r Cropole. Master
Cropole, being called upon to settle his account with Parry, acquitted
himself, it must be allowed, like an honest man; he only made his
customary remark, that the two travelers had eaten nothing, which had
the double disadvantage of being humiliating for his kitchen, and of
forcing him to ask payment for a repast not consumed, but not the less
lost. Parry had nothing to say to the contrary, and paid.

"I hope," said the king, "it has not been the same with the horses.
I don't see that they have eaten at your expense, and it would be a
misfortune for travelers like us, who have a long journey to make, to
have our horses fail us."

But Cropole, at this doubt, assumed his majestic air, and replied that
the stables of _les Medici_ were not less hospitable than its refectory.

The king mounted his horse; his old servant did the same, and both set
out towards Paris, without meeting a single person on their road, in the
streets or the faubourgs of the city. For the prince the blow was the
more severe, as it was a fresh exile. The unfortunates cling to the
smallest hopes, as the happy do to the greatest good; and when they are
obliged to quit the place where that hope has soothed their hearts, they
experience the mortal regret which the banished man feels when he places
his foot upon the vessel which is to bear him into exile. It appears
that the heart already wounded so many times suffers from the least
scratch; it appears that it considers as a good the momentary absence of
evil, which is nothing but the absence of pain; and that God, into the
most terrible misfortunes, has thrown hope as the drop of water which
the rich sinner in hell entreated of Lazarus.

For one instant even the hope of Charles II. had been more than a
fugitive joy;--that was when he found himself so kindly welcomed by his
brother king; then it had taken a form that had become a reality; then,
all at once, the refusal of Mazarin had reduced the fictitious reality
to the state of a dream. This promise of Louis XIV., so soon retracted,
had been nothing but a mockery; a mockery like his crown--like his
scepter--like his friends--like all that had surrounded his royal
childhood, and which had abandoned his proscribed youth. Mockery!
everything was a mockery for Charles II. except the cold, black repose
promised by death.

Such were the ideas of the unfortunate prince while sitting listlessly
upon his horse, to which he abandoned the re