“--And when I return from these walks, I find my father alone, in the great drawing-room, near the lighted candle, leaning on his elbow, amid the faded gildings which cover our moldy wainscot. It is with pain that he sees me enter. My grief disturbs his. Athénaïs! At the back of that drawing-room, near the window, is the harpsichord over which flitted those sweet fingers that my lips have touched but once--once, while yours opened softly to harmonies of celestial music--opened with such dainty art that your songs were but a smile. How happy are they--Rameau, Lulli, Duni, and so many more! Yes, yes, you love them--they are in your memory--their breath has passed through your lips. I too seat myself at that harpsichord, I strive to play one of those airs that you love;--how cold, how monotonous they seem to me! I leave them and listen to their dying accents while the echo loses itself beneath that lugubrious vault. My father turns to me and sees me distressed--what can he do? Some boudoir gossip, some report from the servants’ hall has closed upon us the gates that lead into the world. He sees me young, ardent, full of life, asking only to live in this world, he is my father, and can do nothing for me.” “One would think,” said the King, “that this fellow was starting for the hunt, and that his falcon had been killed on his wrist. Against whom is he inveighing, may I ask?” “--It is quite true,” continued the Marquise, reading in a lower tone. “It is quite true that we are near neighbors, and distant relatives, of the Abbé Chauvelin....” “That is what it is, is it?” said Louis XV, yawning. “Another nephew of the _enquêtes et requêtes_. My Parliament abuses my bounty; it really has too large a family.” “But if it is only a _distant_ relative!” “Enough; all these people are good for nothing. This Abbé Chauvelin is a Jansenist; not a bad sort of fellow, in his way; but he has dared to resign. Please throw the letter into the fire, and let me hear no more about it.” II If these last words of the King were not exactly a death-warrant, they were something like a refusal of permission to live. What could a young man without fortune do, in 1756, whose King would not hear his name mentioned? He might have looked for a clerkship, or tried to turn philosopher, or poet, perhaps; but without official dedication, the trade was worth nothing. And besides, such was not, by any means, the vocation of the Chevalier Vauvert, who had written, with tears, the letter which made the King laugh. At this very moment, alone with his father, in the old château of Neauflette, his look was desperate and gloomy, even to frenzy, as he paced to and fro. “I must go to Versailles,” he said. “And what will you do there?” “I know not; but what am I doing here?” “You keep me company. It certainly can not be very amusing for you, and I will not in any way seek to detain you. But do you forget that your mother is dead?”