"Well, monsieur, will you still hesitate to free me from this insolent
wretch?"

"Yes, madame," replied the marquis; "for this insolent wretch has been
acting for the last three months not only with my sanction but even by my
orders."

The marquise remained stupefied. Then the marquis, without sending away
the page, gave his wife an explanation of all that had passed, and
besought her to yield to his desire of obtaining a successor, whom he
would regard as his own child, so long as it was hers; but young though
she was, the marquise answered with a dignity unusual at her age, that
his power over her had the limits that were set to it by law, and not
those that it might please him to set in their place, and that however
much she might wish to do what might be his pleasure, she would yet never
obey him at the expense of her soul and her honour.

So positive an answer, while it filled her husband with despair, proved
to him that he must renounce the hope of obtaining an heir; but since the
page was not to blame for this, he fulfilled the promise that he had
made, bought him a regiment, and resigned himself to having the most
virtuous wife in France. His repentance was not, however, of long
duration; he died at the end of three months, after having confided to
his friend, the Marquis d'Urban, the cause of his sorrows.

The Marquis d'Urban had a son of marriageable age; he thought that he
could find nothing more suitable for him than a wife whose virtue had
come triumphantly through such a trial: he let her time of mourning pass,
and then presented the young Marquis d'Urban, who succeeded in making his
attentions acceptable to the beautiful widow, and soon became her
husband. More fortunate than his predecessor, the Marquis d'Urban had
three heirs to oppose to his collaterals, when, some two years and a half
later, the Chevalier de Bouillon arrived at the capital of the county of
Venaissin.

The Chevalier de Bouillon was a typical rake of the period, handsome,
young, and well-grown; the nephew of a cardinal who was influential at
Rome, and proud of belonging to a house which had privileges of
suzerainty. The chevalier, in his indiscreet fatuity, spared no woman;
and his conduct had given some scandal in the circle of Madame de
Maintenon, who was rising into power. One of his friends, having
witnessed the displeasure exhibited towards him by Louis XIV, who was
beginning to become devout, thought to do him a servic