sound, which strikes the ear of the child and the
poet--both dreamers--which the English call splash; Arabian poets,
gasgachau; and which we Frenchmen, who would be poets, can only
translate by a paraphrase--the noise of water falling into water.

It was more than a year since Raoul had been to visit his father. He had
passed the whole time in the household of M. le Prince. In fact, after
all the commotions of the Fronde, of the early period of which we
formerly attempted to give a sketch, Louis de Conde had made a public,
solemn, and frank reconciliation with the court. During all the time
that the rupture between the king and the prince had lasted, the prince,
who had long entertained a great regard for Bragelonne, had in vain
offered him advantages of the most dazzling kind for a young man.
The Comte de la Fere, still faithful to his principles of loyalty
and royalty, one day developed before his son in the vaults of Saint
Denis,--the Comte de la Fere, in the name of his son, had always
declined them. Moreover, instead of following M. de Conde in his
rebellion, the vicomte had followed M. de Turenne, fighting for the
king. Then when M. de Turenne, in his turn, had appeared to abandon
the royal cause, he had quitted M. de Turenne, as he had quitted M. de
Conde. It resulted from this invariable line of conduct that, as Conde
and Turenne had never been conquerors of each other but under the
standard of the king, Raoul, however young, had ten victories inscribed
on his list of services, and not one defeat from which his bravery or
conscience had to suffer.

Raoul, therefore, had, in compliance with the wish of his father, served
obstinately and passively the fortunes of Louis XIV., in spite of the
tergiversations which were endemic, and, it might be said, inevitable,
at that period.

M. de Conde, on being restored to favor, had at once availed himself
of all the privileges of the amnesty to ask for many things back again
which had been granted him before, and among others, Raoul. M. de la
Fere, with his invariable good sense, had immediately sent him again to
the prince.

A year, then, had passed away since the separation of the father and
son; a few letters had softened, but not removed, the pains of absence.
We have seen that Raoul had left at Blois another love in addition to
filial love. But let us do him this justice--if it had not been for
chance and Mademoiselle de Montalais, two great temptations, Raoul,
af