"But the Queen reproaches everybody," returns Madame de Noailles. "Conceive—she reprimanded me for wearing a dress too _décolleté_." Madame de Chevreuse smiles faintly; for it was indeed true that the older Madame de Noailles grew, the lower her dresses were cut. "People who hated me made the Queen believe," continues Madame de Chevreuse, "that I wanted to govern her—to use her patronage. If it were so, I should have done it long ago. It was the Princesse de Condé who told the Queen so; she hates me. When I assured her Majesty that it was false, she seemed to believe me. Then came the affair of Madame de Montbazon and the letters found in her room, one of which she said was written by the Duchesse de Longueville, the daughter of my enemy, the Princesse de Condé. How could I help what my stepmother said?—she is a spoilt beauty, and very injudicious—but her Majesty blamed me, nevertheless. I implored her to forgive my stepmother; and for this purpose, I offered her Majesty yesterday a collation in those fine gardens, kept by Regnard, beyond the chestnut avenue of the Tuileries—you know these gardens, Duchess?" "I do," replies Madame de Noailles. "Her Majesty had often wished to go there. I asked my stepmother to be present, in the full belief that the Queen's kind heart would relent when she saw her, and that she would restore her to favour. Alas! I was mistaken. I do not know the Queen now, she is so changed. She came accompanied by the Princesse de Condé. No sooner had she set eyes on Madame de Montbazon, who was conversing with me, than the Queen gave me a furious glance, called the Princesse de Condé to her side, and bid her command the attendance of her pages; then, without another word, her Majesty turned her back on me, entered her coach, and departed." "Heavens!" exclaims Madame de Noailles, turning up her eyes, "no one is safe, unless they are allies of Cardinal Mazarin." "An hour afterwards,"—and the Duchesse de Chevreuse raises her handkerchief to her eyes,—"I received an order to quit Paris for Tours. Alas, I have not deserved it!" "It is the Cardinal," cries Madame de Noailles. "He will drive out all her old friends; they are inconvenient——" While she speaks the door opens, and Mademoiselle de Hautefort enters the saloon, unannounced. She is bathed in tears; her eyes are swollen with excessive weeping; she cannot repress her sobs. The two ladies rise, and endeavour to sooth her; but her passionate sorrow is not to be appeased. For some time she cannot utter a word. Madame de Chevreuse hung over her affectionately. "Dearest friend," she says, kissing her, "I guess what has happened. You are exiled; so am I. Come with me into Touraine; let us comfort each other until better days." "Oh, speak not to me of better days," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "They can never come to me. My dear, dear mistress, you have broken my heart!" and she bursts into a fresh passion of tears.