For these fishes are to serve as
supper for the company, and the queen has ceremoniously invited her
husband to an evening meal, which she herself will serve and
prepare. The queen smiles still and is happy; her spinning-wheel is
silent, but the wheel of fate is moving still.
The king is no longer there. He has withdrawn into the mill to rest
himself.
And yet there he is not alone. Who ventures to disturb him? It must
be something very serious. For it is well known that the king very
seldom goes to Trianon, and that when he is there he wishes to be
entirely free from business.
And yet he is disturbed today; yet the premier, Baron de Breteuil,
is come to seek the miller of Little Trianon, and to beseech him
even there to be the king again.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE.
Directly after a page, arrayed in the attire of a miller's boy, had
announced the Baron de Breteuil, the king with drew into his chamber
and resumed his own proper clothing. He drew on the long, gray coat,
the short trousers of black velvet, the long, gold embroidered
waistcoat of gray satin; and over this the bright, thin ribbon of
the Order of Louis-the attire in which the king was accustomed to
present himself on gala-days.
With troubled, disturbed countenance, he then entered the little
apartment where his chief minister, the Baron de Breteuil, was
awaiting him.
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