There is a feeling of anguish, however, which I can never control.”

“And that is?”

“The king may make a happy choice — may find a home, with all the tender influences of home, not far from that we can offer him, — a home with children round him, the children of another woman. Oh, madame! I should die if I were but to see the king’s children.”

“Marie, Marie,” replied the queen-mother with a smile, and she took the young queen’s hand in her own, “remember what I am going to say, and let it always be a consolation to you: the king cannot have a Dauphin without you.”

With this remark the queen-mother quitted her daughter-in-law, in order to meet