Never very attentive to dress, Louis the Thirteenth, when any thing disturbed or irritated him, neglected entirely the ordinary care of his person. In the present instance he made no change in his apparel, although the sports in which he had been engaged had not left it in a very fit state to grace a drawing-room. Thus, in a pair of immense jack-boots, his hat pressed down upon his brows, and his whole dress soiled, deranged, and covered with dust, he presented himself in the saloon where Anne of Austria sat surrounded by the young Princes and the ladies who had accompanied her to Chantilly.
The Queen immediately rose to receive her husband, and advanced towards him with an air of gentle kindness, mixed however with some degree of apprehension; for to her eyes, long accustomed to remark the various changes of his temper, the disarray of his apparel plainly indicated the irritation of his mind.
Louis saluted her but coldly, and without taking off his hat. "I am glad to see you well, Madam," said he, and passed on to the nurse who held in her arms the young Dauphin.
The child had not seen its father for some weeks, and now perceiving a rude-looking ill-dressed man, approaching hastily towards it, became frightened, hid its face on the nurse's shoulder, and burst into tears.
The rage of the King now broke the bounds of common decency.
"Ha!" exclaimed he, stamping on the ground with his heavy boot, till the whole apartment rang: "is it so, Madam? Do you teach my children, also, to dislike their father?"
"No, my Lord, no, indeed!" replied Anne of Austria, in a tone of deep distress, seeing this unfortunate _contretems_ so strangely misconstrued to her disadvantage. "I neither teach the child to dislike you, nor _does_ he dislike you; but you approached Louis hastily, and with your hat flapped over your eyes, so that he does not know you. Come hither, Louis," she continued, taking the Dauphin out of the nurse's arms. "It is your father; do not you know him? Have I not always told you to love him?"
The Dauphin looked at his mother, and then at the King, and perfectly old enough to comprehend what she said, he began to recognize his father, and held out his little arms towards him. But Louis turned angrily away.