He kept me in
talk until the afternoon was well advanced, and we were still at
table when Maignan appeared and told me that the King had sent
for me.
"I will go," I said, rising.
"He is with the Queen, your Excellency," he continued.
This somewhat surprised me, but I thought no evil; and, finding
one of the Queen's Italian pages at the door waiting to conduct
me, I followed him across the court that lay between my lodgings
and her apartments. Two or three of the King's gentlemen were in
the anteroom when I arrived, and Varennes, who was standing by
one of the fire-places toying with a hound, made me a face of
dismay; he could not speak, owing to the company.
Still this, in a degree, prepared me for the scene in the
chamber, where I found the Queen storming up and down the room,
while the King, still in his hunting dress, sat on a low chair by
the fire, apparently drying his boots. Mademoiselle Galigai, the
Queen's waiting-woman, stood in the background; but more than
this I had not time to observe, for, before I had reached the
middle of the floor, the Queen turned on me, and began to abuse
me with a vehemence which fairly shocked me.
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