of courtesy and beauty.  The king first, then the queen, and afterwards every individual member of the company, complemented l’Ile Adam on having chosen such a wife.  The modesty of the chatelaine did more than pride would have accomplished; for she was invited to court, and everywhere, so imperious was her great heart, so tyrannic her violent love for her husband.  You may be sure that her charms, hidden under the garments of virtue, were none the less exquisite.  The king gave the vacant post of lieutenant of the Ile de France and provost of Paris to his ancient ambassador, giving him the title of Viscount of Beaumont, which established him as governor of the whole province, and put him on an excellent footing at court.  But this was the cause of a great wound in Madame’s heart, because a wretch, jealous of this unclouded happiness, asked her, playfully, if Beaumont had ever spoken to her of his first love, Mademoiselle de Montmorency, who at that time was twenty-two years of age, as she was sixteen at the time the marriage took place in Rome—­the which young lady loved l’Ile Adam so much that she remained a maiden, would listen to no proposals of marriage, and was dying of a broken heart, unable to banish her perfidious lover from her remembrance and was desirous of entering the convent of Chelles.  Madame Imperia, during the six years of her marriage, had never heard this name, and was sure from this fact that she was indeed beloved.  You can imagine that this time had been passed as a single day, that both believed that they had only been married the evening before, and that each night was as a wedding night, and that if business took the knight out of doors, he was quite melancholy, being unwilling ever to have her out of his sight, and she was the same with him.

The king, who was very partial to the viscount, also made a remark to him which stung him to the quick, when he said, “You have no children?”

To which Beaumont replied, with the face of a man whose raw place you have touched with your finger, “Monsiegneur, my brother has; thus our line is safe.”

Now it happened that his brother’s two children died suddenly—­one from a fall from his horse at a tournament and the other from illness.  Monsieur l’Ile Adam the elder was so stricken with grief at these two deaths that he expired soon after, so much did he love his two sons.  By this means the manor of Beaumont, the property at Carenelle, St. Martin, Nointel, and the surrounding domains, were reunited to the manor of l’Ile Adam, and the neighbouring forests, and the cadet became the head of the house.  At this time Madame was forty-five, and was still fit to bear children; but alas! she conceived not.  As soon as she saw the lineage of l’Ile Adam destroyed, she was anxious to obtain offspring.