this abrupt question.
"I had an advice from one who was offended by the insult to the lady of my choice."
"Secret correspondence, eh?" exclaimed the sovereign. "Plots, plots! Here you are, beginning to worry me again, as in the days of Pompadour."
"No, this is only a secondary matter. Let the culprit be punished, and that will end the affair."
At the suggestion of punishment, Louis saw Jeanne furious and Chon up in arms.
"Punish, without hearing the case?" he said. "I have signed quite enough blank committals to jail. A pretty mess you are dragging me into, duke."
"But what a scandal, if the first outrage to the princess is allowed to go unpunished, sire."
"I entreat your majesty," said the dauphin.
"What, don't you think the sword cut was enough punishment?"
"No, sire, for he might have wounded Lieutenant Taverney. In that case I should have asked for his head."
"Nay," said the dauphin, "I only ask for his banishment."
"Exile, for an alehouse scuffle," said the king. "In spite of your philosophical notions, you are harsh, Louis. It is true that you are a mathematician, and such are hard as—well, they would sacrifice the world to have their ciphering come out correct."
"Sire, I am not angry with Chevalier Dubarry personally, but as he insulted the dauphiness."
"What a model husband!" sneered the king. "But I am not to be gulled in this way. I see that I am attacked under all these blinds. It is odd that you cannot let me live in my own way, but must hate all whom I like, and like all I dislike! Am I mad, or sane? Am I the master, or not!"
The prince went back to the clock. Choiseul bowed as before.
"No answer, eh? Why don't you say something? Do you want to worry me into the grave with your petty hints and strange silence, your paltry spites and minute dreads?"
"I do not hate Chevalier Dubarry," said the prince.
"I do not dread him," added Choiseul.
"You are both bad at heart," went on the sovereign, trying to be furious but only showing spite. "Do you want me to realize the fable with which my cousin of Prussia jeers me, that mine is the Court of King Petaud? No, I shall do nothing of the kind. I stand on my honor in my own style and will defend it similarly."
"Sire," said the prince with his inexhaustible meekness but eternal persistency, "your majesty's honor is not affected—it is the dignity of the royal princess which is struck at."
"Let Chevalier Jean make excuses, then, as he is free to do. But he is free to do the other thing."
"I warn your majesty that the affair will be talked of, if thus dropped," said the prime minister.
"Who cares? Do as I do. Let the public chatter, and heed them not—unless you like to laugh at them. I shall be deaf to all. The sooner they make such a noise as to deafen me, the sooner I shall cease to hear them. Think over what I say, for I am sick of this. I am going to Marly, where I can get a little quiet—if I am not followed out there. At least, I shall not meet your sister the Lady Louise there, for she has retired to the nunnery of St. Denis."
But the dauphin was not listening to this news of the breaking up of his family.
"It is going," he exclaimed in delight, real or feigned, as the clock resumed its regular tickings.
The minister frowned and bowed himself out backward from the hall, where the heir to the throne was left alone.
The king going into his study, paced it with long strides.
"I can clearly see that Choiseul is railing at me. The prince looks on himself as half the master, and believes he will be entirely so when he mounts with this Austrian on the throne. My daughter Louise loves me, but she preaches morality and she gives me the go-by to live in the nunnery. My three other girls sing songs against me and poor Jeanne. The Count of Provence is translating Lucretius. His brother of Artois is running wild about the streets. Decidedly none but this poor countess loves me. Devil take those who try to displease her!"
Sitting at the table where his father signed papers, his treaties and grandiloquent epistles, the son of the great king took up the pen.
"I understand why they are all hastening the arrival of the archduchess. But I am not going to be perturbed by her sooner than can be helped," and he wrote an order for Governor Stainville to stop three days at one city and three at another.
With the same pen he wrote:
"Dear Countess: This day we install Zamore in his new government. I am off for Marly, but I will come over to Luciennes this evening to tell you all I am thinking about at present. France."
"Lebel," he said to his confidential valet, "away with this to the countess, and my advice is for you to keep in her good graces."
Chapter XVIII.
The Countess Of Bearn.
A hackney coach stopping at the doorway of Chancellor Maupeou, president of Parliament, induced the porter to deign to stalk out to the door of the vehicle and see why the way was thus blocked.
He saw an old lady in an antiquated costume. She was thin and bony but active, with cat's eyes rolling under gray brows. But poverty stricken though she appeared, the porter showed respect as he asked her name.
"I am the Countess of Bearn," she replied; "but I fear that I shall not have the fortune to find his lordship at home."
"My lord is receiving," answered the janitor. "That is, he will receive your ladyship."
The old lady stepped out of the carriage, wondering if she did not dream, while the porter gave two jerks to a bellrope. An usher came to the portals, where the first servant motioned that the visitor might enter.
"If your ladyship desires speech with the lord high chancellor," said the usher, "step this way, please."
"They do speak ill of this official," uttered the lady; "but he has the good trait that he is easily accessible. But it is strange that so high an officer of the law should have open doors."
Chancellor Maupeou, buried in an enormous wig and clad in black velvet, was writing in his study, where the door was open.
On entering, the old countess threw a rapid glance around, but to her surprise there was no other face than hers and that of the law lord, thin, yellow and busy, reflected in the mirrors.
He rose in one piece and placed himself with his back to the fireplace.
The lady made the three courtesies according to rule.
Her little compliment was rather unsteady; she had not expected the honor; she never could have believed that a cabinet minister would give her some time out of his business
