to be seen represented
as Bellona. Two Loves were presenting her, one with his helm adorned
with martial plumes, the other with his buckler of gold, with the
Orleans-Montpensier arms. The laurel crown, with which Triumphs were
ornamenting her head, and the scaled cuirass of Pallas completed her
decoration. M. le Duc du Maine praised, without affectation, the
intelligence of the artist; and as for the figure and the likeness, he
said to the Princess: "You are good, but you are better." The calm and
the naivety of this compliment made Mademoiselle shed tears. Her emotion
was visible; she embraced my son anew.

"You have brought him up perfectly," she said to Madame de Maintenon.
"His urbanity is of good origin; that is how a king's son ought to act
and speak:

"His Majesty," said Madame de Maintenon, "has been enchanted with your
country-house; he spoke of it all the evening. He even added that you
had ordered it all yourself, without an architect, and that M. le Notre
would not have done better."

"M. le Notre," replied the Princess, "came here for a little; he wanted
to cut and destroy, and upset and disarrange, as with the King at
Versailles. But I am of a different mould to my cousin; I am not to be
surprised with big words. I saw that Le Notre thought only of
expenditure and tyranny; I thanked him for his good intentions, and
prayed him not to put himself out for me. I found there thickets already
made, of an indescribable charm; he wanted, on the instant, to clear them
away, so that one could testify that all this new park was his. If you
please, madame, tell his Majesty that M. le Notre is the sworn enemy of
Nature; that he sees only the pleasures of proprietorship in the future,
and promises us cover and shade just at that epoch of our life when we
shall only ask for sunshine in which to warm ourselves."

She next led her guests towards the large apartments. When she had come
to her bedroom, she showed the Marquise the mysterious portrait, and
asked if she recognised it.

"Ah, my God! 'tis himself!" said Madame de Maintenon at once. "He sees,
he breathes, he regards us; one might believe one heard him speak. Why
do you give yourself this torture?" continued the ambassadress. "The
continual presence of an unhappy and beloved being feeds your grief, and
this grief insensibly undermines you. In your place, Princess, I should
put him elsewhere until a happier and more favourable hour."

"That hour will never c