Part 47 (1/2)
The crown of Agrippina, being placed publicly on a seneral attention and admiration The Italian Princess, Madaeau himself went into raptures over the rare perfection of thesenear, in his turn exa er ed!”
I the wretched object, and casting my eyes over it with particular attention, I was not slow in verifying the King's assertion The setting of this fine work had remained virtually the same; but some bold hand had removed the antique dia, and on the verge of swooning The ladies were sorry foraloud that I had assuredly been duped, and I was constrained to explain this removal of the crown into a more solid and better case for its preservation
At this naive explanation the King fell to laughing, and said to the young Princess: ”Madame, you will relate, if you please, this episode to the Court of London, and you will tell the King, fro is so difficult to preserve now as our crowns; guards and locks are nome, his Majesty said, playfully:
”You should have entrusted it to me sooner; I should have saved it It is said that I understand that well”
My amour-propre, my actual honour, forbade nity I asse rieved at the affront which I had rief and consternation on all faces After some minutes' silence, my intendant proposed the immediate intervention of authority, and made me understand with ease that only the casket-maker could be the culprit
This man's house was visited; he had left Paris nearly two years before
Further infor of his property, he had ied in a certain ostentation of fortune, and had embarked for the new settle, charged our governor to discover the culprit for him; and he was sent back to us with his hands and feet bound
Put to the question, he denied at first, then confessed his crined love, introduced him into my house while I ay, and by the aid of this imprudent worippina, which it had been necessary to show him because of the measures, had become almost as dear to him as to myself; and his ambition of another kind inspired hiood by petitioning , as he richly deserved
The King said on this occasion: ”This casket, but M Cromwell took all”
The fortunate success of this affair restored me, not to cheerfulness, but to that honourable calm which had fled far away from me I made a reflection this tienerosities of love are often no old, wrought with diamonds and rubies, which came fro's fete to return this nificent ornament to him nobly I had a lily executed, all of emeralds and fine pearls; I poured essence of roses into the cup, placed in it the stem of the lily, in the form of a bouquet for the prince, and that was ave back to the King, by degrees, at least three millions' worth of important curiosities, which were like drops of water poured into the ocean But I was anxious that, if God destined me to perish by a sudden death, objects of this nature should not be seen and discovered aed in form or acquired and collected byThese poht o down to their first origin and source, belonging again to the Bourbons whom I have uieres--Her Jest--”The Chaise of Convenience”--Anger of the Jesuits--They Ally Themselves with the Archbishop of Paris--The Forty Hours' Prayers--Thanks of the Marquise to the Prelate--His Visit to Saint Joseph--Anger of the Marquise--Her Welcome to the Prelate
The insult offered htless ih the capital, and becaine, the talk of all the salons I are that the duchesse de Lesdiguieres was keenly interested in this episode, and had embellished and, as it were, embroidered it with her commentaries and reflections All these women who misconduct themselves are pitiless and severe The more their scandalous conduct brands theainst scandal Their whole life is bemired with vice, and their mouth articulates no other words than prudence and virtue, like those corrupt and infected doctors who have no indulgence for their patients
The duchesse de Lesiguieres, for a long time associated with the Archbishop of Paris, and known to live with that prelate like a miller with his wife, dared to say, in her salon that edy was, at the least, very useless, and the public having come there to see a debutante, certainly did not expect me
The phrase was repeated to es, who did not conceal her anger, and wished to avenge e , which she had left , from kind motives chiefly, and to prevent scandal
”You remember, my sister,” said the Marquise to me, ”a sort of jest which escaped you when Pere de la Chaisecommunicate, in spite of all the noise of his new love affair and the follies of Madees? You nicknamed that benevolent Jesuit 'the Chaise of Convenience' Your epigrah except the hypocrites and the Jesuits Those worthy men resolved to have full satisfaction for your insult by stirring up the whole of Paris against you The Archbishop entered readily into their plot, for he thought you supplanted; and he granted them the forty Hours' Prayers, to obtain from God your expulsion from Court Harlay, who is imprudent only in his debauches, preserved every external precaution, because of the King, whose temper he knows; he told the Jesuits that they must not expect either his pastoral letter or his mandate, but he allowed them secret commentaries, the faed them to let the other monks and priests into the secret, and the field of battle being decided, the skir David, that trivial breastplate of every devotional insult, the preachers announced to their congregations that theyDavid, who had fallen sick The orators favoured with sonorant and coarse a The Blessed Sacrament was exposed for a whole week in the churches, and it ended by an announcement to Israel, that their cry had reached the firrown cold to Bathsheba (they did not add, nevertheless, that David preferred another to Bathsheba with his whole heart) But the duchesse de Fontanges gave offence neither to the Archbishop of Paris nor to the Jesuits Her mind showed no hostility The beauty was quite incapable of saying in the face of the world that a Jesuit resembled a 'Chaise of Convenience'
”The duchesse de Lesdiguieres, covered with rouge and criues,” addedyet been able to subdue herself to the external parade of devotion, she has allowed herself to use against you all the base tricks of the most devout hypocrites”
”Let ood offices call for a ratitude The Forty Hours' Prayer is an attention that is not paid to every one; I owe M de Paris -table, and wrote this fine prelate the following honeyed neur, of the pains you have been at with God for the aratitude which I feel for it cannot be expressed I pray you to believe it to be as pure and sincere as your intention A good bishop, as perfect and exe a passionate interest in the regularity of hest rewards for this new ive hi him feel all that he owes to your Forty Hours' Prayer, and to that Christian and charitable emotion cast in the midst of a capital and a public To all that only yourCardinals' hats, they say, are o seek, in the robing-rooms of Rome, if there be one to meet the proportions of your ability If ladies had as much honourable influence over the Vicar of Jesus Christ as simple bishops allow them, I should solicit, this very day, your wished-for recompense and exaltation But it is the monarch's affair; he will undertake it I can only offer you, in my own person, M