It is equally as impossible for me to describe in words the feelings of my mother on this occasion, who loved him above all her children, as it was for the painter to represent on canvas the grief of Iphigenia’s father.  Such an overflow of joy would have been discoverable in the looks and actions of any other woman, but she had her passions so much under the control of prudence and discretion that there was nothing to be perceived in her countenance, or gathered from her words, of what she felt inwardly in her mind.  She was, indeed, a perfect mistress of herself, and regulated her discourse and her actions by the rules of wisdom and sound policy, showing that a person of discretion does upon all occasions only what is proper to be done.  She did not amuse herself on this occasion with listening to the praises which issued from every mouth, and sanction them with her own approbation; but, selecting the chief points in the speech relative to the future conduct of the war, she laid them before the Princes and great lords, to be deliberated upon, in order to settle a plan of operations.

To arrange such a plan a delay of some days was requisite.  During this interval, the Queen my mother walking in the park with some of the Princes, my brother Anjou begged me to take a turn or two with him in a retired walk.  He then addressed me in the following words:  “Dear sister, the nearness of blood; as well as our having been brought up together, naturally, as they ought, attach us to each other.  You must already have discovered the partiality I have had for you above my brothers, and I think that I have perceived the same in you for me.  We have been hitherto led to this by nature, without deriving any other advantage from it than the sole pleasure of conversing together.  So far might be well enough for our childhood, but now we are no longer children.  You know the high situation in which, by the favour of God and our good mother the Queen, I am here placed.  You may be assured that, as you are the person in the world whom I love and esteem the most, you will always be a partaker of my advancement.  I know you are not wanting in wit and discretion, and I am sensible you have it in your power to do me service with the Queen our mother, and preserve me in my present employments.  It is a great point obtained for me, always to stand well in her favour.  I am fearful that my absence may be prejudicial to that purpose, and I must necessarily be at a distance from Court.  Whilst I am away, the King my brother is with her, and has it in his power to insinuate himself into her good graces.  This I fear, in the end, may be of disservice to me.  The King my brother is growing older every day.  He does not want for courage, and, though he now diverts himself with hunting, he may grow ambitious, and choose rather to chase men than beasts; in such a case I must resign to him my commission as his lieutenant.  This would prove the greatest mortification that could