citing the wonder and
curiosity of all Paris engrossed her so wholly that she had little time
for dwelling on contingent evils. The departure of the Princes had,
moreover, relieved her from the annoyance of encountering discontented
countenances and repellent frowns; and as she saw herself surrounded
only by beaming looks and complacent smiles, her spirits rose, and she
began to believe that her long-indulged vision of undisputed supremacy
was about to be realized.

It was a pleasant dream, and one in which the self-deceived Regent was
eagerly encouraged by those around her. The halls and galleries of the
Louvre were crowded with animated and obsequious courtiers, and the
apartments of Marie herself thronged by the greatest and proudest in the
land; all of whom appeared, upon so joyous an occasion, to have laid
aside their personal animosities and to live only to obey her behests.
Madame had also formed her separate Court, in the midst of which she
received, with the grace of a girl and the premature dignity of a Queen,
the elaborate homage of her future subjects; and meanwhile the young
Louis, delighted by a partial emancipation from ceremony and etiquette
for which he was indebted to the unusual movement about him, pursued his
favourite sport of bird-hunting in the gardens of the Tuileries, and
attached more importance to the feats of a well-trained sparrow-hawk
than to the probable qualities of the bride provided for him by the
policy of his royal mother.

And amid all this splendid excitement, gliding from one glittering group
to another with a quiet self-possession and a calm composure strangely
at variance with the scene around her, moved a lady whose remarkable
appearance must have challenged attention, even had her singular career
not already tended to make her an object of universal curiosity and
speculation. Short of stature and slender of form, with a step as light
and noiseless as that of an aerial being; her exquisitely-moulded
although diminutive figure draped in a robe of black velvet, made after
a fashion of which the severe propriety contrasted forcibly with the
somewhat too liberal exposure of the period; with a countenance pale
almost to sallowness; delicately chiselled features; and large eyes,
encircled by a dark ring, only a few shades less black than the long
lashes by which they were occasionally concealed; a mass of rich and
glossy hair, tightly banded upon her forehead, and gathered together i