These Old Shades Part III

Justin tells Edward and Hugh that he knows what has happened to Leonie, and he insists that the family go ahead with a party which they had planned. The men can see that Justin has changed, that he is a gentler more decent person. He has told Hugh earlier of his intital dispute with St Vire, who attacked him because Justin had asked for permission to court his sister. He was socially their equal and St Vire's angry response was positively crazy, and Justin and he became enemies. Now however he says that he wants to destroy St Vire because of what he did to Leonie. At the party, Justin tells a story, rather than reciting a poem. He tells a tale of 2 brothers, who hated each other, which is St Vire and his younger brother Armand. St Vire married, wanting to have an heir and cut out his brother. HOwever, his wife only had a stillborn child. Then she became pregnant again and this time, St Vire took her away to hs estate in the country, and this time she produced a son... But, the son was not St Vires. He had bribed a local farmer into letting him take his newborn son, and in return the man, M Bonnard, took over the care of Leonie and moved away from the lords estate. Justin describes the impoverished sordid life that Leonie, daughter of a nobleman endured... and that Leonie ended her life in the river. Madame De St Vire breaks down and hte crowd are horrified. St Vire shoots himself.