Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/97

Rh TEN YEAES LATER. 87 "That is not unlikely." "Is she clever, at all events?" inquired the duke, "I believe so, my lord." "Is Monsieur de Buckingham so, too?" said the chevalier. "I do not know." "My own opinion is, that he must be," replied the cheva- lier; "for he makes madame laugh, and she seems to take no little pleasure in his society, which never happens to a clever woman when in the company of a simpleton." "Of course, then, he must be clever," said De Guiche simply. At this moment Eaoul opportunely arrived, seeing how De Guiche was pressed by his dangerous questioner, to whom he addressed a remark, and so changed the conversa- tion. The entree was brilliant and Joyous. The king, in honor of his brother, had directed that the festivities should be on a scale of the greatest magnificence. Madame and her mother alighted at the Louvre, where, during their exile, they had so gloomily submitted to obscurity, misery, and privations of every description. That palace, which had been so inhospitable a residence for the unhappy daughter of Henry IV., the naked walls, the sunken floorings, the ceilings covered with cowbebs, the vast but brokan chimney-places, the cold hearths on which the charity extended to them by parliament had hardly permitted a fire to glow, was completely altered in appear- ance. The richest hangings and the thickest carpets, glis- tening flagstones, and pictures, with their richly gilded frames; in every direction could be seen candelabras, mir- rors, and furniture and fittings of the most sumptuous character; in every direction also were guards of the proud- est military bearing with floating plumes, crowds of attend- ants and courtiers in the antechambers and upon the stair- cases. In the courtyards, where the grass had formerly, been accustomed to grow, as if the ungrateful Mazarin had thought it a good idea to let the Parisians perceive that solitude and disorder were, with misery and despair, the proper accompaniments of a fallen monarchy; the immense courtyards, formerly silent and desolate, were now thronged with courtiers whose horses were pacing and prancing to and fro. The carriages were filled with young and beautiful women, who awaited the opjoortunity of saluting, as she passed, the daughter of that daughter of France, who, dur- ing her widowhood and exile, had sometimes gone without wood for her fire, or bread for her table, whom the meanest