querry, it
was necessary that Albert should accompany the prince. This news, which
would have formerly given him the highest joy, made him now almost sad,
for the health of Clarice began to fill him with the greatest
uneasiness; and the doctor had allowed the word consumption to escape
him. Whether Clarice felt herself seriously attacked, or whether, more
natural still, she feared only for her husband, her burst of grief was
so wild that Albert himself could not help crying with her, and little
Bathilde and Buvat cried because they saw the others cry.

The 5th of March arrived; it was the day fixed for the departure. In
spite of her grief, Clarice had busied herself with her husband's
outfit, and had wished that it was worthy of the prince whom he
accompanied. Moreover, in the midst of her tears a ray of proud joy lit
up her face when she saw Albert in his elegant uniform, and on his noble
war-horse. As to Albert, he was full of hope and pride; the poor wife
smiled sadly at his dreams for the future; but in order not to dispirit
him at this moment, she shut her grief up in her own heart, and
silencing her fears which she had for him, and, perhaps, also those
which she experienced for herself, she was the first to say to him,
"Think not of me, but of your honor."

The Duc d'Orleans and his corps d'armee entered Catalonia in the first
days of April, and advanced directly, by forced marches, across Arragon.
On arriving at Segorbe, the duke learned that the Marechal de Berwick
held himself in readiness for a decisive battle; and in his eagerness
to arrive in time to take part in the action he sent Albert on at full
speed, charging him to tell the marshal that the Duc d'Orleans was
coming to his aid with ten thousand men, and to pray that if it did not
interfere with his arrangements, he would wait for him before joining
battle.

Albert left, but bewildered in the mountains, and misled by ignorant
guides, he was only a day before the army, and he arrived at the
marshal's camp at the very moment when the engagement was going to
commence. Albert asked where the marshal was; they showed his position,
on the left of the army, on a little hill, from which he overlooked the
whole plain. The Duc de Berwick was there surrounded by his staff;
Albert put his horse to the gallop and made straight toward him.

The messenger introduced himself to the marshal and told him the cause
of his coming. The marshal's only answer was to point