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256 quite close to the river-bank, gave the signal for all those to approach whose attendance or pleasure summoned them to madame's side. The pages hurried forward, conducting the led horses; the carriages, which had remained sheltered under the trees, advanced toward the tent, followed by a crowd of servants, bearers, and female attendants, who, while their masters had been bathing, had mutually exchanged their own observations, their critical remarks, and the discussion of matters personal to themselves — the fugitive journal of that period, of which no record is preserved, not even by the waters, the mirror of individuals, echoes of conversations, witnesses whom Heaven has hurried into immensity, as he has hurried the actors themselves into eternity. A crowd of people upon the banks of the river, without reckoning the groups of peasants drawn together by their anxiety to see the king and the princess, was for many minutes the most disorderly, but the most agreeable, pellmell imaginable. The king dismounted from his horse, a movement which was imitated by all the courtiers, and offered his hand to madame, whose rich riding-habit displayed her fine figure, which was set oil to great advantage by that garment, made of fine woolen cloth embroidered with silver. Her hair, still damp and blacker than jet, hung in heavy masses upon her white and delicate neck. Joy and health sparkled in her beautiful eyes; composed, and yet full of energy, she inhaled the air in deep draughts, under the embroidered parasol, which was borne by one of her pages. Nothing could be more charming, more graceful, more poetical, than these two figures buried under the rose-colored shade of the parasol; the king, whose white teeth were displayed in continual smiles, and madame, whose black eyes sparkled like two carbuncles in the glittering reflection of the changing hues of the silk. When madame had approached her horse, a magnificent animal of Andalusian breed, of spotless white, somewhat heavy, perhaps, but with a spirited and splendid head, in which the mixture so happily combined of Arabian and Spanish blood could be readily traced, and whose long tail swept the ground; and as the princess affected difficulty in mounting, the king took her in his arms in such a manner that madame's arm was clasped like a circlet of fire around the king's neck; Louis, as he withdrew, involuntarily touched with his lips the arm, which was not withheld, and the princess, having thanked her royal equerry, every one sprang to his saddle at the same moment. The king and