a barbarous pleasure in leaving before his eyes all that should make him love and regret life? Such, however, is my fate: I have no other refuge, no other hope than the tomb, for, from that moment that I became unfortunate, I can no longer dream of your hand. When fortune was smiling on me, all my hope was that you might be mine: poor as I am to-day, I would shudder at myself if I dared still to hope it, and from the moment I can no longer make you happy, I forbid you to love me, who am myself dying of love.…’

The marquise smiled at those last words.

‘Madame,’ said the king, ‘that’s a fine fellow. But what’s keeping him from marrying his lady?’

‘Let me continue, sire.’

‘This injustice that overwhelms me, comes on me unexpectedly from the hands of the best of kings. You know that my father was asking for me a place as cornet or ensign in the Guards, and that this place would influence all my future life, since it would give me the right to offer myself to you. The Duke of Biron had proposed me: but the king has rejected me in a fashion whose memory is very bitter to me, for if my father has his own way of thinking (I wish this was a fault) ought I all the same to be punished for it? My devotion to the king is as true and sincere as my love for you. The world might clearly see them both if I could draw a sword. It is desperately disappointing that my request should be refused; but that it should be without a valid reason that I am smothered in disgrace like this, that is opposed to the well-known kindness of his majesty—’

‘Aha!’ said the king, ‘this interests me.’

‘If you knew how sad we are! Ah, my dear, this domain of Neauflette, this lodge of Vauvert, these copses! I walk alone in them all day. I have forbidden them to be raked; the wretched gardener came yesterday with his steel-shod broom. He was going to touch the sand.…The print of your steps, lighter than the wind, is still not effaced. The tips of your little feet, and your high white heels, were still marked in the alley; they seemed to walk before me, while I followed your lovely form, and this charming spirit at times came to life for a moment, as if it poised itself on the fleeting imprint. It is there, it is while walking along by the flower beds, that it was given to me to know you, to appreciate you. An admirable education in an angel’s mind, the dignity of a queen with the grace of the nymphs, thoughts worthy of Leibniz with so simple a language, Plato’s bees on Diana’s lips: all that has shrouded me in a veil of adoration. And all that time those beloved flowers blossomed around us, I breathed them as I listened to you: in their perfume lived your memory. Now they droop their heads: they show me death—’

‘That’s bad Jean-Jacques,’ said the king. ‘Why do you read me that?’

‘Because your majesty ordered me to, for love of the beautiful eyes of Mademoiselle d’Annebault.’

‘That’s true, she has beautiful eyes.’

‘And when I came in from these walks I find my father alone in the big drawing-room, head on his hand beside a candle, amid those faded gildings that cover our worm-eaten wainscoting. He sees me coming with sorrow—my pain disturbs his own. Athénaïs! at the other end of the room near the window, is the keyboard up which your delicious fingers flitted, fingers which once my lips have touched, while your lips opened sweetly to the notes of most tuneful music—so sweet that your songs were no more than a smile. How happy are they, your Rameau, your Lulli, your Duni, and mayhap many another! Yes, yes, you love them, they linger in your memory, their breath has passed over your lips. I sit me down too at the piano, I try to play one of those airs that please you; how cold and monotonous they seem! I leave them, and hear them die away, while the echo loses itself beneath this sad roof. My father turns and sees me desolate: what can he do? A bed-chamber intrigue, an ante-room plot has shut our gates. He sees me, young, ardent, full of life, asking no more than to take my place in the world: he is my father, and can do nothing.’