acken my ardour. I got away quite often to
cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my
impatience and spur on the numerous workmen.

The rumour was current in Paris that the example of "Soeur Louise" had
touched me, and that I was going to take the veil in my convent. I took
no notice of this fickle public, and persisted wisely in my plan.

The unexpected and almost sudden decease of Mademoiselle de Fontanges had
singularly moved the King. Extraordinary and almost incredible to
relate, he was for a whole week absent from the Council. His eyes had
shed so many tears that they were swollen and unrecognisable. He shunned
the occasions when there was an assembly, buried himself in his private
apartments or in his groves, and resembled, in every trait, Orpheus
weeping for his fair Eurydice, and refusing to be consoled.

I should be false to others and to myself if I were to say that his
extreme grief excited my compassion; but I should equally belie the truth
if I gave it to be understood that his "widowhood" gave me pleasure, and
that I congratulated myself on his sorrow and bitterness.

He came to see me when he found himself presentable, and, for the first
few days, I abstained from all reprisal and any allusion. The
innumerable labours of his State soon threw him, in spite of himself,
into those manifold distractions which, in their nature, despise or
absorb the sensibilities of the soul. He resumed, little by little, his
accustomed serenity, and, at the end of the month, appeared to have got
over it.

"What," he asked me, "are those buildings with which you are busy in
Paris, opposite the Ladies of Belle-Chasse? I hear of a convent; is it
your intention to retire?"

"It is a 'refuge of foresight,'" I answered him. "Who can count upon the
morrow? And after what has befallen Mademoiselle de Fontanges, we must
consider ourselves as persons already numbered, who wait only for the
call."

He sighed, and soon spoke of something else.

I reminded myself that, to speak correctly, I had in Paris no habitation
worthy of my children and of my quality. That little hotel in the Rue
Saint Andre-des-Arcs I could count for no more than a little box. I
sought amongst my papers for a design of a magnificent hotel which I had
obtained from the famous Blondel. I found it without difficulty, with
full elevations and sections. The artist had adroitly imitated in it the
beautiful architecture of the Louvre; this