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22 "Moi-même!"

But this devotion, bringing no especial pleasure or advantage to either the cardinals, the queen-regent, the young king or his mistresses, naturally brought no profit to the aged courtier, whose influence was stretched to its utmost limit in procuring the appointment of captain of cavalry for his eldest son, and the privilege for himself of winning a few louis d'or now and again at the royal card-tables.

The causes thus accreted had to-day produced two effects: the first, that the Château de Montarnaud was very poorly furnished and very meagrely kept; the second, that the count would not have failed to obey any command the king had deigned to lay upon him, if it had involved carrying Mademoiselle de Rochenbois to Paris in fetters, and obtaining a lettre-de-cachet for François if he opposed the movement.

Such extreme measures were not, however, likely to prove necessary in the opinion of the count, who knew his world as well as Monsieur de Meaux knew his Bible, or Louis XIV. his own importance. So, in leading the young girl into the château, he dropped the imperious and fault-finding tone he had assumed among his dependents and toward his son, and spoke of the gayeties of the court, of the magnificence of the young king and the splendors of his entertainments, of the new-born beauties of Versailles, the new comedies of Molière performed in the royal theatre of that palace, and of the charms of several of the court ladies; ending with a significant glance and bow, as he added,—