ttended by her lady-in-waiting, and with her
footmen mounted behind. They were fond of plants, and longed above
everything to be allowed to rear flowers with their own hands, in a
garden: but this too was thought out of the question: and they were
obliged to be content with such flowers as would grow in boxes on their
window-sills in the palace. Madame Louise, the one who became a nun,
employed a young lady to read to her while she yet lived in the palace.
Sometimes the poor girl read aloud for five hours together; and when her
failing voice showed that she was quite exhausted, Madame Louise
prepared a glass of _eau sucree_ (sugared water) and placed it beside
her, saying that she was sorry to cause so much fatigue; but that she
was anxious to finish a course of reading which she had laid out. It
does not seem to have occurred to Madame Louise to take the book
herself, or ask some one else to relieve her tired reader.

The king, Louis the Sixteenth, would probably have been a dull man in
any situation in life. His mind was dull. But his tastes showed that
he might have been better and happier in many places than in his own
palace. Till he fell into misfortune, and showed a somewhat patient and
forgiving temper, he seems not to have attached anybody to him. He was
very silent, though now and then giving way to strange bursts of
rudeness, which made his children and servants afraid of him. For many
years after he married, his wife was not sure whether he cared at all
about her. There must always be some doubt of this, for a time, in the
case of royal marriages which take place, as his did, without the
parties having ever met, or being able to tell whether they shall like
one another. The king's manners were such that it was difficult to say
whether he cared about anybody,--except, indeed, one person; and that
person was not the queen, nor his aunts, nor his children, but--a
locksmith of the name of Gamin.

There were three employments that the king was so fond of, that he
seemed to have no interest left for anything else: first, of
lock-making; secondly, of hunting; thirdly, of studying geography. As
long as he could spend his hours with his huntsmen, with Gamin, or
marking his copper globe, or colouring maps, he seemed to care little
how his ministers managed his kingdom, or how his wife spent her time,
and formed her friendships.

A person who had the opportunity of examining his apartments gives an
accoun