The king, we have already observed, remained near Valliere, and, throwing himself off his horse at the moment the door of her carriage was opened, he offered her his hand to alight.

Montalais and Tonnay-Charente immediately drew back and kept at a distance; the former from calculated, the latter from prudent, motives.

There was this difference, however, between the two, that the one had withdrawn from a wish to please the king, the other for a very opposite reason.

During the last half hour the weather also had undergone a change; the veil which had been spread over the sky, as if driven by a blast of heated air, had become massed together in the western part of the heavens; and afterward as if driven back by a current of air from the opposite direction, was now advancing slowly and heavily toward them.

The approach of the storm could be felt, but as the king did not perceive it, no one thought it was right to do so.