s, the ensemble of her appearance.

She saw her own work in Marie, and, more troubled, thought with deep
apprehension of the moment when this transient calm would cease, despite
the profound knowledge she had of the feeling but frivolous character of
Marie. Since the conversation at St.-Germain (the fatal letter), she had
not quitted the young Princess, and had bestowed all her care to lead
her mind to the path which she had traced out for her, for the most
decided feature in the character of Anne of Austria was an invincible
obstinacy in her calculations, to which she would fain have subjected
all events and all passions with a geometrical exactitude. There is no
doubt that to this positive and immovable mind we must attribute all the
misfortunes of her regency. The sombre reply of Cinq-Mars; his arrest;
his trial--all had been concealed from the Princesse Marie, whose first
fault, it is true, had been a movement of self-love and a momentary
forgetfulness.

However, the Queen by nature was good-hearted, and had bitterly repented
her precipitation in writing words so decisive, and whose consequences
had been so serious; and all her endeavors had been applied to mitigate
the results. In reflecting upon her conduct in reference to the
happiness of France, she applauded herself for having thus, at one
stroke, stifled the germ of a civil war which would have shaken the
State to its very foundations. But when she approached her young friend
and gazed on that charming being whose happiness she was thus destroying
in its bloom, and reflected that an old man upon a throne, even, would
not recompense her for the eternal loss she was about to sustain; when
she thought of the entire devotion, the total abnegation of himself, she
had witnessed in a young man of twenty-two, of so lofty a character,
and almost master of the kingdom--she pitied Marie, and admired from her
very soul the man whom she had judged so ill.

She would at least have desired to explain his worth to her whom he had
loved so deeply, and who as yet knew him not; but she still hoped that
the conspirators assembled at Lyons would be able to save him, and
once knowing him to be in a foreign land she could tell all to her dear
Marie.

As to the latter, she had at first feared war. But surrounded by the
Queen's people, who had let nothing reach her ear but news dictated by
this Princess, she knew, or thought she knew, that the conspiracy had
not taken place; that