ed on also, with one of those
looks of fixed hostility that seemed to give to a man's glance the power
of a lever when it raises an obstacle, wrests it away, and casts it to
a distance. M. de Guiche was left alone in the king's cabinet, the whole
of the company having departed. Shadows seemed to dance before his eyes.
He suddenly broke through the settled despair that overwhelmed him, and
flew to hide himself in his own room, where Raoul awaited him, immovable
in his own sad presentiments.

"Well?" he murmured, seeing his friend enter, bareheaded, with a wild
gaze and tottering gait.

"Yes, yes, it is true," said De Guiche, unable to utter more, and
falling exhausted upon the couch.

"And she?" inquired Raoul.

"She," exclaimed his unhappy friend, as he raised his hand clenched in
anger, towards Heaven. "She!--"

"What did she say and do?"

"She said that her dress suited her admirably, and then she laughed."

A fit of hysteric laughter seemed to shatter his nerves, for he fell
backwards, completely overcome.

Chapter XXXV. Fontainebleau.

For four days, every kind of enchantment brought together in the
magnificent gardens of Fontainebleau had converted this spot into a
place of the most perfect enjoyment. M. Colbert seemed gifted with
ubiquity. In the morning there were the accounts of the previous night's
expenses to settle; during the day, programmes, essays, enrolments,
payments. M. Colbert had amassed four millions of francs, and dispersed
them with sleepless economy. He was horrified at the expenses which
mythology involved; not a wood nymph, nor a dryad, that cost less than a
hundred francs a day! The dress alone amounted to three hundred francs.
The expense of powder and sulphur for fireworks amounted, every night,
to a hundred thousand francs. In addition to these, the illuminations
on the borders of the sheet of water cost thirty thousand francs
every evening. The _fetes_ had been magnificent; and Colbert could not
restrain his delight. From time to time, he noticed Madame and the king
setting forth on hunting expeditions, or preparing for the reception
of different fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, which had been
extemporized a fortnight before, and in which Madame's sparkling wit and
the king's magnificence were equally well displayed.

For Madame, the heroine of the _fete_, replied to the addresses of the
deputations from unknown races--Garamanths, Scythians, Hyperboreans,
Caucasian