An Aeneas for an Achates

The center of the gallery presented an animated scene. The beautiful
Madame de Turenne, whose husband was the maréchal-general of the armies
of France, then engaged in war against Spain, under whose banners the
great Condé was meeting with a long series of defeats, the Comtesse de
Soissons, the Abbé de la Rivre, Madame de Brigy, the Duc and Duchesse
de Montausier,--all were laughing and exchanging badinage with the Duc
de Gramont, who was playing execrably on Mademoiselle de Longueville's
guitar. Surrounding were the younger courtiers and ladies, who also
were enjoying the affair. There are few things which amuse young
people as much as the sight of an elderly, dignified man making a clown
of himself.

"Oh, Monsieur le Duc," cried Mademoiselle de Longueville, springing
from the window-seat from which position she had been staring at the
flambeaux below, "if you fought as badly as you play, you would never
have gained the baton."

"Mademoiselle, each has its time and place, the battle and the
madrigal, Homer and Voiture, and besides, I never play when I fight;"
and De Gramont continued his thrumming.

Just outside the pale of this merry circle the Duc de Beaufort leaned
over the chair of Madame de Montbazon, and carried on a conversation in
low tones. The duchess exhibited at intervals a fine set of teeth. In
the old days when the literary salons of the Hôtel de Rambouillet were
at zenith, the Duchesse de Montbazon was known to be at once the
handsomest and most ignorant woman in France. But none denied that she
possessed a natural wit or the ability successfully to intrigue; and
many were the grand sieurs who had knelt at her feet. But now, like
Anne of Austria, she was devoting her time to prayers and to the
preservation of what beauty remained.