Yes, to-morrow there will surely be a great battle. Have not the actors promised it? “To-morrow no performance! The day after to-morrow a play in honour of the victory of Monseigneur le Maréchal de Saxe!” And before long there will be a Te Deum in the glorious aisles of the captured cathedral of Tournay.
André on his straw heap curled in his cloak dreamed of Denise, of the pleasant Loire, and of the Château de Beau Séjour when it should be his. Pest on the canaille and their trulls singing that lampoon at his elbow:
“Une petite bourgeoise,
Élevée à la grivoise
Mesurant tout à la toise,
Fait de la cour un taudis, dis, dis.”
They were singing of no less a lady than the fair huntress and the King, the heroine of the crystal and the King’s handkerchief, “La Petite d’Étiolles,” who was now the heroine and jape of the streets of Paris. Strange, so strange. And he, too, had played his part in the drama of royal love:
“Louis, malgré son scrupule,
Froidement pour elle brûle,
Et son amour ridicule,