The youth, who was now ages gone in love, had only reached his twenty-second year, and madame Rossin was his first attachment. So ardent and impetuous did his passion hourly grow, that it became a species of insanity. On the other hand, the high-born dame, who had thus captivated him, felt all the attractions of his simple and untutored love, further set off by the fine manly figure of the young shopman. Indeed, so much novelty and interest did she experience in her new amour, that, far from finding herself, as she had expected, disposed to relinquish the affair (as she had anticipated) at the end of two or three interviews, which she had imagined would have satisfied her capricious fancy, she put off, to an indefinite period, her original project of ending the affair by feigning a return to the country. This resolution, however, she did not feel courage to carry into effect; and two or three months rolled rapidly away without any diminution of their reciprocal flame, when one fine Sunday evening Moireau, whose time hung heavily on his hands, took it into his head to visit the opera. This species of amusement constitutes the _ne plus ultra_ of the delights of a French cit. Moireau seated himself in the pit, just opposite the box of the gentlemen in waiting. The performance was “Castor and Pollux.” At the commencement of the second act a sudden noise and bustle drew Moireau from the contemplative admiration into which the splendor of the piece had thrown him. The disturbance arose from a general move, which was taking place in the box belonging to the gentlemen in waiting. Madame d’Egmont had just arrived, attended by four or five grand lords of the court covered with gold, and decorated with the order of the Holy Ghost, and two ladies richly dressed, from whom she was distinguished as much by the superior magnificence of her attire as by her striking beauty. Moireau could not believe his eyes; he felt assured he beheld madame Rossin, yet he fancied he must be under the influence of some fantastic dream; but every look, every gesture of the princess, a thousand trifles, which would have escaped the notice of a common observer, but which were engraved in indelible characters on the heart of her admirer, all concurred to assure him that he recognised in this lovely and dazzling female, so splendidly attired and so regally attended, the cherished mistress of his affections; she whom that very morning he had held in his embrace. He addressed a thousand questions to those about him, from whom he learnt his own good fortune and the exalted rank of her he had won. Scarcely could he restrain the burst of joy, when informed that the fair object, glittering with jewels and radiant in beauty, was the daughter of Richelieu, and the wife of one of the princes of the noble houses of Egmont.