"PUT NOT THY TRUST IN PRINCES."

MADAME DE NOAILLES rises to receive the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and kisses her with effusion, but is startled at the sight of her blanched face and despondent air. She is plainly dressed in a dark travelling costume, bows to the Duchesse de SennÉcy and to the other ladies, and sinks down on a couch.

"Good heavens! what is the matter?" asks Madame de Noailles, with intense curiosity, taking her by the hand; "you are strangely altered since I left the palace a few hours since."

The Duchesse de Chevreuse glances at the circle of ladies, the "nineteen bosom friends," whose eyes are riveted upon her as if to read her thoughts. The red-nosed Countess in particular has advanced close to her, in order not to lose a syllable; her mouth is wide open, to assist her ears in listening.

"I have come on private business of some importance to myself, dear Duchess," says Madame de Chevreuse, speaking under her breath. "I did not know that you received this evening. It is unfortunate."

Madame de Noailles, who is dying to hear what she has to say, looks at her guests with an unmistakable expression. The Duchesse de SennÉcy rises at once.

"Allow me to wish you good evening, my dear friend," says she, and departs. The red-nosed Countess is forced to rise and follow her example, how much against her will it is plain to see; the other ladies retire with her.

Madame de Noailles and the Duchesse de Chevreuse are now alone. Madame de Chevreuse heaves a profound sigh; a tear rolls down her cheek, out of which the dimples are faded. Her thin lips are white, and she shivers.

"Tell me, Duchess, what misfortune has happened?" asks Madame de Noailles, taking her hand.

"A misfortune, yes, for I love her—I love her dearly. I have devoted my life to serve her; without me she would not now be Regent of France."

Madame de Chevreuse speaks in broken sentences; her looks are wild; her mind seems to wander; her large prominent eyes are fixed on vacancy.

"Duchess, for God's sake rouse yourself. What has happened? Is it the Queen?" And Madame de Noailles wrings the hand of her friend to rouse her.

"Yes—it is the Queen," replies Madame de Chevreuse slowly, becoming more conscious, and gazing at her. "Her Majesty has dismissed me. I am on my way to Tours—exiled."

"Gracious heaven!" exclaims Madame de Noailles; "what ingratitude!"

"Duchess, I thank you for your sympathy; but, I beseech you, say not one word against my beloved mistress. When I entered this room it seemed to me that sorrow had made me mad—my brain was on fire. I am better now, and calmer. My royal mistress may live to want me, as she has so often done before. She may recall me. At Court—in exile—absent or present, I am her humble and devoted slave."

"She will want no one as long as she has Mazarin," says the Duchess, with a sneer.

"So I fear," returns Madame de Chevreuse.

"But what has happened since I left the palace?" again eagerly asks Madame de Noailles.

"I will tell you. I have never been the same to her Majesty since the old days, when I was banished, after the Val de GrÂce, by Richelieu. She received me well after I returned, when she was Regent; but I have loved her too devotedly not to feel the difference. While, on my side, the long years that I had spent flying over Europe to escape the machinations of the Cardinal, had only made me more devoted to her, the Queen—who formerly trusted me with every thought—had grown serious, reserved, and ascetic. I am pious enough myself,"—and a gleam of fun passes into her weary face, and causes her eyes to sparkle,—"I never eat meat in Lent, and always confess at Easter. But her Majesty has become a bigot. She was always reproving me, too, for those little agaceries (vanities she called them) which no one lives without. 'My age,' she said, 'forbade them.' Now I only own to forty, Duchess; that is not an age to go into a convent, and to think of nothing but my soul. Why should I not enjoy myself a little yet?" And her large eyes find their way to a mirror opposite, and dwell on it with evident complacency.

"But the Queen reproaches everybody," returns Madame de Noailles. "Conceive—she reprimanded me for wearing a dress too dÉcolletÉ."

Madame de Chevreuse smiles faintly; for it was indeed true that the older Madame de Noailles grew, the lower her dresses were cut.

"People who hated me made the Queen believe," continues Madame de Chevreuse, "that I wanted to govern her—to use her patronage. If it were so, I should have done it long ago. It was the Princesse de CondÉ who told the Queen so; she hates me. When I assured her Majesty that it was false, she seemed to believe me. Then came the affair of Madame de Montbazon and the letters found in her room, one of which she said was written by the Duchesse de Longueville, the daughter of my enemy, the Princesse de CondÉ. How could I help what my stepmother said?—she is a spoilt beauty, and very injudicious—but her Majesty blamed me, nevertheless. I implored her to forgive my stepmother; and for this purpose, I offered her Majesty yesterday a collation in those fine gardens, kept by Regnard, beyond the chestnut avenue of the Tuileries—you know these gardens, Duchess?"

"I do," replies Madame de Noailles.

"Her Majesty had often wished to go there. I asked my stepmother to be present, in the full belief that the Queen's kind heart would relent when she saw her, and that she would restore her to favour. Alas! I was mistaken. I do not know the Queen now, she is so changed. She came accompanied by the Princesse de CondÉ. No sooner had she set eyes on Madame de Montbazon, who was conversing with me, than the Queen gave me a furious glance, called the Princesse de CondÉ to her side, and bid her command the attendance of her pages; then, without another word, her Majesty turned her back on me, entered her coach, and departed."

"Heavens!" exclaims Madame de Noailles, turning up her eyes, "no one is safe, unless they are allies of Cardinal Mazarin."

"An hour afterwards,"—and the Duchesse de Chevreuse raises her handkerchief to her eyes,—"I received an order to quit Paris for Tours. Alas, I have not deserved it!"

"It is the Cardinal," cries Madame de Noailles. "He will drive out all her old friends; they are inconvenient——"

While she speaks the door opens, and Mademoiselle de Hautefort enters the saloon, unannounced. She is bathed in tears; her eyes are swollen with excessive weeping; she cannot repress her sobs. The two ladies rise, and endeavour to sooth her; but her passionate sorrow is not to be appeased. For some time she cannot utter a word. Madame de Chevreuse hung over her affectionately.

"Dearest friend," she says, kissing her, "I guess what has happened. You are exiled; so am I. Come with me into Touraine; let us comfort each other until better days."

"Oh, speak not to me of better days," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "They can never come to me. My dear, dear mistress, you have broken my heart!" and she bursts into a fresh passion of tears.

The Duchesse de Chevreuse sits down beside her and chafes her hand. Madame de Noailles, who sees in the departure of these two ladies a chance of greater promotion and increased confidence for herself, forms her countenance into an expression of concern she does not in the least feel.

"My dear friend," says Madame de Chevreuse, endeavouring to calm the agony of grief which shook the whole frame of Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "let us share our sorrow."

"The Queen must think herself rich in friends, to cast away such devoted servants," observes Madame de Noailles sententiously, contemplating the group through her eye-glass. "Do speak, Mademoiselle de Hautefort."

She had gradually become more collected, and her violent sobs had ceased; but now and then her bosom heaves, as bitter recollections of the past float through her mind.

"Speak," whispers the Duchesse de Chevreuse in her softest voice, "it will relieve you. In what manner did our royal mistress dismiss you?"

"Late last evening," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, in a tremulous voice, stopping every now and then to sigh, and to wipe the tears that streamed from her eyes. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and I were assisting the Queen at her coucher. As is our habit we were conversing familiarly with her. The Queen was undressed, and just preparing to get into bed. She had only her last prayer to say, for she lives on prayer, like a true saint." Madame de Noailles draws down the corners of her mouth and scarcely endeavours to hide her derision. Even the Duchesse de Chevreuse smiles. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and her sister the Comtesse de Jars, and Mademoiselle de Beaumont, had just left the anteroom from whence they had been speaking with the Queen. I was on my knees before her taking off her shoes. All at once I remembered that a gentleman, who attends upon the ladies in waiting, called NÉdo, a Breton—you know him, Duchess?"—Madame de Chevreuse answered that she did,—"had asked me to obtain a better appointment for him." Mademoiselle de Hautefort pauses. The scene seems to rise before her, and a fresh fit of violent sobbing prevents her from speaking. "Alas!" she exclaims at last, "why—why did I presume to trouble her Majesty for such a trifle? A stranger to me, too! I have lost what was dearer to me than life—herself. She refused me," continues Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "I was nettled. Oh, Duchess," says she, turning to Madame de Chevreuse, "how often have you borne my hasty temper! How I reproach myself now! That temper has ruined—undone me!"

"What would Monsieur le MarÉchal de Schomberg say if he heard you?" asks Madame de Noailles slily.

"Do not name him to me," cries Mademoiselle de Hautefort impatiently. "Schomberg is nothing to me in comparison with the Queen. Had I remained with her, I could never, never have married!"

"Well, you will now," and the Duchess laughs. "But what happened? Do go on."

"Alas! I lost my temper. I was irritated at her Majesty refusing me so small a favour. I told her she had forgotten the claims of her old friends, who had suffered so much in her service."

"That was wrong, ungenerous," interposes Madame de Chevreuse. "A favour ceases to be a favour, if it be made a subject of reproach; besides——"

"Ah! I know it too well!" and Mademoiselle de Hautefort almost groans with anguish; "and it is that which breaks my heart; it is my own fault. The Queen, in one moment, became more excited than I had ever seen her. Her face turned crimson, she threw herself on her bed, commanded me to close the curtains, and to retire. I disobeyed her. I could not help it. I cast myself on the ground within the ruelle of her bed. I clasped my hands. I told her I called God to witness of my love, my devotion to her. I implored her to recall the past, to remember his Majesty Louis XIII."

"Ah! you were very wrong," exclaims Madame de Chevreuse; "most impolitic, most undutiful. You have a good heart, mademoiselle, but you are too impulsive."

"It is true," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, humbly. "Her Majesty grew more and more displeased, she said that she must have me know she would allow no one about her who did not love and respect her; then she went on to say that I had made observations upon her valued servant, Cardinal Mazarin, which were very displeasing to her. I replied too hastily that it was my care for her honour that had made me do so; that reports were circulating injurious to her, and that I longed to see the departure of a minister whose presence compromised her."

"What imprudence!" cries Madame de Chevreuse, lifting up her hands. "How could you dare to say this?"

"It is quite true, however," rejoins Madame de Noailles, "and it was the part of a true friend to tell her."

"Would to God I had been silent!" continues Mademoiselle de Hautefort; "no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the Queen sternly ordered me to extinguish the lights and to withdraw. I rose from my knees more dead than alive and departed. When I awoke this morning I received an order commanding me not to approach within forty miles of the Court. Oh, it is dreadful!"

"Come with me into Touraine, my carriage waits below. We will stop at your lodgings in order to give your people time to pack. Come, dear friend, we have lived side by side among the splendours of the court, we have suffered persecution for the same mistress, we love her devotedly, spite of all injuries. Let us now comfort each other in exile."

Mademoiselle de Hautefort casts herself into the arms of the Duchess.

"You will not keep her long," observes Madame de Noailles, with a smile, "we shall soon see her back at Court, as Madame la MarÈchale de Schomberg, more blooming than ever."

"No, no," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "Never!"

"Adieu, Madame," says the Duchesse de Chevreuse, saluting Madame de Noailles, and taking Mademoiselle de Hautefort by the hand. "Excuse our abrupt departure, but the sooner we quit Paris the better. My friend and I would desire in all things to obey her Majesty's pleasure. Let us hope to meet in happier days. Ma chÈre," adds she more gaily, addressing the maid of honour, "we shall not die of ennui at my chÂteau."

Mademoiselle de Hautefort only replies with sobs. The idea of departing overcame her.

"Some gentlemen of our acquaintance will attend us."

"How like the Duchess! She cannot exist without lovers," mutters Madame de Noailles, to herself. Meanwhile she attended the two ladies to the head of the staircase, with great apparent affection, kissing them on both cheeks. She watched their departure from a window and waved her hand to them, affecting to weep.

"What a relief they are gone!" she exclaims, taking out her watch. "Ma foi, how long they have stayed! It is time for me to dress for the Queen's circle. Now they are gone, there is no one in my way at Court. I am sure of favour—perhaps of confidence. Her Majesty must unbosom herself to some one; why not to me? In half an hour I must be at the palace," and she rang and ordered her coach.

The Duchesse de Chevreuse was never again called to the side of Anne of Austria. Her hatred of Cardinal Mazarin forbade it. She became one of the principal leaders of that "Ladies' Battle," the Fronde.

Nor was Mademoiselle de Hautefort ever forgiven her bluntness on the Queen's very equivocal behaviour. As MarÈchale de Schomberg, however, she reappeared at Court, but found Anne of Austria lost to her for ever.

The Duchesse de Noailles wore dresses cut in accordance with her Majesty's taste. Although she never became the Queen's confidante, for many years she held a high station at Court.