f love for
her, and anger against those who had driven her from his court.
Louise, saddened in heart and crushed in spirit, with great reluctance
at last yielded to his pleadings. The page was dispatched for a
carriage. Seated by the side of the king, Mademoiselle de la Valliere
returned to the palace, from which she supposed a few hours before she
had departed forever. Louis immediately repaired to the apartment of
Madame Henrietta, and so imperiously insisted that Louise should be
restored to her place as one of her maids of honor, that his
sister-in-law dared not refuse. The influence of Anne of Austria was
now nearly at an end. She was dying of slow disease, and,
notwithstanding all her efforts to conceal the loathsome malady which
was devouring her, she was compelled to spend most of her time in the
seclusion of her own chamber.

Louis XIV., in the exercise of absolute power, with all the court
bowing before him in the most abject homage, had gradually begun to
regard himself almost as a God. He had never recovered from the
mortification which he had experienced at the palace of Vaux, in
finding a subject living in splendor which outvied that of the crown.
He determined to rear a palace of such extraordinary magnificence that
no subject, whatever might be his resources, could equal it. For some
time he had been looking around for the site of the building, which
he had resolved should, like the Pyramids, be a monument of his reign,
and excite the wonder and admiration of future ages.

About twelve miles from Paris there was a little village of
Versailles, surrounded by an immense forest, whose solemn depths
frequently resounded with the baying of the hounds of hunting-parties,
as the gayly dressed court swept through the glades.

On one occasion, Louis XIV., in the eagerness of the chase, became
separated from most of the rest of the party. Night coming on, he was
compelled, and the few companions with him, to take refuge in a
windmill, where they remained till morning. The mill was erected upon
the highest point of ground. The king caused a small pavilion to be
erected there for his accommodation, should he again chance to be
overtaken by night or a storm. Pleased with the position, the king ere
long removed the pavilion, and ordered his architect, Lemercier, to
erect upon the spot an elegant chateau according to his own taste. A
landscape gardener was also employed to ornament the grounds. The
region soon was