"Ah, near Marseilles! And what family have you there, Monsieur le Comte? You are a widower, I believe."
"Since fifteen years, your Majesty. My family consists, besides my ward, of only two sons."
"Two? where is the other? I never heard of him."
"Oh! your Majesty, he is but a boy yet, hardly twenty years old, and still with his tutor. He inherits a little property from his mother, and with it the title of le Baron de"—
"But where is he, I ask? At Montarnaud, near Marseilles, with Mademoiselle de Rochenbois?"
"Yes, your Majesty," replied the poor old courtier, feeling that the prolonged conversation, which at first had overwhelmed him with delight, was assuming a tone of menace and aggression any thing but indicative of royal favor to the house of Montarnaud. Nor was the king's parting speech calculated to assuage the cruel forebodings of the old man's heart; for, with a very pronounced sneer upon his Austrian lips, Louis passed on, saying,—
"Really, Monsieur de Montarnaud, you are a man of resource. Since it was not permitted to marry your elder son to this wealthy ward, you shut her up in a country-house with the younger one, trusting to the chapter of accidents for a marriage, public or private, before there should be time to prevent it. I shall, however, expect to receive Madame la Vicomtesse de Montarnaud, née de Rochenbois, within the month."
"Your Majesty shall be obeyed," stammered the
