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As d'Aguesseau said, "what a load for a woman to bear!" The thought raised in Lecour the deepest pity. Opposite him was the door of the first antechamber, called the Grand Couvert, where had posted Varicourt, and within it some dozen others. There Varicourt stood, handsome and elegantly uniformed, at that beautiful door in that fine hall. Yet behind all this elegance what misery!
The same principles of honour, dignity, and good sense marked his feeling in the present difficulty with young Lecour.
The Oeil de Boeuf, the famous hall of the courtiers, had a magical enchantment for Lecour. When he first rested his red-heeled shoes upon its polished floor, having entered in the train of the Prince de Poix, the courtiers were awaiting the passing of the King. There were many faces he had not seen at Fontainebleau, and even those familiar showed no sign that he was remembered here.
Lecour gave in with visible joy and named his inn. The two lifted their hats and parted with the profoundest bows. The Chevalier, as his carriage once more sped forward, found himself no less pleased than the other.
As pair after pair were called, they stepped forward on the lawn amid a chorus of laughter, and swelled a procession facing the priest and altar. Lecour wondered as he saw the remaining number dwindle, who should be paired with himself. Strict rules of precedence he knew would govern it. At length, to his astonishment, he heard the words
"That," said he, surveying it with becoming pride, "is our ancestor Hypolite LeCour de Lincy. Sir," said he, laughingly turning to his parent, "behold your father against your will." "Bravo, Monsieur my son," cried Madame Lecour. "Now I can make my old man dress like a gentleman.
The incoming letter was from Louis de Léry, begging his uncle's advice in the affair of Lecour. "The horror I have," wrote he, after relating the circumstances, "is not of death, for in that respect I shall not be found unworthy of our ancestors. It is solely the horror the disgust of being compelled to measure myself with a being so ill-assorted.
Marie Antoinette constantly sought refuge with her intimate circle from people and Court at the gardens and dairy of the Little Trianon, in the Park of Versailles, where it was understood that ceremony was banished and the romps and pleasures of country life were in order. In the month of June Lecour received a command to a private picnic here. It was the highest "honour" he had as yet attained.
The two once so sociable persons were for a while dumb to each other. At length, however, having satisfied her ravenous hunger, she commenced to speak of the changes which the Revolution had brought to them and to wonder at his strange want of interest, when the noise of a mob crowding around the door was heard. Lecour saw what might happen.
When she passed through the immense glass door which looked from the card-room upon the terrace, and his eyes could no longer follow her loveliness, Lecour turned towards the lake and exclaimed in a low voice "There must be some way to win the paradise on earth and this seraph. Castle of ages past, frown not too hardly upon me.
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