“Go to sleep soon, Louis,” said the queen, “for you must be awakened very early.”

“I will do my best to obey you, madame,” said the youthful king, “but I have no inclination to sleep.”

“Laporte,” said Anne of Austria, in an undertone, “find some very dull book to read to his majesty, but do not undress yourself.”

The king went out, accompanied by the Chevalier de Coislin, bearing the candlestick, and then the queen returned to her own apartment. Her ladies — that is to say Madame de Bregy, Mademoiselle de Beaumont, Madame de Motteville, and Socratine, her sister, so called on account of her sense — had just brought into her dressing-room the remains of the dinner, on