ar aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to M. de
Montriveau," said the Duc de Navarreins.

"Bah!" returned the Princess.

"What do you think, Vidame?" asked the Marquis.

"If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think that----"

"But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton," retorted
the Princess. "Really, my poor Vidame, you must be getting older."

"After all, what is to be done?" asked the Duke.

"If my dear niece is wise," said the Princess, "she will go to Court
this evening--fortunately, today is Monday, and reception day--and you
must see that we all rally round her and give the lie to this absurd
rumour. There are hundreds of ways of explaining things; and if the
Marquis de Montriveau is a gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We
will bring these children to listen to reason----"

"But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the truth to
his face. He is one of Bonaparte's pupils, and he has a position. Why,
he is one of the great men of the day; he is high up in the Guards, and
very useful there. He has not a spark of ambition. He is just the man to
say, 'Here is my commission, leave me in peace,' if the King should say
a word that he did not like."

"Then, pray, what are his opinions?"

"Very unsound."

"Really," sighed the Princess, "the King is, as he always has been, a
Jacobin under the Lilies of France."

"Oh! not quite so bad," said the Vidame.

"Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed out the
Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state dinner in public
with, 'These are our people,' could only be a black-hearted scoundrel.
I can see Monsieur exactly the same as ever in the King. The bad brother
who voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly was
sure to compound with the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk.
This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger
brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the little
mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how his successor
is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his younger brother in
abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he lay dying, 'He will not
reign very long----'"

"Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his service----"

"But does your post take away your right of free speech, my dear? You
come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had