Monsieur de Nemours was like to have expired in the presence of the

lady who told him this; he begged her a thousand times to return to

Madam de Cleves, and to get leave for him to see her; but she told him

the Princess had not only forbidden her to come back with any message

from him, but even to report the conversation that should pass between

them. At length Monsieur de Nemours was obliged to go back, oppressed

with the heaviest grief a man is capable of, who has lost all hopes of

ever seeing again a person, whom he loved not only with the most

violent, but most natural and sincere passion that ever was; yet still

he was not utterly discouraged, but used all imaginable methods to make

her alter her resolution; at last, after several years, time and

absence abated his grief, and extinguished his passion. Madam de Cleves

lived in a manner that left no probability of her ever returning to

Court; she spent one part of the year in that religious house, and the

other at her own, but still continued the austerity of retirement, and

constantly employed herself in exercises more holy than the severest

convents can pretend to; and her life, though it was short, left

examples of inimitable virtues.



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