indemnify him myself, by giving him a pension."

Mademoiselle bit her lip and added:

"The President asked sixty thousand first; my men of business offered him forty, and he accepted it."

Mademoiselle has no generosity, although she is immensely rich; she pretended not to hear, and it was M. Colbert who sent by order the twenty thousand livres to the President.

Mademoiselle, vain and petty, as though she were a bourgeoise of yesterday, showed us her gallery, where she had already collected the selected portraits of all her ancestors, relations, and kindred; she pointed out to us in her winter salon the portrait of the little Comte de Toulouse, painted, not as an admiral, but as God of the Sea, floating on a pearl shell; and his brother, the Duc du Maine, as Colonel-General of the Swiss and Grisons. The full-length portrait of the King was visible on three chimneypieces; she was at great pains to make a merit of it, and call for thanks.

Having followed her into her state chamber, where she had stolen in privately, I saw that she was taking away the portrait of Lauzun. I went and told it to the King, who shrugged his shoulders and fell to laughing.

"She is fifty-two years old," he said to me.

A very pretty collation of confitures and fruits was served us, to which the King prayed her to add a ragout of peas and a roasted fowl.

During the repast, he said to her: "For the rest, I have not noticed the portrait of Gaston, your father; is it a distraction on my part, or an omission on yours?"

"It will be put there later," she answered. "It is not time."

"What! your father!" added the King. "You do not think that, cousin!"

"All my actions," added the Princess, "are weighed in the balance beforehand; if I were to exhibit the portrait of my father at the head of these various pictures, I should have to put my stepmother, his wife, there too, as a necessary pendant. The harm which she has done me does not permit of that complacence. One opens one's house only to one's friends."

"Your stepmother has never done you any other harm," replied the King, "than to reclaim for her children the funds or the furniture left by your father. The character of Margaret of Lorraine has always been sweetness itself; seeing your irritation, she begged me to arbitrate myself; and you know all that M. Colbert and the Chancellor did to satisfy you under the circumstances. But let us speak of something else, and cease these discussions. I have a service to ask of you: here is M. le Duc du Maine already big; everybody knows of your affection for him, and I have seen his portrait with pleasure, in one of your salons. I am going to establish him; would it be agreeable to you if I give him your livery?"

"M. le Duc du Maine," said the Princess, "is the type of what is gracious, and noble, and beautiful; he can only do honour to my livery; I grant it him with all my heart, since you do me the favour of desiring it. Would I were in a position to do more for him!"

The King perfectly understood these last words; he made no reply to them, but he understood all that he was meant to understand. We went down again into the gardens.

The fishermen of Choisy had just caught a salmon of enormous size, which they had been pursuing for four or five days; they had intended to offer it to Mademoiselle; the presence of the King inspired them with another design. They wove with great diligence a large and pretty basket of reeds, garnished it with foliage, young grass, and flowers, and came and presented to the King their salmon, all leaping in the basket.

The fisherman charged with the address only uttered a few words; they were quite evidently improvised, so that they gave more pleasure and effect than those of academicians, or persons of importance. The fisherman expressed himself thus:

"You have brought us good fortune, Sire, by your presence, as you bring fortune to your generals. You arrive on the Monday; on the Tuesday the town is taken. We come to offer to the greatest of kings the greatest salmon that can be caught."

The King desired this speech to be instantly transcribed; and, after having bountifully rewarded the sailors, his Majesty said to Mademoiselle:

"This man was born to be a wit; if he were younger, I would place him in a college. There is wit at Choisy in every rank of life."

CHAPTER VI.

Departure of the King.—Ghent Reduced in Five Days.—Taking of
Ypres.—Peace Signed.—The Prince of Orange Is at Pains Not to Know of
It.—Horrible Cruelties.

I have related in what manner Charles II., suddenly pronouncing in favour of his nephew, the Prince of Orange, had signed a league with his old enemies, the Dutch, in order to counteract the success of the King of France and compel him to sign a humiliating and entirely inadmissible peace.

The King left Versailles suddenly on the 4th of February, 1678, taking, with his whole Court, the road to Lorraine, while waiting for the troops which had wintered on the frontiers, and were investing at once Luxembourg, Charlemont, Namur, Mons, and Ypres, five of the strongest and best provisioned places in the Low Countries. By this march and manoeuvre, he wished to hoodwink the allied generals, who were very far from imagining that Ghent was the point towards which the Conqueror's intentions were directed.

In effect, hardly had the King seen them occupied in preparing the defence of the above named places, when, leaving the Queen and the ladies in the agreeable town of Metz, he rapidly traversed sixty leagues of country, and laid siege to the town of Ghent, which was scarcely expecting him.

The Spanish governor, Don Francisco de Pardo, having but a weak garrison and little artillery, decided upon releasing the waters and inundating the country; but certain heights remained which could not be covered, and from here the French artillery started to storm the ramparts and the fort.

The siege was commenced on the 4th of March; upon the 9th the town opened its gates, and two days later the citadel. Ypres was carried at the end of a week, in spite of the most obstinate resistance. Our grenadiers performed prodigies, and lost all their officers, without exception. I lost there one of my nephews, the one hope of his family; my compliments to the King, therefore, were soon made.

He went to Versailles to take back the Queen, and returned to Ghent with the speed and promptitude of lightning. The same evening he sent an order to a detachment of the garrison of Maestricht to hasten and seize the town and citadel of Leuwe, in Brabant, which was executed on the instant. It was then that the Dutch sent their deputation, charged to plead for a suspension of hostilities for six weeks. The King granted it, although these blunderers hardly merited it. They undertook that Spain should join them in the peace, and finally, after some difficulties, settled more or less rightly, the treaty was signed on the 10th of August, just as the six weeks were about to expire.

The Prince of Orange, naturally bellicose, and, above all things, passionately hostile to France, pretended to ignore the existence of this peace, which he disapproved. The Marechal de Luxembourg, informed of the treaty, gave himself up to the security of the moment; he was actually at table with his numerous officers when he was warned that the Prince of Orange was advancing against him. The alarm was quickly sounded; such troops and cavalry as could be were assembled, and a terrible action ensued.

At first we were