e, rather than your
good conduct, had set you at liberty from an engagement you was
entangled in, you involved yourself in new ones, and you fancied that
in the midst of the Court you could be in love with Madam de Martigues
without the Queen's perceiving it: you could not have been too careful
to take from her the shame of having made the first advances; she has a
violent passion for you; you have more discretion than to tell it me,
and I than to ask you to tell it; it is certain she is jealous of you,
and has truth on her side." "And does it belong to you," interrupted
the Viscount, "to load me with reprimands, and ought not your own
experience to make you indulgent to my faults? However I grant I am to
blame; but think, I conjure you, how to draw me out of this
difficulty"; "I think you must go to the Queen-Dauphin as soon as she
is awake, and ask her for the letter, as if you had lost it." "I have
told you already," replied the Duke de Nemours, "that what you propose
is somewhat extraordinary, and that there are difficulties in it which
may affect my own particular interest; but besides, if this letter has
been seen to drop out of your pocket, I should think it would be hard
to persuade people that it dropped out of mine." "I thought I had told
you," replied the Viscount, "that the Queen-Dauphin had been informed
that you dropped it." "How," said the Duke de Nemours hastily,
apprehending the ill consequence this mistake might be of to him with
Madam de Cleves, "has the Queen-Dauphin been told I dropped the
letter?" "Yes," replied the Viscount, "she has been told so; and what
occasioned the mistake was, that there were several gentlemen of the
two Queens in a room belonging to the tennis court, where our clothes
were put up, when your servants and mine went together to fetch them;
then it was the letter fell out of the pocket; those gentlemen took it
up, and read it aloud; some believed it belonged to you, and others to
me; Chatelart, who took it, and to whom I have just sent for it, says,
he gave it to the Queen-Dauphin as a letter of yours; and those who
have spoken of it to the Queen have unfortunately told her it was mine;
so that you may easily do what I desire of you, and free me from this
perplexity."

The Duke de Nemours had always had a great friendship for the Viscount
de Chartres, and the relation he bore to Madam de Cleves still made him
more dear to him; nevertheless he could not prevail with himself