dmiring her also a little in her turn. Young persons love with more
vivacity, perhaps with greater ardor and deeper passion, than others
more advanced in years; but all the other feelings are at the same time
developed in proportion to their youth and vigor: so that vanity being
with them almost always the equivalent of love, the latter feeling,
according to the laws of equipoise, never attains that degree of
perfection which it acquires in men and women from thirty to five and
thirty years of age. Louis thought of Madame, but only after he had
studiously thought of himself; and Madame carefully thought of herself,
without bestowing a single thought upon the king. The victim, however,
of all these royal affections and affectations, was poor De Guiche.
Every one could observe his agitation and prostration--a prostration
which was, indeed, the more remarkable since people were not accustomed
to see him with his arms hanging listlessly by his side, his head
bewildered, and his eyes with all their bright intelligence bedimmed. It
rarely happened that any uneasiness was excited on his account, whenever
a question of elegance or taste was under discussion; and De Guiche's
defeat was accordingly attributed by the greater number present to his
courtier-like tact and ability. But there were others--keen-sighted
observers are always to be met with at court--who remarked his paleness
and his altered looks; which he could neither feign nor conceal,
and their conclusion was that De Guiche was not acting the part of a
flatterer. All these sufferings, successes, and remarks were blended,
confounded, and lost in the uproar of applause. When, however, the
queens expressed their satisfaction and the spectators their enthusiasm,
when the king had retired to his dressing-room to change his costume,
and whilst Monsieur, dressed as a woman, as he delighted to be, was
in his turn dancing about, De Guiche, who had now recovered himself,
approached Madame, who, seated at the back of the theater, was waiting
for the second part, and had quitted the others for the purpose of
creating a sort of solitude for herself in the midst of the crowd, to
meditate, as it were, beforehand, upon chorographic effects; and it will
be perfectly understood that, absorbed in deep meditation, she did not
see, or rather pretended not to notice, anything that was passing around
her. De Guiche, observing that she was alone, near a thicket constructed
of painted cloth, ap