But Louise did not answer. “Louise,” continued Montalais, “the king has deigned to express his uneasiness on your account.”
“The king!” exclaimed Louise, starting up abruptly, as if a stream of fire had started through her frame to her heart; “the king uneasy about me?”
“Yes,” said Montalais.
“The king is here, then?” said La Vallière, not venturing to look round her.
“That voice! that voice!” whispered Louis, eagerly, to Saint-Aignan.
“Yes, it is so,” replied Saint-Aignan; “Your Majesty is right; it is she who declared her love for the sun.”
“Hush!” said the king. And then approaching La Vallière, he said, “You are not well, Mademoiselle de La Vallière? Just now, indeed, in the park, I saw that you had fainted. How were you attacked?”
“Sire,” stammered out the poor child, pale and trembling, “I really do not know.”
“You have been walking too far,” said the king; “and fatigue, perhaps—”
“No, sire,” said Montalais, eagerly, answering for her friend, “it could not be from fatigue, for we passed most of the evening seated beneath the royal oak.”
“Under the royal oak?” returned the king, starting. I was not deceived; it is as I thought.
And he directed a look of intelligence at the comte.
“Yes,” said Saint-Aignan, “under the royal oak, with Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente.”
“How do you know that?” inquired Montalais.
“In a very simple way. Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente told me so.”
“In that case, she probably told you the cause of Mademoiselle de La Vallière’s fainting?”
“Why, yes; she told me something about a wolf or a robber. I forget precisely which.” La Vallière listened, her eyes fixed, her bosom heaving, as if, gifted with an acuteness of perception, she foresaw a portion of the truth. Louis imagined this attitude and agitation to be the consequence of a terror only partially reassured. “Nay, fear nothing,” he said, with a rising emotion which he could not conceal; “the wolf which terrified you so much was simply a wolf with two legs.”
“It was a man, then!” said Louise; “it was a man who was listening?”
“Suppose it was so, Mademoiselle, what great harm was there in his having listened? Is it likely that, even in your own opinion, you would have said anything which could not have been listened to?”
La Vallière wrung her hands, and hid her face in them, as if to hide her blushes. “In Heaven’s name,” she said, “who was concealed there? Who was listening?”
The king advanced towards her, to take hold of one of her hands. “It was I,” he said, bowing with marked respect. “Is it likely I could have frightened you?” La Vallière uttered a loud cry; for the second time her strength forsook her; and moaning in utter despair, she again fell lifeless in her chair. The king had just time to hold out his arm; so that she was partially supported by him. Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente and Montalais, who stood a few paces from the king and La Vallière, motionless and almost petrified at the recollection of their conversation with La Vallière, did not even think of offering their assistance, feeling restrained by the presence of the king, who, with one knee on the ground, held La Vallière round the waist with his arm.
“You heard, sire!” murmured Athenaïs. But the king did not reply; he remained with his eyes fixed upon La Vallière’s half-closed eyes, and held her quiescent hand in his own.
“Of course,” replied Saint-Aignan, who, on his side, hoping that Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, too, would faint, advancing towards her, holding his arms extended—“of course; we did not even lose a single word.” But the haughty Athenaïs was not a woman to faint easily; she darted a terrible look at Saint-Aignan, and fled. Montalais, with more courage, advanced hurriedly towards Louise, and received her from the king’s hands, who was already fast losing his presence of mind, as he felt his face covered by the perfumed tresses of the seemingly dying girl. “Excellent,” whispered Saint-Aignan. “This is indeed an adventure; and it will be my own fault if I am not the first to relate it.”
The king approached him, and, with a trembling voice and a passionate gesture, said, “Not a syllable, comte.”
The poor king forgot that, only an hour before, he had given him a similar recommendation, but with the very opposite intention; namely, that the comte should be indiscreet. It followed, as a matter of course, that he latter recommendation was quite as unnecessary as the former. Half an hour afterwards, everybody in Fontainebleau knew that Mademoiselle de La Vallière had had a conversation under the royal oak with Montalais and Tonnay-Charente, and that in this conversation she had confessed her affection for the king. It was known, also, that the king, after having manifested the uneasiness with which Mademoiselle de La Vallière’s health had inspired him, had turned pale, and trembled very much as he received the beautiful girl fainting into his arms; so that it was quite agreed among the courtiers, that the greatest event of the period had just been revealed; that His Majesty loved Mademoiselle de La Vallière, and that, consequently, Monsieur could now sleep in perfect tranquillity. It was this, even, that the queen-mother, as surprised as the others by the sudden change, hastened to tell the young queen and Philip d’Orléans. Only she set to work in a different manner, by attacking them in the following way:—To her daughter-in-law she said, “See, now, Thérèse, how very wrong you were to accuse the king; now it is said he is devoted to some other person; why should there be any greater truth in the report of today than in that of yesterday, or in that of yesterday than in that of today?” To Monsieur, in relating to him the adventure of the royal oak, she said, “Are you not very absurd in your jealousies, my dear Philip? It is asserted that the king is madly in love with that little La Vallière. Say nothing
