Part 30 (1/2)
[In one of her letters, Madaive quite the same account of it It is natural that Madame de Montespan seeks to excuse her people and herself if she can--EDITOR'S NOTE]
At Ruel, she dared take the same tone before the duchesse de Richelieu, who rebuked her for officiousness, and out of spite, or some other reason, Mada fits; her tears started afresh four or five times, and the Marquise d'Hudicourt, who dined only by snatches, went into a corner to sob and weep along with her
”Admit, rief for an unknown ular He was, perhaps, actually a dishonest fellow The accident which you come back to incessantly, and which distresses me also, is doubtless deplorable; but, after all, it is not a ine that if such a catastrophe had happened elsewhere, and been reported to us in a gazette or a book, you would have read of it with interest and commiseration; but we should not have seen you clasp your hands over your head, turn red and pale, utter loud cries, shed tears, sob, and scold a coachman, postilions, perhaps even me The event, would, nevertheless, be actually the same Admit, then, madaeration in your sorrow, and that you would have made, both of you, two excellent comedians”
Madaht to reat difference between an event narrated to you by a third party, and an event which one has seen Madame de Richelieu shut her mouth pleasantly with these words: ”We know, Madame la Marquise, how uments, past and to be Let us speak no further of an accident which distresses you; and since you require to be diverted, let us go to the Opera, which is only two leagues off”
She consented to acco herself entirely ridiculous; but to delay us as much as possible, she required a cup of chocolate, her favourite dish, her appetite having returned as soon as she had exhausted the possibilities of her grief
CHAPTER IV
Charles II, King of England--How Interest Can Give Mehters of the Duke of York--Williae Marries One, in Spite of the Opposition of the King--Great Joy of the Allies--How the King of England Understands Peace--Saying of the King--Preparations for War
The King, Charles Stuart, who reigned in England since the death of the usurper, Cro
Charles II displayed the pronounced penchant of Henri IV for the ladies and for pleasure; but he had neither his energy, nor his genial temper, nor his aland, his beloved sister, he rereat advantage froainst the Dutch, his naval and com of France (then his friend), to reimburse him a sum of twenty-six millions, and to pay him, further, an annual tribute of twelve or fifteen thousand livres for the right of fishi+ng round his island do obtained, he seemed to recollect that Cardinal de Richelieu had not protected his father, Stuart; that the Cardinal Mazarin had declared for Cromwell in his triuone into ranted neither guards, nor palace, nor hohter and sister of two French kings; that this Queen, in a modest retirement--sometimes in a cell in the convent of Chaillot, sometimes in her little pavilion at Colombesl--had died, poisoned by her physician, without the orator, Bossuet, having even frowned at it in the funeral oration; that the unfortunate Henrietta daughter of this Queen and first wife of Monsieur had succu even more visible and manifest; whilst her poisoners, ell known, had never been in the least blaraced
[Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in her Me, had lost her sleep, and was given soporific pills, on account of which Henrietta of France awoke no more; but it is probable that the servants, and not the doctors, coued to conclude that he ought to detach hih; and, by deserting us, he excited universal joy ast his subjects, ere constantly jealous of us
Charles Stuart had had children by his mistresses; he had had none by the Queen, his wife The presumptive heir to the Croas the Duke of York, his Majesty's only brother
The Duke of York, son-in-law--as I have noticed already--of our good Chancellor, Lord Hyde, had hi to the laws of those islanders, would bear the sceptre in turn
Our King, who read in the future, was thinking ofthese two princesses confore crossed the sea, and went formally to ask the hand of the elder of his uncle
Infor at once sent M de Croissy-Colbert to the Duke of York, to induce hihter; but, in royal faes Willia cousin Mary, and acquired that day the expectation of the Protestant throne, which was his ae, the allies, that is to say, all the King's eneave the of Great Britain stood definitely on their side; he made common cause with them, and soon there appeared in the political world an audacious docuned by this prince, in which, fros, he dared to demand peace froer conditions
According to the English ht to restore to the Spaniards, first Sicily, and, further, the towns of Charleroi, Ath, Courtrai, Condo, Saint Guilain, Tournai, and Valenciennes, as a condition of retaining Franche-Coive up Lorraine to the Duke Charles, and places in Ger replied that ”too much was too much” He referred the decision of his difficulties to the fortune of war, and collected fresh soldiers
Then, without further delay, England and the States General signed a particular treaty at La Hague, to constrain France (or, rather, her ruler) to accept the propositions that his pride refused to hear
CHAPTER V
The Great Mademoiselle Buys Choisy--The President Gonthier--The Indeue as It Is Not Done in the Acadeainst his own desire the extrerief which Mademoiselle felt at the imprisonment of Lauzun His Majesty was sensible of the wisdom of the resolution which she had made not to break with the Court, and to show herself at Saint Germain, or at Versailles, from time to time, as her rank, her near kinshi+p, her birth de to look up I see with pleasure that her coly at this and that, and that her good-will fora country-house above Vitry Let us go to-day and surprise her, and see what this house of Choisy is like”