Madame de Pompadour was ill served; she had not found her Gondremark; but what a mighty politician! Catherine de' Medici, too, what justice of sight, what readiness of means, what elasticity against defeat! But alas! madam, her Featherheads were her own children; and she had that one touch of vulgarity, that one trait of the good-wife, that she suffered family ties and affections to confine her liberty.' These singular views of history, strictly _ad usum Seraphinae_, did not weave their usual soothing spell over the Princess.

It was plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips.

'What boys men are!' she said; 'what lovers of big words! Courage, indeed! If you had to scour pans, Herr Von Gondremark, you would call it, I suppose, Domestic Courage ?' 'I would, madam,' said the Baron stoutly, 'if I scoured them well.

I would put a good name upon a virtue; you will not overdo it: they are not so enchanting in themselves.' 'Well, but let me see,' she said.

'I wish to understand your courage.
Why we asked leave, like children! Our grannie in Berlin, our uncle in Vienna, the whole family, have patted us on the head and sent us forward.
Courage?
I wonder when I hear you!' 'My Princess is unlike herself,' returned the Baron.