nings and the copper feet of
the pier-tables were slightly tarnished with dust. The armchairs were
everywhere hidden under coarse linen covers. Above the doors could be
seen reliquaries of Louis XIV., and here and there hangings representing
the gods of Olympus, Psyche, or the battles of Alexander.

As she was passing in front of the mirrors, Rosanette stopped for a
moment to smooth her head-bands.

After passing through the donjon-court and the Saint-Saturnin Chapel,
they reached the Festal Hall.

They were dazzled by the magnificence of the ceiling, which was divided
into octagonal apartments set off with gold and silver, more finely
chiselled than a jewel, and by the vast number of paintings covering the
walls, from the immense chimney-piece, where the arms of France were
surrounded by crescents and quivers, down to the musicians' gallery,
which had been erected at the other end along the entire width of the
hall. The ten arched windows were wide open; the sun threw its lustre on
the pictures, so that they glowed beneath its rays; the blue sky
continued in an endless curve the ultramarine of the arches; and from
the depths of the woods, where the lofty summits of the trees filled up
the horizon, there seemed to come an echo of flourishes blown by ivory
trumpets, and mythological ballets, gathering together under the foliage
princesses and nobles disguised as nymphs or fauns--an epoch of
ingenuous science, of violent passions, and sumptuous art, when the
ideal was to sweep away the world in a vision of the Hesperides, and
when the mistresses of kings mingled their glory with the stars. There
was a portrait of one of the most beautiful of these celebrated women in
the form of Diana the huntress, and even the Infernal Diana, no doubt in
order to indicate the power which she possessed even beyond the limits
of the tomb. All these symbols confirmed her glory, and there remained
about the spot something of her, an indistinct voice, a radiation that
stretched out indefinitely. A feeling of mysterious retrospective
voluptuousness took possession of Frederick.

In order to divert these passionate longings into another channel, he
began to gaze tenderly on Rosanette, and asked her would she not like to
have been this woman?

"What woman?"

"Diane de Poitiers!"

He repeated:

"Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II."

She gave utterance to a little "Ah!" that was all.

Her silence clearly demonstrated that she