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540 The Prince was greatly incensed at this news. He wrote to the King and Queen demanding the release of his favourite. His applications had no effect: but it was not only by this that they sought to distress him.

One morning that the Princess had risen with the dawn, and gone into the garden to gather flowers as usual for the Queen's toilette, she saw the faithful Ruson, who was preceding her at some distance, suddenly run back in great alarm. As she advanced to see what had frightened him so much, he pulled her by the skirt of her gown in order to prevent her, for he was a most intelligent animal, and she suddenly heard the sharp hissing of a number of serpents, and found herself almost immediately beset by toads, vipers, scorpions, asps, and snakes, that encircled, without stinging her. They raised themselves to dart at her, but invariably fell back on the spot without power to touch her.

Notwithstanding the terror she was in, she could not fail to notice this prodigy, and she could attribute it to nothing except the virtue of a ring made under the influence of certain constellations, and given to her by her lover. Whichever way she turned, she saw these venomous reptiles running towards her. The walks were full of them, and they swarmed upon the flowers and under the trees. The lovely Constancia knew not what to do. She perceived the Queen at her window, laughing at her alarm. She knew directly that she had no hope of being saved by her orders. "I must die," said she, nobly; "those horrid monsters that surround me came not here of their own accord. The Queen has had them brought hither, and there she stands to be the spectatress of this miserable termination to my existence. It has certainly been so sad a one up to this very hour, that I have no reason to cling to it; and if I regret its loss, the gods, the just gods, can testify why I do so at this moment."

Having thus spoken, she advanced, and all the snakes and their companions retreated as fast as she approached them. She quitted the garden in this way unhurt, as much to her own astonishment as to the Queen's, who had for a long time past been collecting these dangerous reptiles with the intention of having the shepherdess stung to death by them. She imagined such a circumstance would not arouse the suspicions of her son; that he would attribute Constancia's death to