ed for the lottery was a decisive moment; the king had not
been near his mother for a couple of days; Madame, after the great scene
of the Dryads and Naiads, was sulking by herself. The king's fit of
sulkiness was over, but his mind was absorbingly occupied by a
circumstance which raised him above the stormy disputes and the giddy
pleasures of the court.

Anne of Austria effected a diversion by the announcement of the famous
lottery to take place in her apartments on the following evening. With
this object in view, she saw the young queen, whom, as we have already
seen, she had invited to pay her a visit in the morning. "I have good
news to tell you," she said to her, "the king has been saying the most
tender things about you. He is young, you know, and easily drawn away;
but so long as you keep near me, he will not venture to keep away from
you, to whom, besides, he is most warmly and affectionately attached. I
intend to have a lottery this evening, and shall expect to see you."

"I have heard," said the young queen, with a sort of timid reproach,
"that your majesty intends to put in lottery those beautiful bracelets
whose rarity is so great that we ought not to allow them to pass out of
the custody of the crown, even were there no other reason than that they
had once belonged to you."

"My daughter," said Anne of Austria, who read the young queen's
thoughts, and wished to console her for not having received the
bracelets as a present, "it is positively necessary that I should induce
Madame to pass her time always in my apartments."

"Madame!" said the young-queen, blushing.

"Of course; would you not prefer to have a rival near you, whom you
could watch and rule over, than to know that the king is with her,
always as ready to flirt with, as to be flirted with by her. The lottery
I have proposed is my means of attraction for that purpose: do you blame
me?"

"Oh, no!" returned Maria-Theresa, clapping her hands with a childlike
expression of delight.

"And you no longer regret, then, that I did not give you these
bracelets, as I had at first intended to do?"

"Oh, no, no!"

"Very well; make yourself look as beautiful as possible, that our supper
may be very brilliant; the gayer you seem, the more charming you appear,
and you will eclipse all the ladies present as much by your brilliancy
as by your rank."

Maria-Theresa left full of delight. An hour afterward, Anne of Austria
received a visit from Madame, who