Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/29

The Sleeping Beauty The King, while declaring himself infinitely obliged to the good Fairy Hippolyta, could not help feeling that hers was but cold comfort at the best. He gave orders to close the christening festivities at once, although the Fairy Uglyane, their spoil-joy, had already taken her departure; passing unharmed through the crowd of folk, every one of whom wished her ill, and riding away—it was generally agreed—upon a broomstick.

To satisfy the King's faithful subjects, however,—who were unaware of any misadventure—the palace fireworks were duly let off, with a grand set-piece wishing Long Life to the Princess Aurora! in all the colours of the rainbow. But His Majesty, after bowing from the balcony amid the banging of rockets and hissing of Catherine wheels, retired to a private room with his Chamberlain, and there, still amid the noise of explosions and cheering, drew up the first harsh proclamation of his reign. It forbade every one, on pain of death, to use a spindle in spinning or even to have a spindle in his house. Heralds took copies of this proclamation and marched through the land reading it, to the sound of trumpets, from every market-place: and it gravely 7