His mind once formed,
he would have been no true son of Henry had he hesitated.
The King heard him quietly to the end,--too quietly, indeed, to presage
well for Hugo. Then he answered:
"I take it sir, your decision is made beyond words of mine to change.
Of course, I could clap you into prison and cool your hot blood with
scant diet and chill stones, but, such would be scarce fitting for a
Dalberg. Neither is it fitting that a Prince of Valeria should fight
against a country with which I am at peace. Therefore, the day you
leave for America will see your name stricken from the rolls of our
House, your title revoked, and your return here prohibited by royal
decree. Do I make myself understood?"
So far as I have been able to learn, no one ever accused my
great-grandfather of an inability to understand plain speech, and old
Henry's was not obscure. Indeed, Hugo remembered it so well that he
made it a sort of preface in the Journal which he began some months
thereafter, and kept most carefully to the very last day of his life.
The Journal says he made no answer to his father save a low bow.
Two days later, as plain Hugo Dalberg, he departed for America. For
some time he was a volunteer Aide to General Washington.
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