spring, that the
King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her.

"Frederique!"

At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held him, the
child--who was entirely out of the window--thought that all was
finished, that they were about to die. He never uttered a word nor a
moan; was he not going with his mother? Only, his tiny hands clutched
the queen's neck convulsively, and throwing back his head with his fair
hair hanging down, the little victim closed his eyes before the
appalling horror of the fall.

Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the courage of this
child, who of his future kingly duties already knew the first--to die
well--overcame him. His heart was bursting. He threw upon the table the
crumpled parchment which for a moment he had been nervously holding in
his hand, and fell sobbing in an arm-chair. Frederique, still
suspicious, read the deed through from the first line to the very
signature, then going up to a candle, she burned it till the flame
scorched her fingers, shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left
the room, carrying off her son, who was already falling asleep in her
arms in his heroically tragic attitude.

Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.

MADAME DU DEFFAND

(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)

(1697-1780)

[Illustration: MADAME DU DEFFAND]

Madame du Deffand is interesting as a personality, a type, and an
influence. Living through nearly the whole of the eighteenth century,
she assimilated its wealth of new ideas, and was herself a product of
the thought-revolution already kindling the spirit of 1789.

She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling questions upon
religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win her to orthodoxy. But
he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to buy her a catechism, and
went off declaring her charming. The inefficacy of the catechism was
proved later, when the precocious girl developed into the graceful,
unscrupulous society woman. She was always fascinating to the brightest
men and women of her own and other lands. But the early years of social
triumph, when she still had the beautiful eyes admired by Voltaire, are
less significant than the nearly thirty years of blindness in the
convent of St. Joseph, which after her affliction she made her home.
Here she held her famous receptions for the literary and social
celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a miserable
ten years as h