“You know nothing about it, pet.”

“But, mamma, one doesn’t care only for what one knows.”

“There is, perhaps, some truth in what you say.”

“You haven’t heard, mamma?... I have won the prize for history composition. Madame de Saint-Joseph said I was the only one who had treated the subject thoroughly.”

Madame Worms-Clavelin asked gently:

“What subject?”

“The Pragmatic Sanction.”

Madame Worms-Clavelin asked, this time with an accent of real surprise:

“What is that?”

“It was one of Charles VII’s mistakes. It was, indeed, the greatest mistake he ever made.”