There was, however, to be no doubt nor mistake about Beranger and
Eustacie de Ribaumont being man and wife. Every ceremony,
religious or domestic, that could render a marriage valid, was gone
through with real earnestness, although with infinite gaiety, on
the part of the court. Much depended on their union, and the
reconcilement of the two branches of the family had long been a
favourite scheme of King Henri II.
Both alike were descended from Anselme de Ribaumont, renowned in
the first Crusade, and from the brave Picard who had received the
pearls; but, in the miserable anarchy of Charles VI.'s reign, the
elder brother had been on the Burgundian side--like most of the
other nobles of Picardy--and had thus been brought into the English
camp, where, regarding Henry V. as lawfully appointed to the
succession, and much admiring him and his brother Nedford, he had
become an ardent supporter of the English claim. He had married an
English lady, and had received the grant if the castle of Leurre in
Normandy by way of compensation for his ancestral one of Ribaumont
in Picardy, which had been declared to be forfeited by his treason,
and seized by his brother.
This brother had always been an Armagnac, and had risen and thriven
with his party,--before the final peace between France and England
obliged the elder line to submit to Charles VII. Since that time
there had been a perpetual contention as to the restitution of
Chateau Ribaumont, a strife which under Louis XI. had become an
endless lawsuit; and in the days of dueling had occasioned a good
many insults and private encounters. The younger branch, or Black
Ribaumonts, had received a grant from Louis XI. of the lands of
Nid-de-Merle, belonging to an unfortunate Angevin noble, who had
fallen under the royal displeasure, and they had enjoyed court
favour up to the present generation, when Henri II., either from
opposition to his father, instinct for honesty, or both, had become
a warm friend to the gay and brilliant young Baron de Ribaumont,
head of the white or elder branch of the family.
The family contention seemed likely to wear out of its own accord,
for the Count de Ribaumont was an elderly and childless man, and
his brother, the Chevalier de Ribaumont, was, according to the
usual lot of French juniors, a bachelor, so that it was expected
that the whole inheritance would centre upon the elder family.
However, to the general surprise, the Chevalier late in life
married, and became the father of a son and daughter; but soon
after calculations were still more thrown out by the birth of a
little daughter in the old age of the Count.