is sad and weary when nothing amuses. But who
is there?"

"It is my companion knocking. What is it, mademoiselle?"

"Monsieur Corneille, to read to the king," said the young lady, opening
the door.

"Ah, yes, sire; I know how foolish is a woman's tongue, and so I have
brought a wiser one than mine here to charm you. Monsieur Racine was to
have come, but I hear that he has had a fall from his horse, and he
sends his friend in his place. Shall I admit him?"

"Oh, as you like, madame, as you like," said the king listlessly. At a
sign from Mademoiselle Nanon a little peaky man with a shrewd petulant
face, and long gray hair falling back over his shoulders, entered the
room. He bowed profoundly three times, and then seated himself
nervously on the very edge of the stool, from which the lady had removed
her work-basket. She smiled and nodded to encourage the poet, while the
monarch leaned back in his chair with an air of resignation.

"Shall it be a comedy, or a tragedy, or a burlesque pastoral?" Corneille
asked timidly.

"Not the burlesque pastoral," said the king with decision. "Such things
may be played, but cannot be read, since they are for the eye rather
than the ear."

The poet bowed his acquiescence.

"And not the tragedy, monsieur," said Madame de Maintenon, glancing up
from her tapestry. "The king has enough that is serious in his graver
hours, and so I trust that you will use your talent to amuse him."

"Ay, let it be a comedy," said Louis; "I have not had a good laugh since
poor Moliere passed away."

"Ah, your Majesty has indeed a fine taste," cried the courtier poet.
"Had you condescended to turn your own attention to poetry, where should
we all have been then?"

Louis smiled, for no flattery was too gross to please him.

"Even as you have taught our generals war and our builders art, so you
would have set your poor singers a loftier strain. But Mars would
hardly deign to share the humbler laurels of Apollo."

"I have sometimes thought that I had some such power," answered the king
complacently; "though amid my toils and the burdens of state I have had,
as you say, little time for the softer arts."

"But you have encouraged others to do what you could so well have done
yourself, sire. You have brought out poets as the sun brings out
flowers. How many have we not seen--Moliere, Boileau, Racine, one
greater than the other? And the others, too, the smaller ones--Scarron,
so scurrilous