r duty to marry him, that the
Viscount was afraid it would be very difficult to take away those
impressions; he did not, however, tell the Duke what he thought, when
he gave him an account of his conversation with her, but left him as
much hope as a man who is loved may reasonably have.

They set out the next day, and went after the King; the Viscount wrote
to Madam de Cleves at Monsieur de Nemours's request, and in a second
letter, which soon followed the first, the Duke wrote a line or two in
his own hand; but Madam de Cleves determined not to depart from the
rules she had prescribed herself, and fearing the accidents that might
happen from letters, informed the Viscount that she would receive his
letters no more, if he continued to speak of Monsieur de Nemours, and
did it in so peremptory a manner, that the Duke desired him not to
mention him.

During the absence of the Court, which was gone to conduct the Queen of
Spain as far as Poitou, Madam de Cleves continued at home; and the more
distant she was from Monsieur de Nemours, and from everything that
could put her in mind of him, the more she recalled the memory of the
Prince of Cleves, which she made it her glory to preserve; the reasons
she had not to marry the Duke de Nemours appeared strong with respect
to her duty, but invincible with respect to her quiet; the opinion she
had, that marriage would put an end to his love, and the torments of
jealousy, which she thought the infallible consequences of marriage,
gave her the prospect of a certain unhappiness if she consented to his
desires; on the other hand, she thought it impossible, if he were
present, to refuse the most amiable man in the world, the man who loved
her, and whom she loved, and to oppose him in a thing that was neither
inconsistent with virtue nor decency: she thought that nothing but
absence and distance could give her the power to do it; and she found
she stood in need of them, not only to support her resolution not to
marry, but even to keep her from seeing Monsieur de Nemours; she
resolved therefore to take a long journey, in order to pass away the
time which decency obliged her to spend in retirement; the fine estate
she had near the Pyrenees seemed the most proper place she could make
choice of; she set out a few days before the Court returned, and wrote
at parting to the Viscount to conjure him not to think of once
enquiring after her, or of writing to her.

Monsieur de Nemours was as muc