“Your Majesty just groaned.”
“You are right; I do suffer a little.”
“M. Vallot is not far off; I believe he is in Madame’s apartment.”
“Why is he with Madame?”
“Madame is troubled with nervous attacks.”
“A very fine disorder, indeed!” said the Queen. “M. Vallot is wrong in being there, when another physician might cure Madame.”
Madame de Motteville looked up with an air of great surprise, as she replied, “Another doctor instead of M. Vallot! Who, then?”
“Occupation, Motteville, occupation! Ah! if any one is really ill, it is my poor daughter.”
“And your Majesty too.”
“Less so this evening, though.”
“Do not believe that too confidently, Madame,” said De Motteville.
As if to justify the caution, a sharp pain seized the Queen, who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with every symptom of a sudden fainting-fit. “My drops!” she murmured.
“Ah! ah!” replied Molina, who went without haste to a richly gilded tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal smelling-bottle, and brought it, open, to the Queen, who inhaled from it wildly several times, and murmured, “In that way the Lord will kill me; His holy will be done!”
“Your Majesty’s death is not so near at hand,” added Molina, replacing the smelling-bottle in the cabinet.
“Does your Majesty feel better now?” inquired Madame de Motteville.
“Much better,” returned the Queen, placing her finger on her lips, to impose silence on her favorite.
“It is very strange,” remarked Madame de Motteville, after a pause.
“What is strange?” said the Queen.
“Does your Majesty remember the day when this pain attacked you for the first time?”
“I remember only that it was a grievously sad day for me, Motteville.”
“But your Majesty had not always regarded that day as a sad one.”
“Why?”
“Because twenty-three years before, on that very day, his present Majesty, your own glorious son, was born at the very same hour.”
The Queen uttered a loud cry, buried her face in her hands, and seemed utterly lost for some moments. Was it remembrance or reflection, or was it grief? La Molina darted a look at Madame de Motteville almost furious in its reproachfulness. The poor woman, ignorant of its meaning, was about to make inquiries in her own defence, when suddenly Anne of Austria arose and said: “Yes, the 5th of September; my sorrow began on the 5th of September. The greatest joy, one day; the deepest sorrow, the next,- the sorrow,” she added in a low voice, “the bitter expiation of a too excessive joy.”
And from that moment Anne of Austria, whose memory and reason seemed to have become entirely suspended for a time, remained impenetrable, with vacant look, mind almost wandering, and hands hanging heavily down, as if life had almost departed.
“We must put her to bed,” said La Molina.
“Presently, Molina.”
“Let us leave the Queen alone,” added the Spanish attendant.
Madame de Motteville rose. Large and glistening tears were fast rolling down the Queen’s pallid face; and Molina, having observed this sign of weakness, fixed her vigilant black eyes upon her.
“Yes, yes,” replied the Queen. “Leave us, Motteville; go!”
The word “us” produced a disagreeable effect upon the ears of the French favorite; for it signified that an interchange of secrets or of revelations of the past was about to be made, and that one person was de trop in the conversation which seemed likely to take place.
“Will Molina be sufficient for your Majesty to-night?” inquired the Frenchwoman.
“Yes,” replied the Queen.
Madame de Motteville bowed in submission, and was about to withdraw, when suddenly an old female attendant, dressed as if she had belonged to the Spanish Court of the year 1620, opened the door and surprised the Queen in her tears, Madame de Motteville in her skilful retreat, and Molina in her strategy. “The remedy!” she cried delightedly to the Queen, as she unceremoniously approached the group.
“What remedy, Chica?” said Anne of Austria.
“For your Majesty’s sufferings,” the former replied.
“Who brings it?” asked Madame de Motteville, eagerly- “M. Vallot?”
“No; a lady from Flanders.”
“From Flanders? Is she Spanish?” inquired the Queen.
“I don’t know.”
“Who sent her?”