probable that I should seek the destruction of him
to whom I owed my elevation, the most devoted of friends, and for whom
my heart cherished the most lively sense of gratitude? What interest
could I possibly derive from the perpetration of such a crime? The
imputation was too absurd for belief, but slander cares little for the
seeming improbability of such an event. The simple fact remained that
Lebel was dead, of course the cruel and unjust consequence became in the
hands of my enemies, that I had been the principal accessory to it.

My most trifling actions were misrepresented with the same black
malignity. They even made it a crime in me to have written to madame
de Bearn, thanking her for her past kindnesses, and thus setting her
at liberty to retire from the mercenary services she pretended to
have afforded me. And who could blame me for seeking to render myself
independent of her control, or for becoming weary of the tyrannical
guidance of one who had taken it into her head that I had become her
sole property, and who, in pursuance of this idea, bored and tormented
me to death with her follies and exactions, and even took upon herself
to be out of humor at the least indication of my attaching myself to
any other lady of the court. According to her view of things, gratitude
imposed on me the rigorous law of forming an intimacy with her alone; in
a word, she exercised over me the most galling dominion, which my family
had long counselled me to shake off; in truth, I was perfectly tired of
bearing the yoke her capricious and overbearing temper imposed upon me,
but I determined, if possible, to do nothing hastily, and to endure it
with patience as long as I could. But now that the number of my female
friends was augmented by the addition of the marquise de Montmorency and
the comtesse de l'Hopital I determined no longer to bear the constant
display of madame de Bearn's despotic sway, and finding no chance of
accommodating our tastes and humors, I resolved to free myself from her
thraldom. Another powerful reason for this measure was the dislike with
which the king regarded her; not that she was deficient in birth or
good breeding, but amidst the polish of high life she occasionally
introduced the most vulgar and provincial manners, a fault of all others
most offensive to the king, whose disgust was further excited by the
undisguised avidity with which, at every opportunity, she sought to turn
her admission to the king