y to do exactly as he pleased. There was only one course open to
him--the life of a courtier at Versailles.

In that age of ceremony marriage was quite as much a formal matter as
other affairs of life. The young Marquis's guardians, according to the
custom of the time, immediately looked about for a girl of equal rank
who might marry their boy. They decided on little Marie Adrienne de
Noailles, daughter of a great peer of France. The girl was only twelve
years old, and her mother was very unwilling to have her married to a
boy whose character was unformed, and whose fortune would allow him to
become as wild as he chose. Her father, however, liked the match, and
her mother finally agreed, insisting, however, that the children should
wait two years before their wedding.

When these arrangements had all been made and the engagement was
formally announced, the boy Marquis was taken to call at the house of
his future wife, and was presented to her in the garden. Formal paths
wound under a row of chestnut-trees, carefully tended flower-beds were
arranged with mathematical precision, a few peacocks strutted across the
lawn, and here and there a marble statue or a great stone jar from Italy
gave a classic touch to the scene.

The small boy, dressed in court clothes of velvet, his fair hair in long
curls, his three-cornered hat held beneath his arm, his court rapier
hanging at his side, bright silver buckles at knees and on shoes,
advanced down the walk to the little lady who was waiting for him. She
was in flowered satin, her long, yellow hair falling to her shoulders,
her light-blue eyes looking timidly at the boy, and her pale cheeks
flushing as he approached. As he stood before her, she held out her
hand, and he delicately lifted it with his and touched his lips to her
fingers. She blushed redder, then he paid her a few stately compliments,
and they walked down the path laughing shyly at this new intimacy. She
had seen few boys before, and he had known few girls, and yet their
guardians had destined them for man and wife.

It was a curious, old-world picture that the two children made, but the
scene was quite characteristic of the age.

At the time he lived at Versailles and made one of the group about the
little King and Queen, the guardians of the young Marquis expected to
find him growing more and more popular with the royal court, and they
were very much surprised when they learned how reserved he was becoming
and h