In spite of the insolent diatribe of M. de Montespan, the waters proved good and favourable; my blood, little by little, grew calm; my pains, passing from one knee to the other, insensibly faded away in both; and, after having given a brilliant fete to the Prince de Mont-Beliard, the English Chancellor, and our most distinguished bathers, I went back to Versailles, where the work seemed to me to have singularly advanced.

The King went in advance of us to Corbeil; Madame de Maintenon, her pretty nieces, and my children were in the carriage.  The King received me with his ordinary kindness, and yet said no word to me of the harshness which I had suffered from my husband.  Two or three months afterwards he recollected his royal word, and gave me to understand that the Prince de Bourbon was shortly going to give up Navarre, in Normandy, and that this vast and magnificent estate would be raised to a duchy for me.

It has not been yet, at the moment that I write.  Perhaps it is written above that I shall never be a duchess.  In such a case, the King would not deserve the inward reproaches that my sensibility addresses him, since his good-will would be fettered by destiny.

It is my kindness which makes me speak so.

CHAPTER II.

The Venetian Drummer.—­The Little Olivier.—­Adriani’s Love.—­His Ingratitude.—­His Punishment.—­His Vengeance.—­Complaint on This Account.

At the great slaughter of Candia, M. de Vivonne had the pleasure of saving a young Venetian drummer whom he noticed all covered with blood, and senseless, amongst the dead and dying, with whom the field was covered far and wide.  He had his wounds dressed and cared for by the surgeons of the French navy, with the intention of giving him me, either as a valet de chambre or a page, so handsome and agreeable this young Italian was.  Adriani was his name.  He presented him to me after the return of the expedition to France, and I was sensible of this amiable attention of my brother, for truly the peer of this young drummer did not exist.

Adrien was admirable to see in my livery, and when my carriage went out, he attracted alone all the public attention.  His figure was still not all that it might be; it developed suddenly, and then one was not wrong in comparing him with a perfect model for the Academy.  He took small time in losing the manners which he had brought with him from his original calling.  I discovered the best ‘ton’ in him; he would have been far better seated in the interior than outside my equipage.  Unfortunately, this young impertinent gave himself airs of finding my person agreeable, and of cherishing a passion for me; my first valet de chambre told me of it at once.  I gave him to the King, who had sometimes noticed him in passing.

Adrien was inconsolable at first at this change, for which he was not prepared, but his vanity soon came uppermost; he understood that it was an advancement, and took himself for a great personage, since he had the honour of approaching and serving the King.