he Place Royale, and
it was thither that profligate women and celebrated beauties now enticed
the humming swarm of old rakes and young libertines. Not one of them all
would have thought of residing in the mansion, or even in the quarter,
wherein the king's mistress had once dwelt. It would have been a step
downward in the social scale, and equivalent to a confession that their
charms were falling in the public estimation. Still, the old palace was
not empty; it had, on the contrary, several tenants. Like the provinces
of Alexander's empire, its vast suites of rooms had been subdivided; and
so neglected was it by the gay world that people of the commonest
description strutted about with impunity where once the proudest nobles
had been glad to gain admittance. There in semi-isolation and despoiled
of her greatness lived Angelique-Louise de Guerchi, formerly companion to
Mademoiselle de Pons and then maid of honour to Anne of Austria. Her
love intrigues and the scandals they gave rise to had led to her
dismissal from court. Not that she was a greater sinner than many who
remained behind, only she was unlucky enough or stupid enough to be found
out. Her admirers were so indiscreet that they had not left her a shred
of reputation, and in a court where a cardinal is the lover of a queen, a
hypocritical appearance of decorum is indispensable to success. So
Angelique had to suffer for the faults she was not clever enough to hide.
Unfortunately for her, her income went up and down with the number and
wealth of her admirers, so when she left the court all her possessions
consisted of a few articles she had gathered together out of the wreck of
her former luxury, and these she was now selling one by one to procure
the necessaries of life, while she looked back from afar with an envious
eye at the brilliant world from which she had been exiled, and longed for
better days. All hope was not at an end for her. By a strange law which
does not speak well for human nature, vice finds success easier to attain
than virtue. There is no courtesan, no matter how low she has fallen,
who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of
which no vestige remains. A man who doubts the virtue of the most
virtuous woman, who shows himself inexorably severe when he discovers the
lightest inclination to falter in one whose conduct has hitherto been
above reproach, will stoop and pick up out of the gutter a blighted and
tarn