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 utmost

violence 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 her of it, and she

told him that she did not think it consistent with decency to be every

evening among the gay young courtiers; that she hoped he would allow

her to live in a more reserved manner than she had done hitherto, that

the virtue and presence of her mother authorised her in many liberties

which could not otherwise be justified in a woman of her age.

Monsieur de Cleves, who had a great deal of facility and complaisance

for his wife, did not show it on this occasion, but told her he would

by no means consent to her altering her conduct; she was upon the point

of telling him, it was reported that the Duke de Nemours was in love

with her, but she had not the power to name him; besides she thought it

disingenuous to disguise the truth, and make use of pretences to a man

who had so good an opinion of her.

Some days after the King was with the Queen at the assembly hour, and

the discourse turned upon nativities and predictions; the company were

divided in their opinion as to what credit ought to be given to them;

the Queen professed to have great faith in them, and maintained that

after so many things had come to pass as they had been foretold, one

could not doubt but there was something of certainty in that science;

others affirmed, that of an infinite number of predictions so very few

proved true, that the truth of those few ought to be looked upon as an

effect of chance.




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