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178 dowager—utterly powerless, be it observed—resides in a small tranquil town, where she believes the golden age to be very respectably represented. Suddenly the calm current of their ordinary existence is disturbed by a visit from the reigning monarch; all the little, mean, and malevolent passions—vices, we should rather say—engendered of vanity and vexation of spirit, rise at once to the surface of the troubled waters—troubled by the demon of ambition; and the poor princess is left in mute dismay, to wonder what has become of the humility, the independence, and the content which she had so rashly eulogised.

Francesca was in much the same position with regard to her father. Accustomed to see him irritable and indifferent, she could scarcely believe the courtier, full of flattery and empressement, who seemed to consider himself and household but created for the Queen Henriette's pleasure.

Yet the banquet went off heavily. In the minds of some, now for the first time during many years treading their native shore, the past predominated; it was impossible to fix the thoughts on anything but the dark record of blood, suffering, crime, and death, written on the last few years. Others, again—Madame de Soissons and the Chevalier de Joinville, usually the most