Captain Paul by Alexandre Dumas

Listen to me and heed me! If this contract Thou holdst me to, abide thou the result! Answer to heaven for what I suffer! act! Prepare thyself for such calamity To fall on me, and those whose evil Have linked them with me, as no past mishap, However rare and marvellously Sad, Can parallel. Knowles The Hunchback.

At the moment that Paul went into the study, the marchioness appeared at the door of the drawing-room, followed by the notary, and the several persons who had been invited to be present at the signing of the contract. Notwithstanding the nature of the meeting, the marchioness had not considered it proper to lay aside, even for one evening, her mourning garments, and dressed in complete black, as she had been always during twenty years, she came into the room a few moments before the marquis. None of the persons present, not even his son, had seen the marquis for many years. Such attention was in those days paid to ancient forms, that the marchioness would not allow the marriage contract of her daughter to be signed, without the head of the family, although deprived of reason, being present; at the ceremony.