out the King's commands, while Madame du Barry tossed her head and turned her back upon his Majesty.
"Well, what have I done to annoy you now? " asked the King.
"Oh! I quite understand," the Countess retorted, "I quite understand that Monsieur de Chauvelin enjoys all your favour, and that you cannot do without him. He is so anxious to please you and so respectful to those who love you."
Louis felt the hurricane was upon him, and tried to break the waterspout with a well-aimed shot.
"Chauvelin is not the only one," he said, "who fails in the respect due to me and mine."
"Oh! I know all that," cried Madame du Barry; "your Parisians, your parlement, your courtiers even, to say nothing of others whom I had rather not name, fail in their duty to their King,—whenever and wherever, and as often as they please."
The Monarch looked at the reckless speaker with a feeling that was not unmingled with pity.
"Do you realise this, Countess," he said, " that I am not immortal, and that you are playing pranks to get yourself clapped in the Bastille or banished the country the moment I have closed my eyes? "
"Pooh!" was all the reply vouchsafed.
"Oh! you may laugh, but it is as I say."
"Really, Sire, and how do you make that out?"
"I will tell you in two words."
"Pray do, Sire."
"What is this affair of the Marquise de Rosen? what is this liberty—in the worst possible taste—you have taken with the poor lady? You forget she has the honour to belong to the household of the Comtesse de Provence."
"Forget, Sire? Oh! no, Sire, not I!"
"Well, then, tell me this. How did you dare to inflict this degrading punishment on her, on the Marquise de Rosen,— chastising her as if she were a little girl?"
"I, Sire?"
"Yes, you," stormed the King, losing patience.
"Well, well, well! " broke out the Countess, "I never expected to be blamed for executing your Majesty's! orders."
"My orders!"
"Certainly. Does the King deign to remember what answer he made me when I complained of the Marquise's rudeness?"
"Faith! no. I have no recollection of it."
"Well, the King told me, "What do you expect. Countess, the Marquise is a child who should be whipped.'"
"But 'zounds! that was no reason for doing it," cried the King, reddening in spite of himself, for he remembered having spoken, word for word, the sentence the Marquise had just quoted.
"So you see," resumed the Countess, "your Majesty's slightest wishes being commands for your very devoted servant, she hastened to carry out this particular one amongst the rest."
The King could not help laughing at the imperturbably serious air which the Countess wore.
"So it is I who am to blame?" he asked.
"No doubt of it, Sire."
"Then it is for me to expiate the fault?"
"Apparently."
"Good! that being so, you will convey an invitation to the Marquise from me to supper, and put under her plate the Colonel's commission, which her husband has been petitioning for this last six months and which I should certainly not have given him so soon but for what has occurred. In this way the affront will be made good."
"Very well! So much for the Marquise's wounded feelings; and now about mine?"
"What, yours?"
"Yes, who is to make good the affront put upon me?"
"Why! what affront have you suffered, I should like to know."
"Oh, delicious! pretend you are astonished, do!"
"I am not pretending, dear; I am really and genuinely at a loss."
"You. have just come from Madame la Dauphine, have you not?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then you must know the trick she has played me."
"Upon my word I don't; tell me."
"Well, yesterday my jeweller came to Versailles on two errands,—to bring the Daupnine a diamond necklace and me a diamond spray."
