’To the Mother Prioress of the Ursulines at Lucon, so please our Majesty,’ said Berenger, ’to let me have possession of my daughter.

’Eh! is it only a little girl?

‘Yes, Sire; but my heart yearns for her all the more,’ said Berenger, with glistening eyes.

‘You are right,’ said the poor King.  ’Mine, too, is a little girl; and I bless God daily that she is no son—­to be the most wretched thing the France.  Let her come in, Madame.  She is little older than my friend’s daughter.  I would show her to him.

The Queen signed to Madame la Comtesse to fetch the child, and Berenger added, ’Sire, you could do a further benefit to my poor little one.  One more signature of yours would attest that ratification of my marriage which took place in your Majesty’s presence.

‘Ah!  I remember,’ said Charles.  ’You may have any name of mine that can help you to oust that villain Narcisse; only wait to use it—­spare me any more storms.  It will serve your turn as well when I am beyond they, and you will make your claim good.  What,’ seeing Berenger’s interrogative look, ’do you not know that by the marriage-contract the lands of each were settled on the survivor?

’No, Sire; I have never seen the marriage-contract.

‘Your kinsman knew it well,’ said Charles.

Just then, Madame la Comtesse returned, leading the little Princess by the long ribbons at her waist; Charles bent forward, calling, ’Here, ma petite, come here.  Here is one who loves thy father.  Look well at him, that thou mayest know him.

The little Madame Elisabeth so far understood, that, with a certain lofty condescension, she extended her hand for the stranger to kiss, and thus drew from the King the first smile that Berenger had seen.  She was more than half a year older than the Berangere on whom his hopes were set, and whom he trusted to find not such a pale, feeble, tottering little creature as this poor young daughter of France, whose round black eyes gazed wonderingly at his scar; but she was very precocious, and even already too much of a royal lady to indulge in any awkward personal observation.

By the time she had been rewarded for her good behaviour by one of the dried plums in her father’s comfit-box, the order had been written by Pare, and Berenger had prepared the certificate for the King’s signature, according to the form given him by his grandfather.

‘Your writing shakes nearly as much as mine,’ said the poor King, as he wrote his name to this latter.  ’Now, Madame, you had better sign it also; and tell this gentleman where to find Father Meinhard in Austria.  He was a little too true for us, do you see—­would not give thanks for shedding innocent blood.  Ah!’—­and with a gasp of mournful longing, the King sank back, while Elisabeth, at his bidding, added her name to the certificate, and murmured the name of a convent in Vienna, where her late confessor could be found.