The moment after, the door opened, and Pauline appeared leading in a fine curly-headed boy of about ten years old. He was dressed in hodden grey, with a broad leathern belt round his waist, in which appeared a small axe and a knife, while his feet, displaying no stockings, but with the skin tanned to the colour of Russia leather, were thrust into a pair of unwieldy _sabots_, or wooden-shoes, which had caused the clatter aforesaid. "Take off his _sabots_, take off his _sabots_," cried the Queen, putting her hands to her ears. "They will alarm the whole house." "_Dame oui!_" cried the boy, slipping his feet out of their incumbrances. "_J'avons oublié, et vous aussi, Mademoiselle_," turning to Pauline, who, anxious to hear of De Blenau, would have let him come in, if he had been shod like a horse. The little messenger now paused for a moment, then having glanced his eye over the ladies at the other end of the room, as if to ascertain to which he was to deliver his credentials, advanced straight to the Queen, and falling down upon both his knees, tendered her a sealed packet. "Well, my boy," said Anne of Austria, taking the letter, "whom does this come from?" "My father, the Woodman of Mantes," replied the boy, "told me to give it into the Queen's own hand; and when I had done so, to return straight to him and not to wait, for fear of being discovered." "And how do you know that I am the Queen?" asked Anne of Austria, who too often suffered her mind to be distracted from matters of grave importance by trifling objects of amusement. "That lady is the Queen," she continued, pointing to Madame de Beaumont, and playing upon the boy's simplicity. "No, no," said Charles, the Woodman's son, "she stands and you sit; and besides, you told them to take off my _sabots_, as if you were used to order all about you." "Well," rejoined the Queen, "you are right, my boy: go back to your father, and as a token that you have given the letter to the Queen, carry him back that ring;" and she took a jewel from her finger, and put it into the boy's hand. "Mademoiselle de Beaumont," she continued, "will you give this boy into the charge of Laporte, bidding him take him from the Palace by the most private way, and not to leave him till he is safe out of Chantilly."