There was the Bourbon face fully marked, with a good deal
of fair hair in curls round it, and a wonderful air of complete self-
complacency.
This was la grande Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston Duke of Orleans,
and heiress through her mother of the great old Montpensier family,
who lived at the Palais Royal with her father, but was often at the
Louvre. She stood aghast, as well she might, thinking how little
dignity her aunt, the Queen of England, had to be acting as mistress
of deportment to a little homely widow. The Prince turned at once.
'There is my cousin,' said he, 'standing amazed to see how we have
caught a barbarous islander of our own, and are trying to train her
to civilization. Here--let her represent the Queen-Regent. Now,
Meg--Madame de Bellaise, I mean--imitate me while my mother presents
me,' he ran on in English, making such a grotesque reverence that
nobody except Mademoiselle could help laughing, and his mother made a
feint of laying her fan about his ears, while she pronounced him a
madcap and begged her niece to excuse him.
'For profaning the outskirts of the majesty of the Most Christian
King,' muttered the Prince, while his mother explained the matter to
her niece, adding that her son could not help availing himself of the
opportunity of paying her his homage.
Mademoiselle was pacified, and was graciously pleased to permit me to
be presented to her, also to criticize the curtsey which I had now to
perform, my good Queen being so kind in training me that I almost
lost the sense of the incongruity of such a lesson at my age and in
my weeds.
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