t before whom he was bound
thenceforth to display so much strength. Philippe opened his folding
doors, and several persons entered silently. Philippe did not stir
whilst his _valets de chambre_ dressed him. He had watched, the evening
before, all the habits of his brother, and played the king in such a
manner as to awaken no suspicion. He was thus completely dressed in
hunting costume when he received his visitors. His own memory and
the notes of Aramis announced everybody to him, first of all Anne of
Austria, to whom Monsieur gave his hand, and then Madame with M. de
Saint-Aignan. He smiled at seeing these countenances, but trembled on
recognizing his mother. That still so noble and imposing figure, ravaged
by pain, pleaded in his heart the cause of the famous queen who had
immolated a child to reasons of state. He found his mother still
handsome. He knew that Louis XIV. loved her, and he promised himself
to love her likewise, and not to prove a scourge to her old age. He
contemplated his brother with a tenderness easily to be understood.
The latter had usurped nothing, had cast no shades athwart his life. A
separate tree, he allowed the stem to rise without heeding its elevation
or majestic life. Philippe promised himself to be a kind brother to this
prince, who required nothing but gold to minister to his pleasures. He
bowed with a friendly air to Saint-Aignan, who was all reverences and
smiles, and trembling held out his hand to Henrietta, his sister-in-law,
whose beauty struck him; but he saw in the eyes of that princess an
expression of coldness which would facilitate, as he thought, their
future relations.

"How much more easy," thought he, "it will be to be the brother of that
woman than her gallant, if she evinces towards me a coldness that my
brother could not have for her, but which is imposed upon me as a duty."
The only visit he dreaded at this moment was that of the queen; his
heart--his mind--had just been shaken by so violent a trial, that,
in spite of their firm temperament, they would not, perhaps, support
another shock. Happily the queen did not come. Then commenced, on the
part of Anne of Austria, a political dissertation upon the welcome M.
Fouquet had given to the house of France. She mixed up hostilities with
compliments addressed to the king, and questions as to his health, with
little maternal flatteries and diplomatic artifices.

"Well, my son," said she, "are you convinced with regard to M. F