ys most kind to me. He no doubt took a
fancy to read my letters, for he soon gave up his notion of my life
as that of a young girl. One day when the duke was on duty, and I was
writing at the king's dictation, the latter suddenly remarked, in that
fine, silvery voice of his, to which he could give, when he chose, the
biting tone of epigram:--

"So that poor devil of a Mortsauf persists in living?"

"Yes," replied the duke.

"Madame de Mortsauf is an angel, whom I should like to see at my court,"
continued the king; "but if I cannot manage it, my chancellor here,"
turning to me, "may be more fortunate. You are to have six months'
leave; I have decided on giving you the young man we spoke of yesterday
as colleague. Amuse yourself at Clochegourde, friend Cato!" and he
laughed as he had himself wheeled out of the room.

I flew like a swallow to Touraine. For the first time I was to show
myself to my beloved, not merely a little less insignificant, but
actually in the guise of an elegant young man, whose manners had been
formed in the best salons, his education finished by gracious women; who
had found at last a compensation for all his sufferings, and had put to
use the experience given to him by the purest angel to whom heaven had
ever committed the care of a child. You know how my mother had equipped
me for my three months' visit at Frapesle. When I reached Clochegourde
after fulfilling my mission in Vendee, I was dressed like a huntsman;
I wore a jacket with white and red buttons, striped trousers, leathern
gaiters and shoes. Tramping through underbrush had so injured my clothes
that the count was obliged to lend me linen. On the present occasion,
two years' residence in Paris, constant intercourse with the king, the
habits of a life at ease, my completed growth, a youthful countenance,
which derived a lustre from the placidity of the soul within
magnetically united with the pure soul that beamed on me from
Clochegourde,--all these things combined had transformed me. I was
self-possessed without conceit, inwardly pleased to find myself, in
spite of my years, at the summit of affairs; above all, I had the
consciousness of being secretly the support and comfort of the dearest
woman on earth, and her unuttered hope. Perhaps I felt a flutter of
vanity as the postilions cracked their whips along the new avenue
leading from the main road to Clochegourde and through an iron gate I
had never seen before, which opened into a