the defects I am full of, that I will not marry him, and that I prefer the title of Princess Trognon to that of Queen Torticoli."
The King's anger was exceedingly heated by this answer. "I tell you plainly," said he, "I will not be contradicted. The king, your father, should be your master, and I have become so, now that he has placed you in my hands." "There are matters," answered the Princess, "in which we have the power to choose. I warn you that I have been brought hither against my will, and that I shall look on you as my most mortal enemy, if you attempt to force me into this marriage." The King, still more irritated, left her; and assigned to her an apartment in his palace with ladies to attend her, who were commanded to persuade her that the best thing she could do was to marry the Prince.
In the meanwhile the guards, who feared being discovered, and that the King might learn his son had escaped, made haste to tell him that he was dead. At these tidings he was afflicted to a degree they could never have believed of him. He screamed, he howled, and looking upon Trognon as the cause of the loss he had sustained, he sent her to the tower, in the place of his dear departed.
The poor Princess was as full of grief as astonishment at finding herself a prisoner. She was courageous, and commented, as she was justified in doing, on so harsh a proceeding. She imagined they would repeat her words to the King, but nobody dared to speak to him on the subject. She conceived, also, that she would be allowed to write to her father respecting the ill-usage she suffered, and that he would come and deliver her. Her projects on that score were useless; her letters were intercepted, and given to King Brun.
As she lived in that hope, however, she was less afflicted; and every day she went into the gallery to look at the painted windows. Nothing appeared to her so extraordinary as the number of subjects represented in them, and to see herself amongst them, in her bowl. "Since my arrival in this country," said she, "the painters have taken a strange fancy to depict me. Are there not enough ridiculous figures without mine? or would they, by force of contrast, set off to greater advantage the beauty of that young shepherdess, who appears to me charming?" She then gazed on the portrait of a
