Immediately after the hunting party returned they went to the Queen. I took pleasure in serving at her supper, and her maids carried the dishes (viands). There was a regular programme. Three times a week we had music, they of the King's chamber sang, and the most of the airs sung by them were composed by the King. He wrote the words, even; and the subject was never anything but Mme. de Hautefort. The King was in humour so gallant that at the collations that he gave us in the country he did not sit at table at all; and he served us nearly everything himself, though his civility had only one object. He ate after us, and did not seem to feel more complaisance for Mme. de Hautefort than for the others, so afraid was he that some one should perceive his gallantry. Despite these precautions, the Court and the city, Paris, and the province were informed of the least incidents of an affair of such importance. The only person whom the King's passion left indifferent was the Queen. Anne of Austria had never been jealous. She did not consider Louis XIII. worth the pains of jealousy,--and now jealousy would have been out of place. Anne, after twenty-three years of marriage, was _enceinte_. The people who had loaded her with outrages while she was bowed by shame now knelt at her feet, sincere in their respectful demonstrations of devotion for the wife of the King who might one day become Queen-mother, or even Regent of France. It was like one of the fairy plays in a theatre. Nature had waved her wand, and the disgraced victim of enchantment had arisen "clothed on with majesty." It was an edifying and delightful transformation. After all her shame, the novelty of being cared for and treated gently was so great and so agreeable that when she saw her royal spouse sighing before the virtuous and malignant de Hautefort--"whose chains" were said to be heavy and hard to bear--she looked upon it very lightly. Anne of Austria smiled at the benumbed attitudes of the King, at his awkward ardour, and equally awkward prudery. The Queen learned with amusement that when among her companions, the young girls of the Court, Mlle. de Hautefort mocked the King, and boasted that he "dared not approach her, though he maintained her," and that she was "bored to death by his talk of dogs, and birds, and the hunt." Friends repeated these criticisms. Louis XIII. heard of them and took offence "at the ingrate," and the Court went into mourning. "If there should be some serious quarrel between them," wrote Mademoiselle, "all the comedies and the entertainments will be over. At that time, when the King came to the Queen's apartments, he did not speak to anybody, and nobody dared to speak to him. He sat in a corner, and very often he yawned and went to sleep. It was a species of melancholy which chilled the whole world, and during this grief he passed the most of the time writing what he had said to Mme.