much, because I have already suffered so much--my eyes
have been already made to shed so many tears. I have already in my
childhood had to take before-hand my share of the pain and sorrow of
life; now I will demand my share of life's pleasure and enjoyment
also.
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