rs behind for each day."

"Indeed! do you really think so? Well, that is strange! It never struck
me."

"Now, look, aunt," said Louis XIV., drawing still nearer to Mazarin,
under the pretext of gaining a better point of view, "look at that
simple white dress by the side of those antiquated specimens of finery,
and those pretentious coiffures. She is probably one of my mother's
maids of honor, though I don't know her."

"Ah! ah! my dear nephew!" replied Madame, laughing, "permit me to tell
you that your divinatory science is at fault for once. The young lady
you honor with your praise is not a Parisian, but a Blaisoise."

"Oh, aunt!" replied the king with a look of doubt.

"Come here, Louise," said Madame.

And the fair girl, already known to you under that name, approached
them, timid, blushing, and almost bent beneath the royal glance.

"Mademoiselle Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc, the daughter of the
Marquise de la Valliere," said Madame, ceremoniously.

The young girl bowed with so much grace, mingled with the profound
timidity inspired by the presence of the king, that the latter lost,
while looking at her, a few words of the conversation of Monsieur and
the cardinal.

"Daughter-in-law," continued Madame, "of M. de Saint-Remy, my maitre
d'hotel, who presided over the confection of that excellent daube
truffee which your majesty seemed so much to appreciate."

No grace, no youth, no beauty, could stand out against such a
presentation. The king smiled. Whether the words of Madame were a
pleasantry, or uttered in all innocency, they proved the pitiless
immolation of everything that Louis had found charming or poetic in the
young girl. Mademoiselle de la Valliere, for Madame and, by rebound,
for the king, was, for a moment, no more than the daughter of a man of a
superior talent over dindes truffees.

But princes are thus constituted. The gods, too, were just like this
in Olympus. Diana and Venus, no doubt, abused the beautiful Alcmena
and poor Io, when they condescended, for distraction's sake, to speak,
amidst nectar and ambrosia, of mortal beauties, at the table of Jupiter.

Fortunately, Louise was so bent in her reverential salute, that she did
not catch either Madame's words or the king's smile. In fact, if the
poor child, who had so much good taste as alone to have chosen to dress
herself in white amidst all her companions--if that dove's heart, so
easily accessible to painful emotions, had be