Amidor. The great nymph of this cave has made an enchantment.'"

The enchantment of the great nymph was complete on the Princess, who had
hardly sufficient strength to find out with a trembling hand, toward the
end of the book, that the Druid Adamas was an ingenious allegory,
representing the Lieutenant-General of Montbrison, of the family of the
Papons. Her weary eyes closed, and the great book slipped from her lap
to the cushion of velvet upon which her feet were placed, and where the
beautiful Astree and the gallant Celadon reposed luxuriously, less
immovable than Marie de Mantua, vanquished by them and by profound
slumber.




CHAPTER XVI

THE CONFUSION

This same morning, the various events of which we have seen in the
apartments of Gaston d'Orleans and of the Queen, the calm and silence of
study reigned in a modest cabinet of a large house near the Palais de
justice. A bronze lamp, of a gothic shape, struggling with the coming
day, threw its red light upon a mass of papers and books which covered a
large table; it lighted the bust of L'Hopital, that of Montaigne the
essayist, the President de Thou, and of King Louis XIII.

A fireplace sufficiently large for a man to enter and sit there was
occupied by a large fire burning upon enormous andirons. Upon one of
these was placed the foot of the studious De Thou, who, already risen,