For I really thought she had sent him, and I readily placed my hand in his as he said:  ‘It depends only on yourself to be free.’  Even then I did not take alarm, till I found myself in a little bare dilapidated chapel, but with the altar hastily decked, a priest before it in his stole, whom I knew for the Abbe de St. Leu, one of the dissipated young clergy about Court, a familiar of the Conde clique, and, prepared to receive me, Monsieur de Lamont, in a satin suit, lace collar and cuffs, and deep lace round his boots.

I wrenched my hand from M. d’Aubepine, and would have gone back, but three or four of the soldiers came between me and the door.  They were dragoons of the Conde regiment; I knew their uniform.  Then I turned round and reproached d’Aubepine with his wicked treachery to the memory of the man he had once loved.

Alas! this moved him no longer.  He swore fiercely that this should not be hurled at his head again, and throughout the scene, he was worse to me than even M. de Lamont, working himself into a rage in order to prevent himself from being either shamed or touched.

They acted by the will and consent of the Prince, they told me, and it was of no use to resist it.  The Abbe, whom I hated most of all, for he had a loathsome face, took out a billet, and showed it to me.  I clearly read in the large straggling characters—­’You are welcome to a corporal’s party, if you can by no other means reduce the pride of the little droll.—–­L.  De B.’

‘Your Prince should be ashamed of himself,’ I said.  ’I shall take care to publish his infamy as well as yours.’

The gentlemen laughed, the Abbe the loudest, and told me I was quite welcome; such victories were esteemed honourable.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for a short time, among cowards and rogues.’

Armand howled at the word cowards.

‘Cowards, yes,’ I said, ’who must needs get a company of soldiers to overcome one woman.’

I saw a good long scratch on Lamont’s face just then, and I flattered myself that it was due to Nan’s nails.  They all beset me, Lamont at my feet, pleading the force of his passion, entreating with all the exaggeration of the current language; the Abbe arguing about the splendid position I should secure for my son and myself, and the way I should be overthrown if I held out against the Prince; d’Aubepine raging and threatening.  I had lost myself already, by my absence and goings on, the estate; the Prince had but to speak the word, and I should be in the Bastille.

‘Let him,’ I said.

‘It is of no use to dally with her,’ cried Armand.  ’I will hold her while the rite is performed.’

I looked at him.  I was quite as tall as he, and, I believe, quite as strong; at any rate he quailed, and called out: 

’Have you any spirit, Lamont?  Here, one of you fellows, come and help to hold her.’

‘At your peril!’ I said.  ’Gentlemen, I am the widow of your brave officer, Captain de Bellaise, killed at Freibourg.  Will you see this wrong done?’