cause to consider myself both aggrieved and
outraged."

"Madame," said the incorruptible minister, when he had perused the
document thus submitted to him, "you must pardon me if I venture to
declare that you must never suffer that letter to meet the eye of your
royal consort: it contains matter to induce your eternal separation."

"Can you deny one assertion which I have made?" demanded the Queen
impatiently.

"I sympathize in all the trials and troubles of your Majesty," was the
evasive reply. "I would leave no effort untried to terminate them; a
fact of which you have long, I trust, Madame, felt convinced; and thus I
cannot see you about to wilfully destroy every chance of happiness,
without imploring of you to reflect deeply and calmly before you take so
extreme a measure as that which you now contemplate. The King is already
incensed against you; and if spoken words have thus angered him, I dare
not contemplate the consequences of such as these before me, written
hours after your contention. I therefore beseech you to suppress this
letter; and both for your own sake, and for that of the French nation,
rather to seek a reconciliation with His Grace your husband than to
increase the ill-feeling which so unhappily exists."

"You make no allowance for me, Monsieur, as a woman and a wife; you only
argue with the Queen."

"Madame," persisted Sully, "in this instance it is rather to the woman
and the wife that I address myself than to the Queen. As a woman, the
bitterness and invective of this missive," and he laid his spread hand
emphatically upon the paper, "would suffice to cover you with blame and
to deprive you of sympathy, while as a mother it would authorize your
separation from your children. Let me entreat of you therefore to forego
your purpose."

Marie de Medicis sat silent for a few moments, and then making a violent
effort over herself, she said slowly: "I will in so far follow your
counsel, M. le Duc, that I will destroy this letter, although the saints
bear witness that it has cost me both time and care to prepare it, but I
will yield no further. I am weary of being made the puppet of an
unfaithful husband and his band of unblushing favourites, who receive,
each in succession, some high-sounding title by which they are enabled
to thrust themselves and their shame upon me in the very halls of the
palace. I must and will tell the King this."

"Then, Madame, if such be unfortunately your decision," sai