ce,
being reproached continually, dismissed from day to day a number of
persons, and limited the allowances of others. At the end of a month,
therefore, all the ladies of the court ran weeping and wailing to Queen
Niort's, and begged her to rescue them.

The worthy lady betook herself to the pharaoh, and, falling on her
face, begged him to take compassion on the women of his father, and not
let them die in destitution.

The pharaoh listened to her with frowning brows and commanded the chief
of the court not to extend his saving farther. But at the same time he
told the most worthy lady that after the funeral of his father the
women would be removed from the palace and sent to the country.

"Our court," said he, "costs about thirty thousand talents yearly, or
once and a half as much as the whole army. I cannot expend such a sum
without ruining myself and the kingdom."

"Do as may please thee," answered the queen. "Egypt is thine. But I
fear that the persons rejected from the court will become thy enemies."

At this he took his mother by the hand, led her to the window, and
pointed to a forest of spears held by infantry drilling in the
courtyard.

This act of the pharaoh produced an unexpected effect. The queen's
eyes, which a moment before gleamed with pride, were filled with tears.
All at once she bent and kissed her son's hand, saying with emotion,

"Thou art, indeed, the son of Isis and Osiris, and I did well when I
yielded thee to the goddess. Egypt at last has a ruler."

From that time the worthy lady never appealed to her son in any
question. And when she was asked for protection, she answered,

"I am the servant of his holiness and I advise you to carry out his
commands without resistance. All he does comes from inspiration of the
gods. And who can oppose the gods?"

After breakfast the pharaoh was occupied in affairs of the ministry of
war, and the treasury; about three in the afternoon, surrounded by a
great suite, he went to the troops encamped outside Memphis, and
reviewed them.

Indeed, the greatest changes had taken place in the military condition.

In less than two months his holiness had organized five new regiments,
or rather he had reestablished those disbanded during the reign of his
father. He dismissed officers addicted to drunkenness and gambling,
also those who tortured warriors.

Into the military bureaus, where priests alone had held office, he
introduced his most capable adjutants