the sun has no rival, because the sun alone warms and
lightens.

The study of the young king, which had begun a long time
before, without anybody suspecting it, was continued then,
and he looked around him attentively to endeavor to make out
something in the physiognomies which had at first appeared
the most insignificant and trivial.

A collation was served. The king, without daring to call
upon the hospitality of his uncle, had waited for it
impatiently. This time, therefore, he had all the honors
due, if not to his rank, at least to his appetite

As to the cardinal, he contented himself with touching with
his withered lips a bouillon, served in a gold cup. The
all-powerful minister, who had taken her regency from the
queen, and his royalty from the king, had not been able to
take a good stomach from nature.

Anne of Austria, already suffering from the cancer which six
or eight years after caused her death, ate very little more
than the cardinal.

For Monsieur, already puffed up with the great event which
had taken place in his provincial life, he ate nothing
whatever.

Madame alone, like a true Lorrainer, kept pace with his
majesty; so that Louis XIV., who, without this partner,