of him, particularly that evening, when the care he had taken to adorn himself added much to the fine air of his carriage. It was as impossible to behold the princess of Cleves without equal admiration.
The duke de Nemours was struck with such surprise at her beauty, that when they approached and paid their respects to each other, he could not forbear showing some tokens of his admiration. When they begun to dance, a soft murmur of praises ran through the whole company. The king and the two queens, remembering that the duke and princess had never seen one another before, found something very particular in seeing them dance together without knowing each other; they called them, as soon as they had ended their dance, without giving them time to speak to anybody; asked them if they had not a desire to know each other, and if they were not at some loss about it.—As for me, madam, said the duke to the queen, I am under no uncertainty in this matter; but as the princess of Cleves has not the same reasons to lead her to guess who I am, as I have to direct me to know her, I should be glad if your majesty would be pleased to let her know my name.—I believe, said the queen-dauphin, that she knows your name as well as you know her's.—I assure you, madam, replied the princess a little embarrassed, that I am not so good a guesser as you imagine.—Yes, you guess very well, answered the queen-dauphin; and your unwillingness to acknowledge that you know the duke of Nemours, without having seen him before, carries in it something very obliging to him. The queen interrupted them, that the ball might go on; and the duke de Nemours took out the queen-dauphin. This princess was a perfect beauty, and such she appeared in the eyes of the duke de Nemours, before he went to Flanders; but all this evening he could admire nothing but madam de Cleves.
The chevalier de Guise, whose idol she still was, sat at her feet, and what had passed filled him with the
