to him, with her most amiable
expression: "Really, monsieur, I fancied that you would have been polite
enough, on account of the terrible heat, to have left me my carriage to
myself, and to have performed the journey yourself on horseback."

"Ride on horseback!" cried the prince, with an accent of dismay which
showed how little idea he had of adopting this strange project: "you
cannot suppose such a thing, madame; my skin would peel off if I were to
expose myself to such a burning air as this."

Madame began to laugh.

"You can take my parasol," she said.

"But the trouble of holding it!" replied Monsieur, with the greatest
coolness; "besides, I have no horse."

"How, no horse?" replied the princess, who, if she did not obtain the
solitude she required, at least obtained the amusement of teasing. "No
horse! You are mistaken, monsieur; for I see your favorite bay out
yonder."

"My bay horse!" exclaimed the prince, attempting to lean forward to look
out of the door; but the movement he was obliged to make cost him so
much trouble that he soon hastened to resume his immobility.

"Yes," said Madame: "your horse led by M. de Malicorne."

"Poor beast," replied the prince; "how warm it will soon be!"

And with these words he closed his eyes, like a man on the point of
death. Madame, on her side, reclined indolently in the other corner of
the carriage, and closed her eyes also, not however to sleep, but to
think more at her ease. In the meantime, the king, seated in the front
seat of the carriage, the back of which he had yielded up to the two
queens, was a prey to that restless feverish contrariety experienced by
anxious lovers, who, without being able to quench their ardent thirst,
are ceaselessly desirous of seeing the loved object, and then go away
partially satisfied, without perceiving that they have acquired a more
burning thirst than ever. The king, whose carriage headed the
procession, could not from the place he occupied perceive the carriages
of the ladies and maids of honor, which followed in a line behind it.
Besides, he was obliged to answer the eternal questions of the young
queen, who, happy to have with her "_her dear husband_," as she called
him in utter forgetfulness of royal etiquette, invested him with all her
affection, stifled him with her attentions, afraid that some one might
come to take him from her, or that he himself might suddenly take a
fancy to leave her society. Anne of Austria, whom