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usual circle were assembled the following morning at Madame de Mercœur's apartment, when the Duc himself entered.

"What have you been hearing, seeing, or saying?" asked Madame; "for you look as if you had something extraordinary to tell us!"

"I have, indeed!" was his answer; "but even more shocking than surprising. The Queen of Sweden has had her chamberlain murdered—executed, as she calls it—at Fontainebleau!"

His intelligence was received with a universal exclamation of horror!

"How very dreadful!" cried Madame; "and to think that such an act should have been committed by any body that we all know!"

"Why, to be sure, our knowing her is a great