LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE. 167 quite a young man. He looked at it with a threatening air. La Valliere, in her depressed state of mind, and very far indeed from thinking of this portrait, could not conjecture the king's preoccupation. And yet the king's mind was occupied with a terrible remembrance, which had more than once taken possession of his mind, but which he had always driven away. He recalled the intimacy which had existed between the two young people from their birth; the en- gagement which had followed, and that Athos had himself come to solicit La Valliere's hand for Eaoul. He, there- fore, could not but suppose that, on her return to Paris, La Valliere had found news from London awaiting her, and that this news had counterbalanced the influence which he had been enabled to exert over her. He immediately felt himself stung, as it were, by feelings of the wildest jealousy; and he again questioned her with increased bitterness. La Valliere could not reply, unless she were to acknowledge everything, which would be to accuse the queen, and ma- dame also; and the consequence would be that she would have to enter into an open warfare with these two great and powerful princesses. She thought within herself that as she made no attempt to conceal from the king what was Eassing in her own mind, the king ought to be able to read er heart, in spite of her silence; and that, if he really loved her, he would have understood and guessed every- thing. What was sympathy, then, if it were not that divine flame which possesses the property of enlightening the heart and of saving lovers the necessity of an expression of their thoughts and feelings? She maintained her silence, therefore, satisfying herself with sighing, weeping, and con- cealing her face in her hands. These sighs and tears, which had at first distressed, and then terrified Louis XIY., now irritated him. He could not bear any opposition — not the opposition which tears and sighs exhibited any more than opposition of any other kind. His remarks, therefore, became bitter, urgent, and openly aggressive in their nature. This was a fresh cause of distress for the poor girl. From that very circumstance, therefore, which she regarded as an injustice on her lover's part, she drew sufiicient courage to bear, not only her other troubles, but even this one also. The king next began to accuse her in direct terms. La Valliere did not even attempt to defend herself; she en- dured all his accusations without according any other reply than that of shaking her head; without making any other remark than that which escapes every heart in deep distress.
