It was after one of these entertainments, which were sometimes followed by rambles in the park lasting until two or three o'clock in the morning, that the scene under the Royal Oak took place which Dumas has so ingeniously woven into his romance of La Valliere. You remember that the three maids of honor of Madame,--Montelais, Athenais, and Louise,--were grouped together under the famous oak in the forest of Fontainebleau, which had witnessed the sighs for love or glory of the great Henry and many another monarch. The conversation of the three girls on life and love sounds trite and commonplace as we read the story, and yet in the light of the events that followed in quick succession the sentimental platitudes of the innocent child, La Valliere, and the worldly aphorisms of the ambitious Athenais, afterwards Madame de Montespan, gain both dignity and pathos. That Louise, the timid and gentle, should express herself so warmly upon her admiration for the King reveals the fact that the handsome young sovereign had already made an impression upon her sensitive heart. For her it seemed that there had been no one worthy of notice at the dance except the King, the living embodiment of the springtime he personified. When she exclaimed with fervor, "Have you ever seen any one to be compared with the King?" even the bold Athenais was surprised at the frankness of the little Blesoise. A still greater surprise was in store for the Three Graces under the Royal Oak when a rustling was heard in the undergrowth of the adjoining quincunx, and with cries of "A wolf! or a wild boar!" they all scampered away as fast as their feet could carry them to the safe and sure shelter of Madame's apartments, to learn later to their dismay that the rustling in the bushes had been caused, not by a wolf or a wild boar, but by the King himself, who was sauntering through the park with M. de Saint-Aignan.