Chapter 23 - Page 2

grand cabinet had just been
announced by one of the pages. Madame had scarcely taken time to change
her dress. Her face revealed her agitation, which betrayed a plan, the
execution of which occupied, while the result disturbed, her mind.

"I came to ascertain," she said, "if your majesties are suffering any
fatigue from our journey."

"None at all," said the queen-mother.

"A little," replied Maria Theresa.

"I have suffered from annoyance more than anything else," said Madame.

"How was that?" inquired Anne of Austria.

"The fatigue the king undergoes in riding about on horseback."

"That does the king good."

"And it was I who advised him," said Maria Theresa, turning pale.

Madame said not a word in reply; but one of those smiles which were
peculiarly her own flitted for a moment across her lips, without passing
over the rest of her face; then, immediately changing the conversation,
she continued, "We shall find Paris precisely the Paris we quitted; the
same intrigues, plots, and flirtations going on."

"Intrigues! What intrigues do you allude to?" inquired the queen-mother.

"People are talking a good deal about M. Fouquet and Madame Plessis-
Belliere."

"Who makes up the number to about ten thousand," replied the queen-
mother. "But what are the plots you speak of?"

"We have, it seems, certain misunderstandings with Holland to settle."

"What about?"

"Monsieur has been telling me the story of the medals."

"Oh!" exclaimed the young queen, "you mean those medals struck in
Holland, on which a cloud is seen passing across the sun, which is the
king's device. You are wrong in calling that a plot - it is an insult."

"But so contemptible that the king can well despise it," replied the
queen-mother. "Well, what are the flirtations which are alluded to? Do
you mean that of Madame d'Olonne?"

"No, no; nearer ourselves than that."

"_Casa de usted_," murmured the queen-mother, and without moving her
lips, in her daughter-in-law's ear, without being overheard by Madame,
who thus continued: - "You know the terrible news?"

Transcriber's note: "In your house." - JB

"Oh, yes; M. de Guiche's wound."

"And you attribute it, I suppose, as every one else does, to an accident
which happened to him while hunting?"

"Yes, of course," said both the queens together, their interest awakened.

Madame drew closer to them, as she said, in a low tone of voice, "It was
a duel."

"Ah!" said Anne of Austria, in a severe tone; for, in her ears, the word
"duel," which had been forbidden in France all the time she reigned over
it, had a strange sound.

"A most deplorable duel, which has nearly cost