events, all the history of his
perigrinations in Scotland, and his terrors when the enemy's party was
so closely on his track, of nights spent in trees, and days spent
in hunger and combats. By degrees, the fate of the unfortunate king
interested his auditors so greatly, that the play languished even at the
royal table, and the young king, with a pensive look and downcast eye,
followed, without appearing to give any attention to it, the smallest
details of this Odyssey, very picturesquely related by the Comte de
Guiche.

The Comtesse de Soissons interrupted the narrator: "Confess, count, you
are inventing."

"Madame, I am repeating like a parrot all the stories related to me by
different Englishmen. To my shame I am compelled to say, I am as exact
as a copy."

"Charles II. would have died before he could have endured all that."

Louis XIV. raised his intelligent and proud head. "Madame," said he, in
a grave tone, still partaking something of the timid child, "monsieur
le cardinal will tell you that during my minority the affairs of France
were in jeopardy,--and that if I had been older, and obliged to take
sword in hand, it would sometimes have been for the evening meal."

"Thanks to God," said the cardinal, who spoke for the first time, "your
majesty exaggerates, and your supper has always been ready with that of
your servants."

The king colored.

"Oh!" cried Philip, inconsiderately, from his place, and without ceasing
to admire himself,--"I recollect once, at Melun, the supper was laid
for nobody, and that the king ate two-thirds of a slice of bread, and
abandoned to me the other third."

The whole assembly, seeing Mazarin smile, began to laugh. Courtiers
flatter kings with the remembrance of past distresses, as with the hopes
of future good fortune.

"It is not to be denied that the crown of France has always remained
firm upon the heads of its kings," Anne of Austria hastened to say,
"and that it has fallen off of that of the king of England; and when by
chance that crown oscillated a little,--for there are throne-quakes as
well as earthquakes,--every time, I say, that rebellion threatened it, a
good victory restored tranquillity."

"With a few gems added to the crown," said Mazarin.

The Comte de Guiche was silent: the king composed his countenance, and
Mazarin exchanged looks with Anne of Austria, as if to thank her for her
intervention.

"It is of no consequence," said Philip, smoothing his hair