It appears that the heart already wounded so many times suffers from the least scratch; it appears that it considers as a good the momentary absence of evil, which is nothing but the absence of pain; and that God, into the most terrible misfortunes, has thrown hope as the drop of water which the rich bad man in hell entreated of Lazarus.
For one instant even the hope of Charles II.

had been more than a fugitive joy;--that was when he found himself so kindly welcomed by his brother king; then it had taken a form that had become a reality; then, all at once, the refusal of Mazarin had reduced the fictitious reality to the state of a dream.

This promise of Louis XIV., so soon retracted, had been nothing but a mockery; a mockery like his crown--like his scepter--like his friends--like all that had surrounded his royal childhood, and which had abandoned his proscribed youth.

Mockery! everything was a mockery for Charles II.

except the cold, black repose promised by death.
Such were the ideas of the unfortunate prince while sitting listlessly upon his horse, to which he abandoned the reins; he rode slowly along beneath the warm May sun, in which the somber misanthropy of the exile perceived a last insult to his grief..