to obtain her object, and thus a mutual promise was made; the Marquise pledging herself that, in the event of the Queen recognizing her right to attend her receptions, and treating her with the courtesy and consideration due to the rank conferred upon her by the King, she would effect the appointment courted by Leonora; while the Signora Galigai, with equal confidence, promised in her turn that she would without delay cause Madame de Verneuil to receive a summons to the Queen’s presence.

Nor did either of these ladies over-estimate the amount of her influence; for the monarch no sooner learnt that the reception of his mistress by the haughty and indignant Princess could be purchased by a mere slight to Madame la Grande Prevoste, than he consented to sanction the appointment of the Italian suivante of Marie to the post of honour; while Leonora soon succeeded by her tears and entreaties in wringing from her royal mistress a reluctant acquiescence to her request.

Thus then, as before stated, a hollow peace was patched up between the unequal rivals; and Madame de Verneuil at length found herself in possession of a folding-seat in the Queen’s reception room; while her coadjutress triumphantly took her place among the noblest ladies of the land; but scarcely had this result been accomplished, when Henry, profiting by so unhoped-for an opportunity of gratifying the vanity of the favourite, assigned to her a suite of apartments in the Louvre immediately above those of the Queen, and little, if at all, inferior to them in magnificence.

This, however, was an affront which Marie de Medicis could not brook; and she accordingly, with her usual independence of spirit, expressed herself in no measured terms upon the subject, particularly to such of her ladies as were likely to repeat her comments to the Marquise.  The latter retorted by assuming all the airs of royalty, and by assembling about her a little court, for which that of the Queen herself was frequently forsaken, especially by the monarch, who found the brilliant circle of the favourite, wherein he always met a warm and enthusiastic welcome, infinitely more to his taste than the formal etiquette and reproachful frowns by which his presence in that of his royal consort was usually signalized.

Nor could the annoyance of the proud Florentine Princess be subject of astonishment to any rightly-constituted mind.  The position was a monstrous and an unnatural one.  Both the wife and the mistress were about to become mothers; and the whole Court was degraded by so unblushing an exhibition of the profligacy of the monarch.  Still, however, the French ladies of the household forebore to censure their sovereign; and even sought to persuade the outraged Queen that when once she had given a Dauphin to France the favourite would be compelled to leave the palace; but Marie’s Italian followers were far less scrupulous, and expressed their indignation in no measured terms.  The Queen,