Physically, the beauty of La Vallière was not flawless. Her mouth was somewhat large; but it has frequently been said, that somehow the defect of her lameness only added to the grace of her movements, which were at once so gentle and dignified, while her magnificent, dark dreamy eyes and her soft winning smile rendered her singularly charming; and if Louis ever loved any but himself, it was Louise de la Vallière, who so passionately loved, not Louis the king, but the ardent wooer and winner of her heart. There is a story of the rose-tree from which Louis plucked the rose which he offered her on that ball night in the Louvre. It had been cultivated by le Nôtre, the famous gardener of Versailles, and was an object of his tenderest care; so much cherished, that he was far from pleased when he saw the king pluck its loveliest blossom for la Vallière. She regarded the rose-tree which had borne it with the tenderness one feels for some beloved sentient thing, enlisting le Nôtre’s interest in it, which in its way was as great as her own; and wherever she went to spend any length of days, the rose-tree was transported in its box of earth to the gardens of the palace—Versailles or the Louvre, as it might be—and for two years the beautiful bush flourished under the joint care of le Nôtre, and of the king’s beloved mistress. And in her gentle confidences with Mademoiselle Athénais de Mortemar, the _fiancée_ of Monsieur le Marquis de Montespan, with whom she was great friends, she told her the romance of her rose, and how it was her belief, her superstition—call it what you will—that while it flourished, Louis’s love would be hers. And then all at once the rose-tree began to fade. Slowly but surely, despite all the skill of le Nôtre, rapidly it withered, and he carried a handful of the earth of the new box, into which he had transplanted the tree, as a last resource, to a chemist for analysation. Nothing more simple: vitriol had been poured on the earth, a drop or two at a time, and the root was corroded to dry threads. And for la Vallière, it was only left to make a little mausoleum for her rose-tree in the shadow of a retired thicket round the bosquets of Versailles—a little crystal globe upon a low marble stand; and within it, in a box exquisitely enriched with gold filigree, the withered rose-tree, to one of whose branches was fastened the faded rose, whose petals still hung together; and thither to the secluded spot every day came la Vallière to kneel at the tomb of her rose-tree, and kiss the shadowy souvenir of the love that had faded for ever. Just a few petals left of its countless leaves, so sweet and glowing once in their crimson beauty.