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 time on my extreme imprudence, and understood that all the generosities of love are often no more than loans.  I noticed amongst my jewels a goblet of gold, wrought with diamonds and rubies, which came from the first of the Medici princesses.  I waited for the King’s fete to return this magnificent 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 my, present for Saint Louis’s day.

I gave 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 amid my treasure.

As to my other diamonds, either changed in form or acquired and collected by myself, I destine them for my four children by the King.  These pomps will have served to delight my eyes, which are pleased with them, and then they will go down to their first origin and source, belonging again to the Bourbons whom I have made.

CHAPTER XLI.

The Duchesse de Lesdiguieres.—­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 me at the Comedie Francaise by a handful of the thoughtless immediately spread through the capital, and became, as it is easy to imagine, the talk of all the salons.  I was aware 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 them on the forehead, the more they cry out against 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 my presence at Racine’s tragedy 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 me, word for word by my sister De Thianges, who did not conceal her anger, and wished to avenge me, if I did not avenge myself.  The Marquise then informed me of another thing, which she had left me in ignorance of all along, from kind motives chiefly, and to prevent scandal.