, she might not have controlled that steadier will, but there
would have been two Grand Monarques instead of one; had she accepted
Charles II. of England, she might have only increased his despotic
tendencies, but she would easily have disposed of the Duchess of
Portsmouth; had she won Ferdinand III., Germany might have suffered less
by the Peace of Westphalia; had she chosen Alphonso Henry, the House of
Braganza would again have been upheld by a woman's hand. But she did none
of these things, and her only epitaph is that dreary might-have-been.
Nay, not the only one,--for one visible record of her, at least, the soil
of France cherishes among its chiefest treasures. When the Paris
butterflies flutter for a summer day to the decaying watering-place of
Dieppe, some American wanderer, who flutters with them, may cast perchance
a longing eye to where the hamlet of Eu stands amid its verdant meadows,
two miles away, still lovely as when the Archbishop Laurent chose it out
of all the world for his "place of eternal rest," six centuries ago. But
it is not for its memories of priestly tombs and miracles that the summer
visitor seeks it now, nor because the _savant_ loves its ancient sea-
margin or its Roman remains; nor is it because the little Bresle winds
gracefully through its soft bed, beneath forests green in the sunshine,
glorious in the gloom; it is not for the memories of Rollo and William the
Conqueror, which fill with visionary shapes, grander than the living, the
corridors of its half-desolate chateau.
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