"One word more," said the duke; "are you decided this time, or is it not some fever which you have caught from your confessor? If it be real, I have nothing to say; but if it be a fever, I desire that they cure you of it. I have Morceau and Chirac, whom I pay for attending on me and mine." "Monseigneur," answered the abbess, "you forget that I know sufficient of medicine to undertake my own cure, if I were ill: I can, therefore, assure you that I am not. I am a Jansenist; that is all." "Ah," cried the duke, "this is more of Father le Doux's work, that execrable Benedictine! At least I know a treatment which will cure him." "What is that?" asked the abbess. "The Bastille." And he went out in a rage, followed by Dubois, who was laughing heartily. "You see," said the regent, after a long silence, and when they were nearing Paris, "I preached with a good grace; it seems it was I who needed the sermon." "Well, you are a happy father, that is all; I compliment you on your younger daughter, Mademoiselle de Chartres. Unluckily your elder daughter, the Duchesse de Berry--" "Oh, do not talk of her; she is my ulcer, particularly when I am in a bad temper." "Well?" "I have a great mind to make use of it by finishing with her at one blow." "She is at the Luxembourg?" "I believe so." "Let us go to the Luxembourg, monseigneur." "You go with me?" "I shall not leave you to-night." "Well, drive to the Luxembourg." CHAPTER II. DECIDEDLY THE FAMILY BEGINS TO SETTLE DOWN. Whatever the regent might say, the Duchesse de Berry was his favorite daughter. At seven years of age she had been seized with a disease which all the doctors declared to be fatal, and when they had abandoned her, her father, who had studied medicine, took her in hand himself, and succeeded in saving her. From that time the regent's affection for his daughter became almost a weakness. He allowed the haughty and self-willed child the most perfect liberty; her education was neglected, but this did not prevent Louis XIV. from choosing her as a wife for his grandson the Duc de Berry. It is well known how death at once struck a triple blow at the royal posterity, and within a few years carried off the dauphin, the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgoyne and the Duc de Berry. Left a widow at twenty years of age, loving her father almost as tenderly as he loved her, and having to choose between the society of Versailles and that of the Palais Royal, the Duchesse de Berry, young, beautiful, and fond of pleasure, had quickly decided. She took part in all the fetes, the pleasures and follies of her father.