’ He came to your beside, madame, at the very moment Dame Perronnette presented to him a second prince, as beautiful and healthy as the former, and said — ’Sire, Heaven will not allow the kingdom of France to fall into the female line.’ The king, yielding to a first impulse, clasped the child in his arms, and cried, ‘Oh, Heaven, I thank Thee!’“

At this part of her recital, the Beguine paused, observing how intensely the queen was suffering; she had thrown herself back in her chair, and with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed, listened without seeming to hear, and her lips moving convulsively, either breathing a prayer to Heaven or imprecations on the woman standing before her.

“Ah! I do not believe that, if, because there could be but one dauphin in France,”