mania; but so absurd a fashion soon had to disappear after the mishap of
which I am about to tell.

The Queen being pregnant, public prayers were offered up for her
according to custom, and her Majesty was forever saying: "My pregnancy
this time is different from preceding ones. I am a prey to nausea and
strange whims; I have never felt like this before. If, for propriety's
sake, I did not restrain myself, I should now dearly like to be turning
somersaults on the carpet, like little Osmin. He eats green fruit and
raw game; that is what I should like to do, too. I should like to--"

"Oh, madame, you frighten us!" exclaimed the King. "Don't let all those
whimsies trouble you further, or you will give birth to some monstrosity,
some freak of nature." His Majesty was a true prophet. The Queen was
delivered of a fine little girl, black as ink from head to foot. They
did not tell her this at once, fearing a catastrophe, but persuaded her
to go to sleep, saying that the child had been taken away to be
christened.

The physicians met in one room, the bishops and chaplains in another. One
prelate was opposed to baptising the infant; another only agreed to this
upon certain conditions. The majority decided that it should be baptised
without the name of father or mother, and such suppression was
unanimously advocated.

The little thing, despite its swarthy hue, was most beautifully made; its
features bore none of those marks peculiar to people of colour.

It was sent away to the Gisors district to be suckled as a negro's
daughter, and the Gazette de France contained an announcement to the