This Princess exhibited the grandeur of her ideas by an act which I will select from a thousand such. She would not retain as General of her forces, nay, even exiled from her Court, a veteran distinguished for the services which he had rendered the State. And why? Because he had appeared in her presence with a hat bound with silver when his coat was laced with gold. She thought that a man who could be guilty of such negligence at Court would be also, for the same reason, very capable of allowing himself to be surprised by the enemy. The discernment which she flattered herself as having shown in this instance, and the sound judgment which the Fairy distinguished in her most frivolous ideas, prove the existence of a delusion which would have been enough to turn a stronger head. There was near this great country a little kingdom, so very small that I hardly know what to compare it to. A Queen Mother had for a long time reigned over it, in the name of Prince Floridor; but this good Queen died. Floridor, who was the most affectionate son possible, felt this loss acutely, and always retained a feeling of gratitude for the obligations he was under to her. One of the greatest was a perfect education--the most perfect, the most rigid, as far as concerned the body, which had rendered him as robust as active; and the mildest with regard to his mind, to which she had given both accomplishments and solidity. This young Prince was handsome and well formed. He governed wisely, without abusing his despotic power. His desires were well regulated--in a word, he would have been an amiable person in private life. His subjects adored him, and the strangers who visited at the Court agreed that he would have conferred happiness on the greatest empire. But one thing they were not aware of was, that he owed to a charming Ant a great number of his advantages. She had been attached to him from his infancy. At the death of the Queen the good Ant was his sole consolation. He took no single step without going previously to consult this Ant, in a wood in the palace gardens, which she had chosen as her residence. He often abandoned the Court and its pleasures to go and converse with her. No weather prevented his presenting himself to her, and however severe might be the winter, she always came out of her anthill, which was the best regulated for an hundred miles round, and gave him advice full of prudence and wisdom.