Part 36 (1/2)
At these words, pronounced in a h my heart were broken, and burst into tears
”I pity you, Athenais,” she resuhtly, and almost in haste, only too certain for you? How is it you did not expect it? How could you believe him constant and immutable, after what happened to me?
”To-day, I make no secret to you of it, and I say it with the peaceful indifference which God has generously granted me, after such dolorous tribulations I make no secret of it to you, Athenais; a thousand tier intoby my confidence in you, by my sense of entire security, you permitted your own inclination to substitute itself forwith desires to be attracted by your chars exhausted, I must believe, all the sensibility of my soul And when this corrosive flarew up in er saw in the father ofprince, accusto
Knowing how little in this matter he is master of himself, he who knows so well how to beto do with his numerous inferiors, I deplored the facility he enjoys from his attractions, from his wealth, from his power to dazzle the hearts which he desires to nise these truths, ain, for it is time, a just idea of your position After the unhappiness I felt at being loved no longer, I should have quitted the Court that very instant, if I had been per up and tendto abandon! I stayed still in thethe smoke of the fire, in order to watch over and save her little ones Do not wait till disdain or authority les in theato the point of scandal that which you have so publicly loved; pity him, but depart This kind of intimacy, once broken, cannot be renewed However skilfully it ood Louise,” I replied to the amiable Carmelite, ”your wise counsels touchbut the truth But in listening to you I feel overwhelain, and show to the world, your former companion will never possess
”I see with astonished eyes the supernatural calns in your countenance; your health see; but this barbarous garb piercesdoes not yet hate me; he shows me even a remnant of respect, hich he would colour his indifference Permit me to ask from him for you an abbey like that of Fontevrault, where the felicities of sanctuary and of the world are all in the power ofbetter than to take you out, be assured”
”Speak to him of me,” answered Louise; ”I do not oppose that; but leave me until the end the role of obedience and humility that his fault and mine impose on me Why should he wish that I should command others,--I who did not kno to command myself at an epoch when my innocence was so dear tothat, one is lost?”
As she said these words two nuns cahter, the Princesse de Conti I prayed Madame de la Valliere to keep between ourselves the communications that had just taken place in the intimacy of confidence She promised me with her usual candour I hter, ee, which the Princess
CHAPTER XVIII
Reflections--The Future--The Refuge of Foresight--Co of Bossuet
I wept rief from the passers-by, I was at the pains to lower the curtains I passed over in my mind all that the duchess had said to me It was very easy for me to understand that theto his character, all resistance, all contradiction would be vain
The figure, as it had been supernumerary and on sufferance, which the duchess had made in the midst of the Court when she ceased to be loved, returned to e to drink a similar cup of humiliation
I reminded myself of what the prince had told me several times in those days when his keen affection for me led him to wish for my happiness, even in the future,--even after his death, if I were destined to survive hiht,” he said to ht to choose and assure yourself beforehand of an honourable retreat; for it is rarely that a king accords his respect or his good-will to the beloved confidante of his predecessor”
Not wishi+ng to ask a refuge of any one, but, on the contrary, being greatly set upon ruling in my own house, I resolved to build myself, not a formal convent like Val-de-Grace or Fontevrault, but a pretty little community, whose nuns, few in number, would owe me their entire existence, which would necessarily attach theed h for my enterprise; and when he had found it, had showed it to s there were pulled down, and began, with a sort of joy, the excavations and foundations
The first blow of the hammer was struck, by some inconceivable fortuity, at the es expired Her death did not weaken ot away quite often to cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my impatience and spur on the numerous workmen
The rumour was current in Paris that the exa to take the veil in my convent I took no notice of this fickle public, and persisted wisely in my plan
The unexpected and alularlyExtraordinary and almost incredible to relate, he was for a whole week absent from the Council His eyes had shed so nisable He shunned the occasions when there was an asseroves, and rese for his fair Eurydice, and refusing to be consoled
I should be false to others and to rief excited ave it to be understood that his ”hood” gave ratulated myself on his sorrow and bitterness