One day, some Indian ambassadors were to visit the king in great splendour, and it was known that there would be a crowd of people in the courts and galleries to see them. The queen desired that the Dauphin might not be encouraged to think of seeing this sight, as it would be bad for him, and she could not have him exposed, deformed and sickly, to the gaze of a crowd of people. Notwithstanding her desire, the Dauphin’s tutor helped him to write a letter to his mother, begging that he might see the ambassadors pass. She was obliged to refuse him. When she reproached the tutor with having caused her and her boy this pain, he replied that the Dauphin wished to write, and he could not vex a sick child—the very thing which he compelled the mother to do, after having fixed the subject in the boy’s mind, and raised his hopes.
There was another sister, younger than the Duke of Normandy—quite a baby. The Duke of Normandy used to see this little baby every day, and kiss her, and hear her crow, and see her stretch out her little hand towards the lighted wax candles, which made the palace almost as light as day. One morning, baby was not to be seen: everybody looked grave: his mother’s eyes were red, and her face very sad. Baby was dead; and, young as he was, Louis did not forget Sophie immediately. He saw and heard things occasionally which put him in mind of baby for long afterwards.
There was one more person belonging to the family, whom the children and everybody dearly loved. This was their aunt Elizabeth, the king’s sister, a young lady of such sweet temper—so religious, so humble, so gentle—that she was a blessing wherever she went. She disliked the show and formality of a life at court, and earnestly desired to become a nun. The king and queen loved her so dearly that they could not bear the idea of her leaving them. They devised every indulgence they could think of to vary the dulness of the court. The king declared her of age two years before the usual time, and gave her a pretty country-house, with gardens, where she might spend her time as she pleased; and he encouraged her taking long country rides, as she was fond of horse-exercise. At last, when she was full of gratitude for her brother’s kindness, he begged her to promise not to become a nun before she was thirty, when, if she still wished it, he would make no further opposition. She promised. We shall see, by-and-by, what became of this sweet princess when she was thirty.
She was at this time twenty-three years old. She was a great comfort to the queen, not concealing from her that she thought the Dauphin was dying, and the nation growing very savage against the royal family; but endeavouring to console and strengthen her mind, as religious people are always the best able to do. The poor queen began to want comfort much. She went to bed very late now, because she could not sleep; and a little anecdote shows that her anxieties made her again as superstitious as she had formerly been, when she dreaded misfortune because she was born on the day of the great earthquake at Lisbon.
On the table of her dressing-room, four large wax candles were burning one evening. Before they had burned half-way down, one of them went out. The lady-in-waiting lighted it. A second went out immediately, and then a third. The queen in terror grasped the lady’s arm, saying, “If the fourth goes out, I shall be certain that it is all over with us.” The fourth went out. In vain the lady observed that these four candles had probably been all run in the same mould, and had therefore the same fault. The queen allowed this to be reasonable, but was still much impressed by the circumstance.
For one of the impending evils there was no remedy. The Dauphin died the next June, when the Duke of Normandy, then four years old, became Dauphin. It may give some idea of the formality of the court proceedings to mention that, when a deputation of the magistrates of Paris came, according to custom, to view the lying-in-state, the usher of the late Dauphin announced to the dead body, as he threw open the folding-doors, that the magistrates of Paris had come to pay their respects.