Come, I have thought so much of him that I will go now and stand
before his monument, taking with me my last-born son, a little
lad of ten. He is not too young to desire to serve the queen, and
not too young to learn to love and reverence him who sleeps there
in the vault and was in his life the noblest gentleman I have known.
I will take the boy with me and tell him what I may of brave King
Rudolf, how he fought and how he loved, and how he held the
queen's honor and his own above all things in this world. The boy
is not too young to learn such lessons from the life of Mr.
Rassendyll. And while we stand there I will turn again into his
native tongue--for, alas, the young rogue loves his toy soldiers
better than his Latin!--the inscription that the queen wrote with
her own hand, directing that it should be inscribed in that
stately tongue over the tomb in which her life lies buried.
"To Rudolf, who reigned lately in this city, and reigns for ever
in her heart.--QUEEN FLAVIA."
I told him the meaning, and he spelt the big words over in his
childish voice; at first he stumbled, but the second time he had
it right, and recited with a little touch of awe in his fresh
young tones:
RUDOLFO
Qui in hac civitate nuper regnavit
In corde ipsius in aeternum regnat
FLAVIA REGINA.
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