am d'Etampes upon the
thought of strengthening herself with the Duke of Orleans, in order to
support her power with the King against the Duchess of Valentinois;
accordingly she succeeded in it, and that young Prince, though he felt
no emotions of love for her, entered no less into her interest, than
the Dauphin was in that of Madam de Valentinois. Hence rose two
factions at Court, of such a nature as you may imagine, but the
intrigues of them were not confined to the quarrels of women.

"The Emperor, who continued to have a great friendship for the Duke of
Orleans, had offered several times to make over to him the Duchy of
Milan. In the propositions which were since made for the peace, he
gave hopes of assigning him the seventeen provinces, with his daughter
in marriage. The Dauphin neither approved of the peace or the
marriage, and in order to defeat both he made use of the Constable, for
whom he always had an affection, to remonstrate to the King of what
importance it was not to give his successor a brother so powerful as
the Duke of Orleans would be with the alliance of the Emperor and those
countries; the Constable came the more easily into the Dauphin's
sentiments, as they were opposite to those of Madam d'Etampes, who was
his declared enemy, and who vehemently wished for the promotion of the
Duke of Orleans.

"The Dauphin commanded at that time the King's Army in Champaign, and
had reduced that of the Emperor to such extremities, that it must have
entirely perished, had not the Duchess d'Etampes, for fear too great
successes should make us refuse peace, and the Emperor's alliance in
favour of the Duke of Orleans, secretly advised the enemy to surprise
Espemai and Cheteau-Thieni, in which places were great magazines of
provisions; they succeeded in the attempt, and by that means saved
their whole army.

"This Duchess did not long enjoy the success of her treason. A little
after the Duke of Orleans died at Farmontiers of a kind of contagious
distemper: he was in love with one of the finest women of the Court,
and was beloved by her. I will not mention her name, because she has
since lived with so much discretion, and has so carefully concealed the
passion she had for that Prince, that one ought to be tender of her
reputation. It happened she received the news of her husband's death
at the same time as she heard of the Duke's, so that she had that
pretext to enable her to conceal her real sorrow, without bei