Madam de Cleves was in love with the Duke de Nemours, nor
that she was beloved by him. The relation Madam de Cleves had to the
Viscount made her more dear to Madam de Martigues, and Madam de Cleves
was also fond of her as a person who was in love as well as herself,
and with an intimate friend of her own lover.

Madam de Martigues came to Colomiers according to her promise, and
found Madam de Cleves living in a very solitary manner: that Princess
affected a perfect solitude, and passed the evenings in her garden
without being accompanied even by her domestics; she frequently came
into the pavilion where the Duke de Nemours had overheard her
conversation with her husband; she delighted to be in the bower that
was open to the garden, while her women and attendants waited in the
other bower under the pavilion, and never came to her but when she
called them. Madam de Martigues having never seen Colomiers was
surprised at the extraordinary beauty of it, and particularly with the
pleasantness of the pavilion. Madam de Cleves and she usually passed
the evenings there. The liberty of being alone in the night in so
agreeable a place would not permit the conversation to end soon between
two young ladies, whose hearts were enflamed with violent passions, and
they took great pleasure in conversing together, though they were not
confidants.

Madam de Martigues would have left Colomiers with great reluctance had
she not quitted it to go to a place where the Viscount was; she set out
for Chambort, the Court being there.

The King had been anointed at Rheims by the Cardinal of Loraine, and
the design was to pass the rest of the summer at the castle of
Chambort, which was newly built; the Queen expressed a great deal of
joy upon seeing Madam de Martigues again at Court, and after having
given her several proofs of it, she asked her how Madam de Cleves did,
and in what manner she passed her time in the country. The Duke de
Nemours and the Prince of Cleves were with the Queen at that time.
Madam de Martigues, who had been charmed with Colomiers, related all
the beauties of it, and enlarged extremely on the description of the
pavilion in the forest, and on the pleasure Madam de Cleves took in
walking there alone part of the night. The Duke de Nemours, who knew
the place well enough to understand what Madam de Martigues said of it,
thought it was not impossible to see Madam de Cleves there, without
being seen by anybody but her.