And still the full time was not yet when all this should be changed. Even for Louis, the absolute reckoning day was but shadowing in. “After us the deluge”: that prophetic utterance was spoken long after Louis was borne to his rest in St Dénis, but when the records of his life tell of those long-brooding, silent pacings amid the grandeur and treasures of his splendid palace, comes the question if from afar off there did not sound the murmur of the flood that was to break some hundred years hence, if in some dim yet certain way the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand was not apparent to his introspective gaze, for as yet the domestic misfortunes of his latest years had not befallen, death had not robbed him of his heir, and the rest dear to him; but discontent, not unmingled with contempt, seethed round the proud King of France. How were the mighty fallen, and how great the political mistake which indissolubly linked the ambitious woman, clothed about in her new-found meretricious garb of piety, with his great responsible destiny—Louis, Dieudonné and elect ruler. Nor did it stop at the secret, sufficiently open and acknowledged, of his marriage with Scarron’s widow. The fear was well enough founded that she was moving earth, and if possible all heaven, to be Queen of France; but righteousness had small part in the endeavour, and trickery and chicanery failed to prevail to this crowning end upon the king’s consciousness and conviction. Pride, and the sense of his irrevocable bondage, mingled with the poison of the hypocritical devoutness instilled into him by his wife and her confessor, kept him silently deferential to this woman, spoiled by prosperity; but she herself says that all her endeavours to amuse him or bring a smile to his lips, failed. He had—mildly construing the homely proverb—put off from shore with a person—more or less mentionable—and he was bound to sail to land with her. The _diablerie_ at work was untiring, and had many strings, and there seem, small, if any, question that to the genius of the Marseilles merchant’s wife, formerly Madame Arnoul, the curious tale of the Farrier of Provence is due. From extreme southward of France came this poor man, who said he was shoemaker to all the horses of his grace, Monsieur d’Épernon, at his country mansion near Marseilles—to speak to the king’s Majesty upon a subject concerning him alone. The major of the guards to whom he explained his wish, told him such an interview was impossible. A letter of audience was first required, and that was to be had only with utmost difficulty. Besides, he added, the king did not receive all the world. The man objected that he was not all the world. “Quite so,” said the guard. “By whom are you sent?” “By Heaven.”