As for the Viscount de Chartres, his credit was entirely ruined with
her; and whether the Cardinal of Loraine had already insinuated himself
so far into her esteem as to govern her, or whether the accident of
this letter, which made it appear that the Viscount had deceived her,
enabled her to discover the other tricks he had played her, it is
certain he could never after entirely reconcile himself to her; their
correspondence was broke off, and at length she ruined him by means of
the conspiracy of Amboise, in which he was involved.
After the letter was sent to the Queen-Dauphin, Monsieur de Cleves and
Monsieur de Nemours went away; Madam de Cleves continued alone, and
being no longer supported by the joy which the presence of what one
loves gives one, she seemed like one newly waked from a dream; she
beheld, with astonishment, the difference between the condition she was
in the night before, and that she was in at this time: she called to
mind, how cold and sullen she was to the Duke de Nemours, while she
thought Madam de Themines's letter was addressed to him, and how calm
and sweet a situation of mind succeeded that uneasiness, as soon as he
was satisfied he was not concerned in that letter; when she reflected,
that she reproached herself as guilty for having given him the
foregoing day only some marks of sensibility, which mere compassion
might have produced, and that by her peevish humour this morning, she
had expressed such a jealousy as was a certain proof of passion, she
thought she was not herself; when she reflected further, that the Duke
de Nemours saw plainly that she knew he was in love with her, and that,
notwithstanding her knowing it, she did not use him the worse for it,
even in her husband's presence; but that, on the contrary, she had
never behaved so favourably to him; when she considered, she was the
cause of Monsieur de Cleves's sending for him, and that she had just
passed an afternoon in private with him; when she considered all this,
she found, there was something within her that held intelligence with
the Duke de Nemours, and that she deceived a husband who least deserved
it; and she was ashamed to appear so little worthy of esteem, even in
the eyes of her lover; but what she was able to support less than all
the rest was, the remembrance of the condition in which she spent the
last night, and the pricking griefs she felt from a suspicion that the
Duke de Nemours was in love with another, and that she was deceived by
him.