The Queen’s slumber was prolonged, while Marie thought and wept.  However, she remembered that at ten o’clock she must appear at the royal toilette before all the court.  She resolved to cast aside reflection, to dry her tears, and she took a thick folio volume placed upon a table inlaid with enamel and medallions; it was the ‘Astree’ of M. d’Urfe—­a work ’de belle galanterie’ adored by the fair prudes of the court.  The unsophisticated and straightforward mind of Marie could not enter into these pastoral loves.  She was too simple to understand the ‘bergeres du Lignon’, too clever to be pleased at their discourse, and too impassioned to feel their tenderness.  However, the great popularity of the romance so far influenced her that she sought to compel herself to take an interest in it; and, accusing herself internally every time that she felt the ennui which exhaled from the pages of the book, she ran through it with impatience to find something to please and transport her.  An engraving arrested her attention.  It represented the shepherdess Astree with high-heeled shoes, a corset, and an immense farthingale, standing on tiptoe to watch floating down the river the tender Celadon, drowning himself in despair at having, been somewhat coldly received in the morning.  Without explaining to herself the reason of the taste and accumulated fallacies of this picture, she sought, in turning over the pages, something which could fix her attention; she saw the word “Druid.”

“Ah! here is a great character,” said she.  “I shall no doubt read of one of those mysterious sacrificers of whom Britain, I am told, still preserves the monuments; but I shall see him sacrificing men.  That would be a spectacle of horror; however, let us read it.”

Saying this, Marie read with repugnance, knitting her brows, and nearly trembling, the following: 

“The Druid Adamas delicately called the shepherds Pimandre, Ligdamont, and Clidamant, newly arrived from Calais.  ’This adventure can not terminate,’ said he, ’but by the extremity of love.  The soul, when it loves, transforms itself into the object beloved; it is to represent this that my agreeable enchantments will show you in this fountain the nymph Sylvia, whom you all three love.  The high-priest Amasis is about to come from Montbrison, and will explain to you the delicacy of this idea.  Go, then, gentle shepherds!  If your desires are well regulated, they will not cause you any torments; and if they are not so, you will be punished by swoonings similar to those of Celadon, and the shepherdess Galatea, whom the inconstant Hercules abandoned in the mountains of Auvergne, and who gave her name to the tender country of the Gauls; or you will be stoned by the shepherdesses of Lignon, as was the ferocious Amidor.  The great nymph of this cave has made an enchantment.’”

The enchantment of the great nymph was complete on the Princess, who had hardly sufficient strength to