commission with French taste and a sentiment of what was proper. When
the Queen saw all these magnificent gifts placed and spread out in a
gallery, she cried out, and said:

"Things were not done so nobly for me; and yet, I can say without vanity,
I was of a better house than she."

This remark paints the Queen, Maria Theresa, better than anything which
could be said. Can one wonder, after that, that she should have brought
into the world an hereditary prince who so keenly loves 'touru', and asks
for it!

Madame de Maintenon and M. Bossuet had gone to receive the Princess of
Schelestadt. When she was on her husband's territory, and it was
necessary, to confess her for the sacrament of matrimony, she was
strangely embarrassed. They had not remembered to bring a chaplain of
her own nation for her; and she could not confess except in the German
tongue.

Madame de Maintenon, who is skilled in all matters of religion, said to
the prelate: "I really think, monsieur, that, having educated Monsieur le
Dauphin, you ought to know a little German,--you who have composed the
treatise on universal history."

The Bishop of Meaux excused himself, saying that he knew Greek, Syriac,
and even Hebrew; but that, through a fatality, he was ignorant of the
German language. A trumpeter was then sent out to ask if there was not
in the country a Catholic priest who was a German, or acquainted with the
German tongue. Luckily one was found, and Madame de Maintenon, who is
very, pedantic, even in the matter of toilet and ornaments, trembled with