Laporte, you are aware, madame, was a man of the most admirable calmness and presence of mind. He did not approach the king as if he were the bearer of alarming intelligence and wished to inspire the terror he himself experienced; besides, it was not a very terrifying intelligence which awaited the king. Therefore, Laporte appeared with a smile upon his lips, and approached the king’s chair, saying to him — ’Sire, the queen is very happy, and would be still more so to see your majesty.’ On that day, Louis XIII. would have given his crown away to the veriest beggar for a ‘God bless you.’ Animated, light-hearted, and full of gayety, the king rose from the table, and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV.

might have adopted, — ’Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.