'
I answered that I could trust him for that. I could not expect any
more from him, and indeed none of us were bound in honour. The fault
was with the Duke of Anjou, who, as we all know, was an incorrigible
chatter-box all his life, and never was trusted with any State
secrets at all; but his mother must have supposed him not old enough
to understand what she was talking about, when she let him overhear
such a conversation.
Gaspard had, however, a private lecture from both of us on the need
of holding his tongue, both on this matter and all other palace
gossip. He was no longer in waiting, and I trusted that all would be
forgotten before his turn came again; but he was to join in the state
procession on the following day, a Sunday, when the King and Queen-
Regent were return thanks at Notre Dame for the victory at Lens.
Ah, children! we had victories then. Our Te Deums were not sung with
doubting hearts, to make the populace believe a defeat a victory--a
delusion to which this French nation of ours is only too prone. My
countryman, Marlborough, and the little truant Abbe, Eugene of Savoy,
were not then the leaders of the opposite armies; but at the head of
our own, we had M. le Prince and the Vicomte de Turenne in the flower
of their age, and our triumphs were such that they might well
intoxicate the King, who was, so to speak, brought up upon them. It
was a magnificent sight, which we all saw from different quarters--my
mother in the suite of the Queen of England, Gaspard among the little
noblemen who attended the King, I among the ladies who followed
Mademoiselle, while my brother and sister, though they might have
gone among their own Queen's train, chose to shift for themselves.
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