discussing a
question of military organisation with two officers, the one a tall and
stately soldier, the other a strange little figure, undersized and
misshapen, but bearing the insignia of a marshal of France, and owning a
name which was of evil omen over the Dutch frontier, for Luxembourg was
looked upon already as the successor of Conde, even as his companion
Vauban was of Turenne. Beside them, a small white-haired clerical with
a kindly face, Pere la Chaise, confessor to the king, was whispering his
views upon Jansenism to the portly Bossuet, the eloquent Bishop of
Meaux, and to the tall thin young Abbe de Fenelon, who listened with a
clouded brow, for it was suspected that his own opinions were tainted
with the heresy in question. There, too, was Le Brun, the painter,
discussing art in a small circle which contained his fellow-workers
Verrio and Laguerre, the architects Blondel and Le Notre, and sculptors
Girardon, Puget, Desjardins, and Coysevox, whose works had done so much
to beautify the new palace of the king. Close to the door, Racine, with
his handsome face wreathed in smiles, was chatting with the poet Boileau
and the architect Mansard, the three laughing and jesting with the
freedom which was natural to the favourite servants of the king, the
only subjects who might walk unannounced and without ceremony into and
out of his chamber.

"What is amiss with him this morning?" asked Boileau in a whisper,
nodding his head in the direction of the royal group. "I fear that his
sleep has not improved his temper."

"He becomes harder and harder to amuse," said Racine, shaking his head.
"I am to be at Madame De Maintenon's room at three to see whether a page
or two of the _Phedre_ may not work a change."

"My friend," said the architect, "do you not think that madame herself
might be a better consoler than your _Phedre_?"

"Madame is a wonderful woman. She has brains, she has heart, she has
tact--she is admirable."

"And yet she has one gift too many."

"And that is?"

"Age."

"Pooh! What matter her years when she can carry them like thirty?
What an eye! What an arm! And besides, my friends, he is not himself a
boy any longer."

"Ah, but that is another thing."

"A man's age is an incident, a woman's a calamity."

"Very true. But a young man consults his eye, and an older man his ear.
Over forty, it is the clever tongue which wins; under it, the pretty
face."

"Ah, you rascal! Then you have