the matter,
and was as good as his word; for in conversation with the queen he told
her that he thought her sisters were the most proper persons to be about
her, but would not name them before he had asked her consent. The queen,
sensible of the deference the emperor so obligingly paid her, said to
him, "Sir, I was prepared to do as your majesty might please to command.
But since you have been so kind as to think of my sisters, I thank you
for the regard you have shown them for my sake, and therefore I shall
not dissemble that I had rather have them than strangers." The emperor
therefore named the queen's two sisters to be her attendants; and from
that time they went frequently to the palace, overjoyed at the
opportunity they would have of executing the detestable wickedness they
had meditated against the queen.

Shortly afterward a young prince, as bright as the day, was born to the
queen; but neither his innocence nor beauty could move the cruel hearts
of the merciless sisters. They wrapped him up carelessly in his cloths
and put him into a basket, which they abandoned to the stream of a small
canal that ran under the queen's apartment, and declared that she had
given birth to a puppy. This dreadful intelligence was announced to the
emperor, who became so angry at the circumstance, that he was likely to
have occasioned the queen's death, if his grand vizier had not
represented to him that he could not, without injustice, make her
answerable for the misfortune.

In the meantime, the basket in which the little prince was exposed was
carried by the stream beyond a wall which bounded the prospect of the
queen's apartment, and from thence floated with the current down the
gardens. By chance the intendant of the emperor's gardens, one of the
principal officers of the kingdom, was walking in the garden by the side
of this canal, and, perceiving a basket floating, called to a gardener
who was not far off, to bring it to shore that he might see what it
contained. The gardener, with a rake which he had in his hand, drew the
basket to the side of the canal, took it up, and gave it to him. The
intendant of the gardens was extremely surprised to see in the basket a
child, which, though he knew it could be but just born, had very fine
features. This officer had been married several years, but though he had
always been desirous of having children, Heaven had never blessed him
with any. This accident interrupted his walk: he made th