"Indeed, indeed, my Lord," she said, "you wrong me. Oh, Louis! how you might have made me love you once!" and her tears redoubled at the thought of the past. "But I am a weak fool," she continued, wiping the drops from her eyes, "to feel so sensibly what I do not deserve--At present your Majesty does me deep injustice.--I have always taught both my children to love and respect their father. That name is the first word that they learn to pronounce; and from me they learn to pronounce it with affection. But oh, my Liege! what will these dear children think in after years, when they see their father behave to their mother, as your Majesty does towards me?" "Pshaw!" exclaimed the King, "let us have no more of all this. I hate these scenes of altercation. Fear not, Madam; the time will come, when these children will learn to appreciate us both thoroughly." "I hope not, my Lord"--replied the Queen fervently--"I hope not. From me, at least, they shall never learn all I have to complain of in their father." Had Anne of Austria reflected, she would have been silent; but it is sometimes difficult to refrain when urged by taunts and unmerited reproach. That excellent vial of water, which the Fairy bestowed upon the unhappy wife, is not always at hand to impede the utterance of rejoinders, which, like rejoinders in the Court of Chancery, only serve to urge on the strife a degree farther, whether they be right or wrong. In the present case the King's pale countenance flushed with anger. "Beware, Madam, beware!" exclaimed he. "You have already been treated with too much lenity--Remember the affair of Chalais!" "Well, Sir!" replied the Queen, raising her head with an air of dignity: "Your Majesty knows, and feels, and has said, that I am perfectly guiltless of that miserable plot. My Lord, my Lord! if _you_ can lay your head upon your pillow conscious of innocence like mine, you will sleep well; _my_ bosom at least is clear." "See that it be, Madam," replied Louis, darting upon her one of those fiery and terrible glances in which the whole vindictive soul of his Italian mother blazed forth in his eyes with the glare of a basilisk. "See that it be, Madam; for there may come worse charges than that against you.--I have learned from a sure source that a Spaniard is seeking my overthrow, and a woman is plotting my ruin," he continued, repeating the words of the Astrologer; "that a Prince is scheming my destruction, and a Queen is betraying my trust--so, see that your bosom _be_ clear, Madam." And passing quickly by her, he left the apartment, exclaiming loud enough for all within it to hear, "Where is his Eminence of Richelieu? Some one, give him notice that the King desires his presence when he has leisure."