第117章 CHAPTER XVIII.(1)

Reflections.--The Future.--The Refuge of Foresight.--Community of Saint Joseph.--Wicked Saying of Bossuet.

I wept much during the journey; and to save the spectacle of my grief from the passers-by, I was at the pains to lower the curtains. I passed over in my mind all that the Duchess had said to me. It was very easy for me to understand that the monarch's heart had escaped me, and that, owing to his character, all resistance, all contradiction would be vain.

The figure, as it had been supernumerary and on sufferance, which the Duchess had made in the midst of the Court when she ceased to be loved, returned to my memory completely, and I felt I had not the courage to drink a similar cup of humiliation.

I reminded myself of what the prince had told me several times in those days when his keen affection for me led him to wish for my happiness, even in the future,--even after his death, if I were destined to survive him.

"You ought," he said to me, at those moments, "you ought to choose and assure yourself beforehand of an honourable retreat; for it is rarely that a king accords his respect or his good-will to the beloved confidante of his predecessor."Not wishing to ask a refuge of any one, but, on the contrary, being greatly set upon ruling in my own house, I resolved to build myself, not a formal convent like Val-de-Grace or Fontevrault, but a pretty little community, whose nuns, few in number, would owe me their entire existence, which would necessarily attach them to all my interests.

I held to this idea. I charged my intendant to seek for me a site spacious enough for my enterprise; and when he had found it, had showed it to me, and had satisfied me with it, I had what rambling buildings there were pulled down, and began, with a sort of joy, the excavations and foundations.

The first blow of the hammer was struck, by some inconceivable fortuity, at the moment when the Duchesse de Fontanges expired. Her death did not weaken my resolutions nor slacken my ardour. I got away quite often to cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my impatience and spur on the numerous workmen.

The rumour was current in Paris that the example of "Soeur Louise " had touched me, and that I was going to take the veil in my convent. I took no notice of this fickle public, and persisted wisely in my plan.

The unexpected and almost sudden decease of Mademoiselle de Fontanges had singularly moved the King. Extraordinary and almost incredible to relate, he was for a whole week absent from the Council. His eyes had shed so many tears that they were swollen and unrecognisable. He shunned the occasions when there was an assembly, buried himself in his private apartments or in his groves, and resembled, in every trait, Orpheus weeping for his fair Eurydice, and refusing to be consoled.

I should be false to others and to myself if I were to say that his extreme grief excited my compassion; but I should equally belie the truth if I gave it to be understood that his "widowhood" gave me pleasure, and that I congratulated myself on his sorrow and bitterness.