Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/173

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FRENCH AFFAIRS.
153

brown hair and light blonde side-whiskers, which meet under the chin, enclosing almost like a golden frame the rosy, healthy, blooming, youthful face. I think that I can read in the lineaments of this form a future, and yet not one too happy or cheerful. At best this young man is destined to a great martyrdom, for he will be king. If he does not see with clear intelligence (mit dem Geiste) through future events, he seems at least to forebode them instinctively; the animal nature or that of the body appears to be occupied with gloomy presentiments, whence a certain melancholy is apparent in him. He at times lets his long narrow head sink from his long neck as if in sad reverie. His gait is sleepy and slow, as of a man who fears to arrive too early, and his speech is drawling or in short accents, as if in half slumber. In this lies the melancholy referred to, or rather the melancholy indication (Signatur) of the future. In other respects his external appearance is rather simply citizen-like. This characteristic is the more marked because the contrary is apparent in his brother, the Duke de Nemours. The latter[1] is a handsome,


  1. French version "Celui-ci est un jeune et joli garçon à la tournure aisée, svelte sans être grand, d'une complexion delicate en apparance, petite figure blanche et fine, regard spirituel; nez legérèment courbé à la Bourbon; un fair blondin d'antique et noble souche." The German appears to be, in all this letter, translated from the French.—Translator.