having given
instructions that we should be left alone, and that there should be no
witnesses. Her intense emaciation was pitiful, and yet her face kept
something of its pleasant expression.

"It is because of you, and through you," she exclaimed in a feeble,
broken voice, "that I quit this world while yet in the prime of life. God
calls me; I must die.

"Kings are so horribly exacting. Everything that ministers to their
passions seems feasible to them, and righteous folk must consent to do
their pleasure, or suffer the penalty of being disgraced and neglected,
and of seeing their long years of service lost and forgotten.

"During that unlucky journey in Brabant, you sought by redoubling your
coquetry and fascinations to allure La Valliere's lover. You managed to
succeed; he became fond of you. Knowing my husband's ambitious nature,
he easily got him to make me favour this intrigue, and lend my apartments
as a meeting-place.

"At Court nothing long remains a secret. The Queen was warned, and for a
while would not believe her informants. But your husband, with brutal
impetuousness, burst in upon me. He insulted me in outrageous fashion.
He tried to drag me out of bed and throw me out of the window. Hearing
me scream, my servants rushed in and rescued me, in a fainting state,
from his clutches. And you it is who have brought upon me such
scandalous insults.

"Ready to appear before my God, who has already summoned me by a spectre,
I have a boon to ask of you, Madame la Marquise. I beg it of you, as I
clasp these strengthless, trembling hands. Do not deny me this favour,
or I will cherish implacable resentment, and implore my Master and my
Judge to visit you with grievous punishment.

"Leave the King," she continued, after drying her tears. "Leave so
sensual a being; the slave of his passions, the ravisher of others' good.
The pomp and grandeur which surround you and intoxicate you would seem
but a little thing did you but look at them as now I do, upon my bed of
death.

"The Queen hates me; she is right. She despises me, and justly, too. I
shall elude her hatred and disdain, which weigh thus heavily upon my
heart. Perhaps she may deign to pardon me when my lawyer shall have
delivered to her a document, signed by myself, containing my confession
and excuses."

As she uttered these words, Madame de Montausier began to vomit blood,
and I had to summon her attendants. With a last movement of the head