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10 Princess alight, and left her there regardless of her piteous supplications. "I do not ask you to spare my life," she cried, "I only request immediate death. Kill me and spare me all the tortures I must suffer here!" They were deaf to her entreaties. They did not even deign to answer her, and, galloping off, left the lovely and unfortunate maiden alone in the forest. She hurried on for some time without knowing whither she was going, now running against some tree, now falling, now entangled in the bushes, till at length overwhelmed with anguish, she threw herself on the ground unable to rise again. "Percinet!" she cried, twice or thrice, "Percinet! Where are you? Is it possible you can have abandoned me?" As she uttered the last words, she suddenly beheld the most surprising thing in the world. It was an illumination so magnificent that there was not a tree in the forest on which there were not several chandeliers filled with wax lights, and at the far end of an avenue she perceived a palace built entirely of crystal, which blazed like the sun. She began to imagine Percinet had some hand in this new enchantment, and felt her joy a little mingled with fear. "I am alone," she said, "the prince is young, amiable, in love, and I owe him my life! Ah! It is too much!—Let me fly from him!—Better for me to die than love him!" So saying, she managed to rise from the ground, notwithstanding her weariness and weakness, and without casting another look towards the splendid palace, she hurried off in an opposite direction, so distressed and so bewildered by the various feelings which agitated her, that she did not know what she was doing.

At that moment she heard a noise behind her. Fear seized her. She thought it was some wild beast who was about to devour her. She looked back, trembling, and beheld Prince Percinet as handsome as they paint the God of Love. "You fly me, my Princess!" said he. "You fear me when I adore you! Is it possible you can know so little of my respect as to suppose me capable of failing in it to you? Come! come, without fear, into the fairy palace. I will not enter it if you forbid me. You will find there the queen, my mother, and my sisters, who already love you tenderly from my account of you." Gracieuse, charmed by the humble and engaging manner in which her young lover addressed her, could not refuse