Létorière, having made the mare pass and repass several times before, the statue which had at first so much frightened her, approached the king: the Marquis held his hat in his right hand, and with the left he patted Barbara, who tossed her head and champed her bit with a most coquettish air; one would have said she was proud of the light weight she carried. The face of the young gentleman, still animated by the exercise, and the proud joy of having succeeded so well in presence of the king, was resplendent with brightness and beauty. Seeing his _protégé_ so handsome, so radiant and so young, Louis XV. regarded him with the tender and melancholy interest which men advanced in age, or satiated with pleasure, often feel in contemplating the confident joy, the simple ardor of youth. This excellent prince felt himself happy in the power, by a generous caprice, open to this youth a future as brilliant as a fairy tale. "It is sometimes good to be a king," said he to M. de Richelieu, with involuntary emotion. The old marshal, before answering, appeared to interrogate the expression of the prince, in order to penetrate the sense of this exclamation, which he did not comprehend. All was dead in this heart worn out by a narrow but unbridled ambition, and hardened by a cruel egotism. Incapable of seizing the meaning of the king, the marshal replied by a courtly insipidity: "If it is sometimes good to be a king, Sire, it is always good to be the subject of your majesty." Louis XV. smiled with a polite, frigid air, and replied: "It is pleasant to find one's self so well understood." Then addressing Létorière, who awaited his orders: "Well, my child, tell me, how have you conquered so quickly and easily this unconquerable creature?" "Your majesty told me that this animal came from Germany; knowing that the Germans talk much to their horses, and that they drive them almost as much by the voice as by the hand or the spur, I spoke German to her. Recognizing, undoubtedly, a language to which she was accustomed, she almost immediately became calm." "He is right. Nothing is more simple . . . don't you see, St. Clair?" . . . said the king. "Yes, Sire," timidly replied Létorière, throwing a glance on the old St. Clair, who appeared profoundly humiliated; "yes, Sire, nothing is more simple when one speaks German" . . . This almost bold answer was dictated by a sentiment so delicate and generous, that Louis XV., greatly moved, cried: "Well, very well, my child . . . you are right . . . if my old St. Clair had known how to speak German, he would have done as you did; . . . but as he is too old to learn that now, and as Barbara does not appear to have any taste for the French language, keep this mare . . . Marquis of Létorière, the King gives her to you." The Marquis bowed respectfully . . .