Madame; I believe she will be inconsolable. To marry a man of
the King of Spain's age and temper can never be pleasing,

especially to her who has all the gaiety which the bloom of youth
joined with beauty inspires, and was in expectation of marrying a

young Prince for whom she has an inclination without having seen
him. I do not know whether the King will find in her all the

obedience he desires; he has charged me to see her, because he
knows she loves me, and believes I shall be able to influence

her. From thence I shall make a visit of a very different
nature, to congratulate the King's sister. All things are ready

for her marriage with the Prince of Savoy, who is expected in a
few days. Never was a woman of her age so entirely pleased to be

married; the Court will be more numerous and splendid than ever,
and notwithstanding your grief, you must come among us, in order

to make strangers see that we are furnished with no mean
beauties."

Having said this, the Queen-Dauphin took her leave of Madam de
Cleves, and the next day Madame's marriage was publicly known;

some days after the King and the Queens went to visit the
Princess of Cleves; the Duke de Nemours, who had expected her

return with the utmostimpatience, and languished for an
opportunity of speaking to her in private, contrived to wait upon

her at an hour, when the company would probably be withdrawing,
and nobody else come in; he succeeded in his design, and came in

when the last visitors were going away.
The Princess was sitting on her bed, and the hot weather,

together with the sight of the Duke de Nemours, gave her a blush
that added to her beauty; he sat over against her with a certain

timorous respect, that flows from a real love; he continued some
minutes without speaking; nor was she the less at a loss, so that

they were both silent a good while: at last the Duke condoled
with her for her mother's death; Madam de Cleves was glad to give

the conversation that turn, spoke a considerable time of the
great loss she had had, and at last said, that though time had

taken off from the violence of her grief, yet the impression
would always remain so strong, that it would entirely change her

humour. "Great troubles and excessivepassions," replied the
Duke, "make great alterations in the mind; as for me, I am quite

another man since my return from Flanders; abundance of people
have taken notice of this change, and the Queen-Dauphin herself

spoke to me of it yesterday." "It is true," replied the
Princess, "she has observed it, and I think I remember to have

heard her say something about it." "I'm not sorry, Madam,"
replied the Duke, "that she has discerned it, but I could wish

some others in particular had discerned it too; there are persons
to whom we dare give no other evidences of the passion we have

for them, but by things which do not concern them; and when we
dare not let them know we love them, we should be glad at least

to have them see we are not desirous of being loved by any other;
we should be glad to convince them, that no other beauty, though

of the highest rank, has any charms for us, and that a Crown
would be too dear, if purchased with no less a price than absence

from her we adore: women ordinarily," continued he, "judge of
the passion one has for them, by the care one takes to oblige,

and to be assiduous about them; but it's no hard matter to do
this, though they be ever so little amiable; not to give oneself

up to the pleasure of pursuing them, to shun them through fear of
discovering to the public, and in a manner to themselves, the

sentiments one has for them, here lies the difficulty; and what
still more demonstrates the truth of one's passion is, the

becoming entirely changed from what one was, and the having no
longer a gust either for ambition or pleasure, after one has

employed one's whole life in pursuit of both."
The Princess of Cleves readily apprehended how far she was

concerned in this discourse; one while she seemed of opinion that
she ought not to suffer such an address; another, she thought she

ought not to seem to understand it, or show she supposed herself
meant by it; she thought she ought to speak, and she thought she

ought to be silent; the Duke of Nemours's discourse equally
pleased and offended her; she was convinced by it of the truth of

all the Queen-Dauphin had led her to think; she found in it
somewhat gallant and respectful, but also somewhat bold and too

intelligible; the inclination she had for the Duke gave her an
anxiety which it was not in her power to control; the most

obscure expressions of a man that pleases, move more than the
most open declaration of one we have no liking for; she made no

answer; the Duke de Nemours took notice of her silence, which
perhaps would have proved no ill-presage, if the coming in of the

Prince of Cleves had not ended at once the conversation and the
visit.

The Prince was coming to give his wife a further account of
Sancerre, but she was not over curious to learn the sequel of

that adventure; she was so much taken up with what had just
passed, that she could hardly conceal the embarrassment she was

in. When she was at liberty to muse upon it, she plainly saw she
was mistaken, when she thought she was indifferent as to the Duke

de Nemours; what he had said to her had made all the impression
he could desire, and had entirely convinced her of his passion;

besides the Duke's actions agreed too well with his words to
leave her the least doubt about it; she no longer flattered

herself that she did not love him; all her care was not to let
him discover it, a task of which she had already experienced the

difficulty; she knew the only way to succeed in it was to avoid
seeing him; and as her mourning gave her an excuse for being more

retired than usual, she made use of that pretence not to go to
places where he might see her; she was full of melancholy; her

mother's death was the seeming cause of it, and no suspicion was
had of any other.

The Duke de Nemours, not seeing her any more, fell into
desperation and knowing he should not meet with her in any public

assembly, or at any diversions the Court joined in, he could not
prevail upon himself to appear there, and therefore he pretended

a great love for hunting, and made matches for that sport on the
days when the Queens kept their assemblies; a slight

indisposition had served him a good while as an excuse for
staying at home, and declining to go to places where he knew very

well that Madam de Cleves would not be.
The Prince of Cleves was ill almost at the same time, and the

Princess never stirred out of his room during his illness; but
when he grew better, and received company, and among others the

Duke de Nemours, who under pretence of being yet weak, stayed
with him the greatest part of the day, she found she could not

continue any longer there; and yet in the first visits he made
she had not the resolution to go out; she had been too long

without seeing him, to be able to resolve to see him no more; the
Duke had the address, by discourses that appeared altogether

general, but which she understood very well by the relation they
had to what he had said privately to her, to let her know that he

went a-hunting only to be more at liberty to think of her, and
that the reason of his not going to the assemblies was her not

being there.
At last she executed the resolution she had taken to go out of

her husband's room, whenever he was there, though this was doing
the utmostviolence to herself: the Duke perceived she avoided

him, and the thought of it touched him to the heart.
The Prince of Cleves did not immediately take notice of his

wife's conduct in this particular, but at last he perceived she
went out of the room when there was company there; he spoke to