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.