“Why is he with Madame?”
“Madame is troubled with nervous attacks.”
“A very fine disorder, indeed! There is little good in M. Valot being there, when a very different physician would quickly cure Madame.”
Madame de Motteville looked up with an air of great surprise, as she replied, “Another doctor instead of M. Valot?—whom do you mean?”
“Occupation, Motteville, occupation. If any one is really ill, it is my poor daughter.”
“And your majesty, too.”
“Less so this evening, though.”
“Do not believe that too confidently, madame,” said De Motteville. And, as if to justify her caution, a sharp, acute pain seized the queen, who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with every symptom of a sudden fainting fit. Molina ran to a richly gilded tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal bottle of scented salts, and held it to the queen’s nostrils, who inhaled it wildly for a few minutes, and murmured:
“It is hastening my death—but Heaven’s will be done!”
“Your majesty’s death is not so near at hand,” added Molina, replacing the smelling-bottle in the cabinet.