knows how to encourage the lady presented, whose embarrassment soon yields to a gentle confidence as the Queen addresses to her one of those remarks which remain engraven in the heart.”[23] To sum up, neglected as she is by her husband, the Queen is happier than he, because she has the great boon, the supreme good, which he has not: peace of heart. “What comparison is there,” says a great preacher, “between the frightful remorse of conscience, that hidden worm which gnaws incessantly, that sadness of crime which undermines and depresses, that weight of iniquity which crushes, that interior sword which pierces and which we cannot draw out, and the amiable sadness of penitence which works salvation?”[24] This expression “amiable sadness” is most applicable to the Queen. Doubtless she suffers profoundly at seeing Louis XV. throw himself down the declivity of scandal. But, far from recriminating, she offers her sufferings to God. Gentle and pious victim, she finds ineffable consolations at the foot of the altar. Instead of avenging herself on the King by reproaches and bitter speeches, she prays for him. Her calmness, resignation, charity, her Christian virtues, and exquisite affability, make her the object of universal veneration. She is called nothing but the Good Queen. The Dauphin[25] is not less esteemed than his mother. In 1745 he is sixteen years old. He is a pious, well-taught, well-intentioned young man. He has made serious studies. His favorite reading is Plato, Cicero, Tacitus, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Juvenal. He knows by heart the finest passages of the philosophers and poets of antiquity. For him were made those magnificent editions of the Louvre, _Ad usum Delphini_, one of the most precious monuments of contemporary typography. Full of respect for his father, he never speaks to him but in the tone of profound submission. He effaces himself, he holds himself in restraint. He says: “A Dauphin should employ one half his mind in concealing the other half.” Louis XV. is suspicious; it is well not to offend him.