y one; and not to
promote the views or advantage of either brother or sister. These and
other maxims of the like nature, drawn from tho school of Machiavelli, he
was continually suggesting to him. He had so frequently inculcated them
that they were strongly impressed on his mind, insomuch that, upon our
arrival, when, after the first compliments, my mother began to open in my
praise and express the attachment I had discovered for him, this was his
reply, which he delivered with the utmost coldness:

"He was well pleased," he said, "to have succeeded in the request he had
made to me; but that prudence directed us not to continue to make use of
the same expedients, for what was profitable at one time might not be so
at another." She asked him why he made that observation. This question
afforded the opportunity he wished for, of relating a story he had
fabricated, purposely to ruin me with her.

He began with observing to her that I was grown very handsome, and that
M. de Guise wished to marry me; that his uncles, too, were very desirous
of such a match; and, if I should entertain a like passion for him, there
would be danger of my discovering to him all she said to me; that she
well knew the ambition of that house, and how ready they were, on all
occasions, to circumvent ours. It would, therefore, be proper that she
should not, for the future, communicate any matter of State to me, but,
by degrees, withdraw her confidence.

I discovered the evil effects proceeding from this pernicious advice on
the very same evening. I remarked an unwillingness on her part to speak
to me before my brother; and, as soon as she entered into discourse with
him, she commanded me to go to bed. This command she repeated two or
three times. I quitted her closet, and left them together in
conversation; but, as soon as he was gone, I returned and entreated her
to let me know if I had been so unhappy as to have done anything, through
ignorance, which had given her offence. She was at first inclined to
dissemble with me; but at length she said to me thus: "Daughter, your
brother is prudent and cautious; you ought not to be displeased with him
for what he does, and you must believe what I shall tell you is right and
proper." She then related the conversation she had with my brother, as I
have just written it; and she then ordered me never to speak to her in my
brother's presence.

These words were like so many daggers plunged into my breast. In my