Page 318 - madame-bovary
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of annihilation?’
          Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motionless,
       looked at her, no longer even attempting to speak a single
       word, to make a gesture, so discouraged was he at this two-
       fold obstinacy of gossip and indifference.
         The everlasting guide went on—
         ‘Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse,
       Diane de Poitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess de Valenti-
       nois, born in 1499, died in 1566, and to the left, the one with
       the child is the Holy Virgin. Now turn to this side; here are
       the tombs of the Ambroise. They were both cardinals and
       archbishops of Rouen. That one was minister under Louis
       XII. He did a great deal for the cathedral. In his will he left
       thirty thousand gold crowns for the poor.’
         And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into
       a chapel full of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed
       a kind of block that certainly might once have been an ill-
       made statue.
         ‘Truly,’ he said with a groan, ‘it adorned the tomb of Rich-
       ard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy.
       It was the Calvinists, sir, who reduced it to this condition.
       They had buried it for spite in the earth, under the episcopal
       seat of Monsignor. See! this is the door by which Monsignor
       passes to his house. Let us pass on quickly to see the gar-
       goyle windows.’
          But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and
       seized  Emma’s  arm.  The  beadle  stood  dumfounded,  not
       able to understand this untimely munificence when there
       were still so many things for the stranger to see. So calling

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