sented, (indeed, her appearance was not such as to inspire much curiosity,) than from the invincible repugnance he felt to Truitonne. Now, it is fit you should know that while he was a Blue Bird, he had told the Princess Florine that beneath his apartments there was a cabinet, which was called the Cabinet of Echos, so ingeniously constructed that the slightest whispers uttered therein could be heard by the king when reposing in his bedchamber; and as Florine's intention was to reproach him for his inconstancy, she could not have imagined a better method.
She was conducted to the cabinet by order of Truitonne, and immediately began her complaints and lamentations.
"The misfortune I would fain have doubted is but too certain, cruel Blue Bird!" she cried. "Thou hast forgotten me! Thou lovest my unworthy rival. The bracelets which I received from thy disloyal hand could awake no remembrance of me, so entirely hast thou banished me from thy recollection!" Her sobs here choked her utterance, and when she was again able to speak, she resumed her lamentations, and continued them till daybreak. The king's valets-de-chambre, who had heard her moan and sigh all night long, told Truitonne, who inquired why she had made such a disturbance. The queen answered that when she slept soundly she was in the habit of dreaming, and often talked aloud in her sleep. As to the king, by a strange fatality he had not heard her. Since he had been so deeply in love with Florine, he never could sleep, so that when he went to bed they gave him a dose of opium, in order to obtain for him some repose.
The queen passed a part of the day in great anxiety. "If he heard me," thought she, "there never yet was such cruel indifference. If he did not hear me, how shall I manage to make him do so?" She possessed no more extraordinary curiosities; she had plenty of beautiful jewels; but it was necessary to find something which should particularly take the fancy of Truitonne. She therefore had recourse to her eggs. She broke one, and out of it came immediately a coach of polished steel, inlaid with gold, drawn by six green mice, driven by a rose-coloured rat, and the postilion, who was also one of the rat tribe, was of a greyish violet colour. In the coach sat four puppets, more lively and sprightly than any that were ever seen at the fairs of St. Germain or St. Laurent.
