rsailles for De Maintenon.]

[Footnote 20: Daughter of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria of France; she
died 29th June, 1670, believing herself to have been poisoned; and this
was currently accepted in France, though now rejected by historians as
incorrect.]

[Footnote 21: Francoise Louise, Duchess de La Valliere, a former
mistress of Louis XIV. On being supplanted in the monarch's favour by
Madame de Montespan, she entered the order of Carmelite nuns.]

_GAMBLER'S LUCK._

Pyrmont had a larger concourse of visitors than ever in the summer of
18--. The number of rich and illustrious strangers increased from day
to day, greatly exciting the zeal of speculators of all kinds. Hence it
was also that the owners of the faro-bank took care to pile up their
glittering gold in bigger heaps, in order that this, the bait of the
noblest game, which they, like good skilled hunters, knew how to decoy,
might preserve its efficacy.

Who does not know how fascinating an excitement gambling is,
particularly at watering-places, during the season, where every
visitor, having laid aside his ordinary habits and course of life,
deliberately gives himself up to leisure and ease and exhilarating
enjoyment? then gambling becomes an irresistible attraction. People who
at other times never touch a card are to be seen amongst the most eager
players; and besides, it is the fashion, especially in higher circles,
for every one to visit the bank in the evening and lose a little money
at play.

The only person who appeared not to heed this irresistible attraction,
and this injunction of fashion, was a young German Baron, whom we will
call Siegfried. When everybody else hurried off to the play-house, and
he was deprived of all means and all prospect of the intellectual
conversation he loved, he preferred either to give reins to the flights
of his fancy in solitary walks or to stay in his own room and take up a
book, or even indulge in poetic attempts, in writing, himself.

As Siegfried was young, independent, rich, of noble appearance and
pleasing disposition, it could not fail but that he was highly esteemed
and loved, and that he had the most decisive good-fortune with the fair
sex. And in everything that he took up or turned his attention to,
there seemed to be a singularly lucky star presiding over his actions.
Rumour spoke of many extraordinary love-intrigues which had been forced
upon him, and out of which, h