n riding about on horseback."

"That does the king good."

"And it was I who advised him to do it," said Maria-Theresa, turning
pale.

Madame said not a word in reply; but one of those smiles which were
peculiarly her own flitted for a moment across her lips, without passing
over the rest of her face; then, immediately changing the conversation,
she continued, "We shall find Paris precisely like the Paris we left it;
the same intrigues, plots, and flirtations going on."

"Intrigues! What intrigues do you allude to?" inquired the queen-mother.

"People are talking a good deal about M. Fouquet and Madame
Plessis-Belliere."

"Who makes up the number to about ten thousand," replied the
queen-mother. "But what are the plots you speak of?"

"We have, it seems, certain misunderstandings with Holland to settle."

"What about?"

"Monsieur has been telling me the story of the medals."

"Oh!" exclaimed the young-queen, "you mean those medals which were
struck in Holland, on which a cloud is seen passing across the sun,
which is the king's device. You are wrong in calling that a plot--it is
an insult."

"But so contemptible that the king can well despise it," replied the
queen-mother. "Well, what are the flirtations which are alluded to? Do
you mean that of Madame d'Olonne?"

"No, no; nearer ourselves than that."

"_Casa de usted_," murmured the queen-mother, and without moving her
lips, in her daughter-in-law's ear, and also without being overheard by
Madame, who thus continued: "You know the terrible news?"

"Oh, yes; M. de Guiche's wound."

"And you attribute it, I suppose, as every one else does, to an accident
which happened to him while hunting?"

"Yes, of course," said both the queens together, their interest
awakened.

Madame drew closer to them, as she said, in a low tone of voice, "It was
a duel."

"Ah!" said Anne of Austria, in a severe tone: for in her ears the word
"duel," which had been forbidden in France during the time she had
reigned over it, had a strange sound.

"A most deplorable duel, which has nearly cost Monsieur two of his best
friends, and the king two of his best servants."

"What was the cause of the duel?" inquired the young queen, animated by
a secret instinct.

"Flirtations," repeated Madame, triumphantly. "The gentlemen in question
were conversing about the virtue of a particular lady belonging to the
court. One of them thought that Pallas was a very second-rate person
co