, we must look somewhere else."

Happily, this domestic humiliation did not transpire at Bourbonne; for M.
de la Bruyere had arrived there with Monsieur le Prince, and that model
satirist would unfailingly have made merry over it at my expense.

The best society lavished its attentions on me; Coulanges, whose
flatteries are so amusing, never left us for a moment.

The Prince, after the States were over, had come to relax himself at
Bourbonne, which was his property. After having done all in his power
formerly to dethrone his master, he is his enthusiastic servitor now that
he sees him so strong. He was fascinated with Mademoiselle de Nantes,
and asked my permission to seek her hand for the Duc de Bourbon, his
grandson; my reply was, that the alliance was desirable on both sides,
but that these arrangements were settled only by the King.

In spite of the insolent diatribe of M. de Montespan, the waters proved
good and favourable; my blood, little by little, grew calm; my pains,
passing from one knee to the other, insensibly faded away in both; and,
after having given a brilliant fete to the Prince de Mont-Beliard, the
English Chancellor, and our most distinguished bathers, I went back to
Versailles, where the work seemed to me to have singularly advanced.

The King went in advance of us to Corbeil; Madame de Maintenon, her
pretty nieces, and my children were in the carriage. The King received
me with his ordinary kindness, and yet said no word to me of the
harshness which I had suffered from my husband. Two or three months
afterwards he recollected his royal word, and gave me to understand that
the Prince de Bourbon was shortly going to give up Navarre, in Normandy,
and that this vast and magnificent estate would be raised to a duchy for
me.

It has not been yet, at the moment that I write. Perhaps it is written
above that I shall never be a duchess. In such a case, the King would
not deserve the inward reproaches that my sensibility addresses him,
since his good-will would be fettered by destiny.

It is my kindness which makes me speak so.

CHAPTER II.

The Venetian Drummer.--The Little Olivier.--Adriani's Love.--His
Ingratitude.--His Punishment.--His Vengeance.--Complaint on This Account.

At the great slaughter of Candia, M. de Vivonne had the pleasure of
saving a young Venetian drummer whom he noticed all covered with blood,
and senseless, amongst the dead and dying, with whom the field was
covered