ts of his Eminence, the Cardinal, where they were
entertained to a magnificent supper, at which the King and Monsieur did
the company the honour of joining them."

Then followed two days of regal receptions; a visit to Notre Dame to
hear Mass, with the Queen herself as escort; and a stately journey to
the Hotel de Soissons, where the Comtesse's mother-in-law "testified to
her, by her joy and the rich presents which she made her, how great was
the satisfaction with which she regarded this marriage."

Thus raised to the rank of a Princess of the Blood, Olympe was by no
means the proud and happy woman she ought to have been. She had, in
fact, aspired much higher; she had had dreams of sharing the throne of
France with her handsome young playmate, the King; and to Louis, wife
though she now was, she had lost none of the attraction she possessed
when he called her his "little sweetheart" in their childish games
together. "He continued to visit her with the greatest regularity," to
quote Mr Noel Williams; "indeed, scarcely a day went by on which His
Majesty's coach did not stop at the gate of the Hotel de Soissons; and
Olympe, basking in the rays of the Royal favour, rapidly took her place
as the brilliant, intriguing great lady Nature intended her to be."

It is little wonder, perhaps, that Olympe's foolish head was turned by
such flattering attentions from her sovereign, or that she began to give
herself airs and to treat members of the Royal family with a haughty
patronage. Even La Grande Mademoiselle did not escape her insolence;
for, as she herself records, "when I paid her a thousand compliments and
told her that her marriage had given me the greatest joy and that I
hoped we should always be good friends, she answered me not a word."

But Olympe's supremacy was not to remain much longer unchallenged. The
King's vagrant fancy was already turning to her younger sister, Marie,
whose childish plainness had now ripened to a beauty more dazzling than
her own--the witchery of large and brilliant black eyes, a complexion of
pure olive, luxuriant, jet-black hair, a figure of singular suppleness
and grace, and a sprightliness of wit and a _gaiete de coeur_ which the
Comtesse could not hope to rival. It soon began to be rumoured in Court
that Louis spent hours daily in the company of Mazarin's beautiful
niece; a rumour which Hortense Mancini supports in her "Memoirs." "The
presence of the King, who seldom stirred from our lodgin