The face was horribly disfigured by a large transversal
scar which had the appearance of a second mouth on the right cheek.
At the age of thirty-three the count, anxious to distinguish himself
in that unhappy religious war the signal for which was given on
Saint-Bartholomew's day, had been grievously wounded at the siege of
Rochelle. The misfortune of this wound increased his hatred against
the partisans of what the language of that day called "the Religion,"
but, by a not unnatural turn of mind, he included in that antipathy
all handsome men. Before the catastrophe, however, he was so
repulsively ugly that no lady had ever been willing to receive him as
a suitor. The only passion of his youth was for a celebrated woman
called La Belle Romaine. The distrust resulting from this new
misfortune made him suspicious to the point of not believing himself
capable of inspiring a true passion; and his character became so
savage that when he did have some successes in gallantry he owed them
to the terror inspired by his cruelty. The left hand of this terrible
Catholic, which lay on the outside of the bed, will complete this
sketch of his character.
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