'Do not forget your friendly custom, but tell me what fortune awaits Rosette.' Such was the name which had been given to the little princess.
The fairies replied that they had left their magic books at home, but would come and see her some other time.
'Ah,' said the queen, 'that bodes ill. You are anxious not to distress me by an unhappy prophecy. But tell me all, I implore you, and hide nothing from me.'
The fairies did their utmost to excuse themselves. But the queen became more and more eager to learn everything, and at last the chief of them made a declaration.
'We fear, Madam,' she said, 'that Rosette will bring disaster on her brothers, and that in some fashion she will be the cause of their death. This much and no more can we foretell of the pretty child, and we are grieved that we should have no better news to give you.'
Then the fairies went away, and the queen was left grieving.
So deep was her grief that the king saw it in her face, and asked what ailed her. She had gone too near the fire, she told him, and had burnt all the flax that was on her distaff.
'Is that all?' said the king, and going up to his storeroom he brought her more flax than she could have spun in a hundred years.
But the queen continued sad, and again the king asked what ailed her. She declared that in walking by the river she had let her green satin slipper fall into the water.
'Is that all?' said the king, and summoning all the shoemakers in the kingdom he brought her ten thousand green satin slippers.