Princesse de Cleve Anglais

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First part
Magnificence and gallantry have never appeared in France with such brilliance
as in the last years of the reign of Henry II. This prince was gallant, well-made and in
love: although his passion for Diane de Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois, had begun
more than twenty years ago, it was no less violent, and he gave no evidence of it.
less bright.
As he succeeded admirably in all physical exercises, he made it one of his

greatest occupations: every day there were hunting and tennis games, ballets, ring
races, or similar entertainments; the colors and figures of Madame de Valentinois
appeared everywhere, and she appeared herself with all the adjustments that Mlle
de la Marck, her granddaughter, who was then to be married, could have had.
The presence of the queen authorized his.

This princess was beautiful, although she was past her early youth: she loved
grandeur, magnificence and pleasures. The king had married her when he was still
Duke of Orléans, and his eldest child was the dauphin, who died at Tournon, a prince
whose birth and great qualities destined him to fill with dignity the place of François
I, his father.
The queen's ambitious mood made her find it very gentle to reign: it seemed that
she easily tolerated the king's attachment to the Duchess of Valentinois, and she
showed no jealousy of it; but she had such a profound dissimulation that it was
difficult to judge her feelings, and policy obliged her to approach this duchess of her
person in order to also approach the king.
This prince loved intercourse with women, even those with whom he was not in
love: he stayed every day with the queen at circle time, where everything that was
most beautiful and best made, of both sexes, did not fail to find each other.
Never has a court had so many beautiful people and admirably well-made men,
and it seemed as if nature had taken pleasure in placing the most beautiful things in
the greatest princesses and the greatest princes.
Madame Elisabeth of France, who was since Queen of Spain, began to show a
surprising spirit and that incomparable beauty which was so fatal to her.
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Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, who had just married the Dauphin and
who was called the Queen-Dauphin, was a perfect person in mind and body:
she had been brought up at the court of France; she had acquired all the
politeness, and she was born with such a disposition for all beautiful things
that, despite her great youth, she loved them and knew them better than
anyone.
The queen, his mother-in-law, and Madame, the king's sister, also loved
verse, comedy and music: the taste that King François I had had for poetry
and letters still reigned in France, and the king his son loving all physical
exercises, all pleasures were at court. But what made the court beautiful and
majestic was the infinite number of princes and great lords of extraordinary
merit.
Those whom I am going to name were, in different ways, the ornament
and admiration of their century.
The King of Navarre attracted the respect of everyone by the grandeur of
his rank and by that which appeared in his person. He excelled in war, and
the Duke of Guise gave him an emulation which led him several times to leave
his place as general to go and fight alongside him as a simple soldier in the
most perilous places. It is also true that this duke had given marks of such
admirable valor and had had such happy successes that there was no great
captain who could not look at him with envy. His valor was supported by all
the other great qualities: he had a broad and deep mind, a noble and lofty
soul, and an equal capacity for war and for business.
The Cardinal of Lorraine, his brother, was born with excessive ambition,
with a lively mind and admirable eloquence, and he had acquired a profound
knowledge which he used to make himself considerable by defending the
Catholic religion, which was beginning to be attacked. .
The Knight of Guise, who has since been called the Grand Prior, was a
prince loved by everyone, well made, full of spirit, full of address and of a valor
famous throughout Europe.
The Prince of Condé, in a small body not favored by nature, had a great
and haughty soul and a spirit which made him lovable in the eyes of even the
most beautiful women.
The Duke of Nevers, whose life was glorious by the war and by the great
jobs he had held, although in a somewhat advanced age, was the delight of
the court. He had three perfectly well-made sons: the second, who was called
the Prince of Cleves, was worthy of upholding the glory of his name; he was
brave and magnificent, and he had a prudence that is rarely found in youth.
The vidame of Chartres, descended from this ancient house of Vendôme
which the princes of the blood did not disdain to carry
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the name, was equally distinguished in war and in gallantry. He was handsome,
good-looking, valiant, bold, liberal; all these good qualities were lively and
shining; finally he was the only one worthy of being compared to the Duke of
Nemours, if anyone could have been comparable to him; but this prince was a
masterpiece of nature; what was least admirable about him was that he was the
best-built and most handsome man in the world. What set him above the others
was an incomparable value and a pleasantness in his mind, in his face and in
his actions which have never been seen except in him alone; he had a
playfulness which appealed equally to men and women, an extraordinary skill in
all his exercises, a way of dressing which was always followed by everyone
without being able to be imitated, and finally an air in his whole person which
made that we could only look at him in all the places where he appeared. There
was no lady in the court whose glory would not have been flattered to see him
attached to her; few of those to whom he had become attached could boast of
having resisted him, and even several to whom he had not shown any passion
had not failed to have some for him. He had so much gentleness and such a
disposition towards gallantry that he could not refuse some attention to those
who failed to please him; thus he had several mistresses, but it was difficult to
guess which one he truly loved. He often went to the queen-dauphine; the beauty
of this princess, her gentleness, the care she took to please everyone and the
particular esteem she showed for this prince, had often given rise to the belief
that he raised his eyes to her . MM. de Guise, of whom she was a niece, had
greatly increased their credit and consideration through her marriage; their
ambition made them aspire to equal themselves with the princes of the blood
and to share the power of the constable of Montmorency. The king relied on him
for the greater part of the government of affairs, and treated the Duke of Guise
and the Marshal of Saint-André as his favorites; but those whom favor or
business approached his person could only remain there by submitting to the
Duchess of Valentinois, and although she no longer had youth or beauty, she
governed it with such an empire. absolute that we can say that she was mistress
of her person and the state.
The king had always loved the constable, and as soon as he began to reign
he recalled him from the exile to which King Francis I had sent him. The courtyard
was shared between Messrs. de Guise and the constable, who was supported
by the princes of the blood. Both parties had always thought of winning over the
Duchess of Valentinois. The Duke of Aumale, brother of the Duke of Guise, had
married one of his daughters; the constable aspired to the same alliance. He
was not content with having married his eldest son to Madame Diane, daughter
of the king and a lady from Piedmont who became a nun as soon as she gave birth.
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This marriage had encountered many obstacles due to the promises that M. de
Montmorency had made to Mademoiselle de Pienne, one of the queen's maids of
honor; and, although the king had overcome them with extreme patience and
kindness, this constable did not still find himself sufficiently supported if he did not
secure Madame de Valentinois, and if he did not separate her from MM. de Guise,
whose grandeur began to cause concern to this duchess.
She had delayed as much as she could the marriage of the dauphin with the Queen
of Scotland: the beauty, and the capable and advanced mind of this young queen,
and the elevation which this marriage gave to MM. de Guise, were unbearable to him.
She particularly hated the Cardinal of Lorraine; he had spoken to her with bitterness,
and even with contempt.
The Duchess of Valentinois saw that he was having an affair with the Queen, so
that the Constable found her willing to unite with him and enter into his alliance
through the marriage of Miss de la Marck, his granddaughter, with M. d'Anville, his
second son, who subsequently succeeded to his office during the reign of Charles IX.
The constable did not believe he found any obstacles in the mind of M. de
Montmorency; but although the reasons were hidden from him, the difficulties were
hardly less.
M. d'Anville was madly in love with the Queen-Dauphin, and whatever hope he had
in this passion, he could not bring himself to make a commitment which would share
her care.
Marshal de Saint-André was the only one in the court who had not taken sides:
he was one of the favorites, and his favor was due solely to his person; the king had
loved him from the time he was dauphin; and, since then, he had made him Marshal
of France, at an age when one is not yet accustomed to claiming the least dignities.
His favor gave him a brilliance which he supported by his merit and by the
approval of his person, by a great delicacy for his table and for his furniture, and by
the greatest magnificence that had ever been seen in an individual.
The liberality of the king provided for this expense: this prince went so far as to
prodigality for those he loved; he did not have all the great qualities, but he had
several, and above all that of loving war and understanding it: he also had happy
successes, and, if we except the battle of Saint-Quentin, his reign had been nothing
but a series of victories. He had won, in person, the battle of Renti: Piedmont had
been acquired; the English had been driven out of France; and the Emperor Charles
V saw his good fortune end before the city of Metz, which he had uselessly besieged
with all the forces of the empire and of Spain. Nevertheless, as the misfortune of
Saint-Quentin had diminished the hope of our conquests, and
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that, since then, the fortune had seemed to be divided between the two kings, they
found themselves imperceptibly disposed to peace.
The Dowager Duchess of Lorraine had begun to make proposals at the time of
the marriage of M. the Dauphin; there had always been some secret negotiation
ever since. Finally Cercamp, in the country of Artois, was chosen for the place where
they were to assemble. The cardinal of Lorraine, the constable of Montmorency and
the marshal of Saint-André were there on behalf of the king; the Duke of Alba and
the Prince of Orange, for Philip II, and the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine were the
mediators.
The main articles were the marriage of Madame Élisabeth de France with Don
Carlos, Infante of Spain, and that of Madame, sister of the king, with Monsieur de
Savoie.
The king, however, remained on the border, and there received the news of the
death of Mary, Queen of England. He sent the Count of Randan to Elizabeth, on her
accession to the crown; she received him with joy: her rights were so poorly
established that it was advantageous for her to see herself recognized by the king.
This count found her informed of the interests of the court of France, and of the merit
of those who composed it; but above all he found her so full of the reputation of the
Duke of Nemours, she spoke to him so many times about this prince, and with so
much eagerness, that when M. de Randan returned, and he reported to the king of
his journey, he told her that there was nothing that M. de Nemours could not claim
from this princess, and that he had no doubt that she would be capable of marrying
him. The king spoke about it to this prince that very evening; he had M. de Randan
recount to him all his conversations with Elizabeth, and advised him to try this great
fortune. M. de Nemours believed at first that the king was not speaking seriously to
him; but as he saw the contrary: At least, sire, he said to him, if I embark on a
chimerical enterprise, by the advice and for the service of your majesty, I beg you to
keep me secret until May success justify me to the public, and to please not make
me appear filled with such great vanity to pretend that a queen who has never seen
me wants to marry me for love. The king promised to speak only to the constable
about this design, and he even judged secrecy necessary for success. M. de Randan
advised M. de Nemours to go to England, on the simple pretext of traveling; but this
prince could not bring himself to do so. He sent Lignerolle, who was a young man of
intelligence, his favorite, to see the feelings of the queen, and to try to begin some
liaison. While waiting for the event of this trip, he went to see the Duke of Savoy,
who was then in Brussels with the King of Spain. The death of Mary of England
brought great obstacles to peace; the assembly broke up at the end of November,
and the king returned to Paris.
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There then appeared a beauty at court which attracted the eyes of everyone,
and we must believe that it was a perfect beauty, since it caused admiration in a
place where people were so accustomed to seeing beautiful people.
She was from the same house as the Vidame de Chartres, and one of the greatest
heiresses in France. Her father had died young, and left her under the care of
Madame de Chartres, his wife, whose goodness, virtue and merit were
extraordinary. After losing her husband, she had spent several years without
returning to court. During this absence, she had devoted her attention to the
education of her daughter; but she not only worked to cultivate her mind and her
beauty, she also thought of giving her virtue and making her lovable.
Most mothers imagine that it is enough to never speak of chivalry in front of

young people to keep them away from them; Madame de Chartres had an opposite
opinion: she often painted her daughter's paintings of love; she showed her what
was pleasant about it, to persuade her more easily about what was dangerous
about it; she told him about the lack of sincerity of men, their deceptions and their
infidelities; the domestic misfortunes into which commitments plunge; and she
showed him, on the other hand, what tranquility followed the life of an honest
woman, and how much virtue gave brilliance and elevation to a person who had
beauty and birth. But she also made him see that she could only preserve this
virtue by extreme self-distrust, and by great care to attach herself to what alone
can make a woman happy, which is to to love your husband and to be loved by
him.
This heiress was then one of the great parties there was in France; and,
although she was extremely young, several marriages had already been proposed.
Madame de Chartres, who was extremely glorious, found almost nothing worthy
of her daughter: seeing her in her sixteenth year, she wanted to take her to court.
When she arrived, the vidame went to meet her: he was surprised by the great
beauty of Mademoiselle de Chartres, and he was rightly surprised. The whiteness
of her complexion and her blond hair gave her a radiance that had only ever been
seen in her; all his features were regular, and his face and person were full of
grace and charm.
The day after she arrived, she went to match stones with an Italian who sold
them for everyone.
This man had come from Florence with the queen, and had become so rich in
his trade that his house seemed rather that of a great lord than of a merchant.
As she was there, the Prince of Cleves arrived there.
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He was so surprised by her beauty that he could not hide his surprise, and
Mademoiselle de Chartres could not help but blush when she saw the
astonishment she had given him: she nevertheless recovered, without showing
any further attention to the actions of this prince than that which civility should
give him for a man such as he appeared.
M. de Cleves looked at her with admiration, and he could not understand
who this beautiful person was whom he did not know. He could see clearly, by
her appearance and by everything that followed her, that she must be of great
quality. Her youth made her believe it was a girl; but seeing no mother, and the
Italian, who did not know her, calling her Madam, he did not know what to think,
and he always looked with astonishment.
He noticed that her looks embarrassed her, unlike the usual young people,
who always see with pleasure the effect of their beauty: it even seemed to him
that it was the cause of her impatience to see herself. 'go away, and in fact she
came out quite quickly. M. de Cleves consoled himself for losing sight of her, in
the hope of knowing who she was; but he was very surprised when he learned
that no one knew her: he remained so touched by her beauty and the modest
air that he had noticed in her actions, that we can say that he designed for her,
from that moment, an extraordinary passion and esteem; In the evening he
went to Madame, the king's sister.
This princess was in great consideration, by the credit she had over the king
her brother; and this credit was so great that the king, by making peace, agreed
to return Piedmont, to make her marry the Duke of Savoy.
Although she had wanted to marry all her life, she had only ever wanted to
marry a sovereign, and she had refused, for this reason, the King of Navarre
when he was Duke of Vendôme, and had always wanted M . of Savoy; she had
retained an inclination towards him since she had seen him in Nice, at the
meeting between King Francis I and Pope Paul III.
As she had a lot of wit and a great discernment for beautiful things, she
attracted all honest people, and there were certain times when the whole court
was at her house.
M. de Cleves came as usual: he was so filled with the wit and beauty of
Mademoiselle de Chartres that he could not speak of anything else. He
recounted his adventure out loud, and could not tire of praising this person he
had seen, whom he did not know.
Madame told him that there was no person like the one he depicted, and
that if there was one, she would be known to everyone.
Madame de Dampierre who was her lady-in-waiting and friend of Madame

de Chartres, hearing this conversation, approached this princess, and
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said in a low voice that it was undoubtedly Mademoiselle de Chartres that M. de Clèves had
view.
Madame turned to him and told him that if he wanted to come back to her
the next day, she would show him this beauty by which he was so touched.
Mademoiselle de Chartres did in fact appear the following day; she was received by the
queens with all the pleasures that one can imagine, and with such admiration from everyone
that she heard nothing but praise around her. She received them with such noble modesty
that it did not seem as if she heard them, or at least that she was touched by them.
She then went to Madame, sister of the king.

This princess, after having praised her beauty, told him of the astonishment she had
given to M. de Cleves.
This prince entered a moment later. “Come,” she said to him, “see if I don’t keep my
word to you, and if, by showing you Mademoiselle de Chartres, I don’t show you this beauty
that you were looking for: thank me, at least, for having given her learned of the admiration
you already had for her. »
M. de Cleves felt joy at seeing that this person whom he had found so amiable was of a
quality proportionate to her beauty: he approached her, and he begged her to remember
that he had been the first to admire her, and that, without knowing her, he had had for her
all the feelings of respect and esteem that were due to him.
He and the Chevalier de Guise, who were friends, left Madame's house together. They
first praised Mademoiselle de Chartres without constraining themselves.
They finally found that they were praising her too much, and they both stopped saying what
they thought of her; but they were forced to talk about it, in the following days, wherever
they met. This new beauty was for a long time the subject of all conversations. The queen
gave her great praise and had extraordinary consideration for her; the Queen-Dauphin
made her one of her favorites, and asked Madame de Chartres to take her often to her
home.
Ladies, daughters of the king, sent for him to be part of all their entertainment. Finally,
she was loved and admired by the entire court, except Madame de Valentinois.
It was not that this beauty gave her umbrage: too long experience had taught her that
she had nothing to fear from the king; but she had so much hatred for the Vidame de
Chartres, whom she had wished to attach to her by the marriage of one of her daughters,
and who had become attached to the queen, that she could not look favorably on a person
who bore his name, and for whom he showed such great friendship.
The Prince of Cleves became passionately in love with Mademoiselle de Chartres, and
ardently wished to marry her; but he feared that Madame's pride
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de Chartres would not be hurt to give his daughter to a man who was not the eldest
in his house.
However this house was so large, and the Count of Eu, who was the eldest,
had just married a person so close to the royal house, that it was rather the timidity
that love gives, than real reasons which caused the fears of M. de Clèves. He had
a large number of rivals: the knight of Guise seemed the most formidable to him
by his birth, by his merit and by the splendor which the favor gave to his house.
This prince had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de Chartres the first day he
saw her; he had noticed the passion of M. de Clèves, as M. de Clèves had noticed
his own. Although they were friends, the distance created by the same pretensions
had not allowed them to explain themselves together, and their friendship had
cooled without them having had the strength to clarify things. The adventure which
had happened to M. de Cleves of having seen the first Mademoiselle de Chartres
seemed to him a happy omen, and seemed to give him some advantage over his
rivals; but he anticipated great obstacles from the Duke of Nevers, his father. This
duke had close ties with the Duchess of Valentinois; she was an enemy of the
Vidame, and this reason was sufficient to prevent the Duke of Nevers from allowing
his son to think of his niece.
Madame de Chartres, who had worked so hard to inspire virtue in her daughter,
did not stop taking the same care in a place where it was so necessary and where
there were so many dangerous examples.
Ambition and gallantry were the soul of this court and occupied men and
women. There were so many different interests and cabals, and ladies had so
much part in them that love was always mixed with business and business with
love. No one was quiet or indifferent; we thought of rising up, of pleasing, of serving
or of harming; we knew neither boredom nor idleness, and we were always
occupied with pleasures or intrigues.
The ladies had particular attachments for the queen, for the queen-dauphine,
for the queen of Navarre, for Madame, sister of the king, or for the duchess of
Valentinois. Inclinations, reasons of decorum or the relationship of mood made
these different attachments. Those who had passed their early youth, and who
professed a more austere virtue, were attached to the queen. Those who were
younger, and who sought joy and gallantry, paid court to the queen-dauphine. The
Queen of Navarre had her favorites; she was young, and she had power over the
king her husband; he was attached to the constable, and therefore had a lot of
credit. Madame, sister of the king, still retained her beauty, and attracted several
ladies to her side. The Duchess of Valentinois had everyone she deigned to look
at; but few women were agreeable to him, and, except a few who had his familiarity
and confidence, and whose
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the mood was related to hers, she only received them at home on the days
when she took pleasure in having a court like that of the queen.
All these different cabals had emulation and envy against each other: the
ladies who composed them also had jealousy among themselves, either for
favor or for lovers; interests of grandeur and elevation were often found joined
to these other less important interests, but which were no less sensitive. So
there was a sort of agitation without disorder in this courtyard which made it
very pleasant, but also very dangerous for a young person.
Madame de Chartres saw this danger, and only thought of the means to
protect her daughter from it. She begged her, not as her mother, but as her
friend, to confide to her all the gallantries that would be said to her, and she
promised to help her to behave in things where one was often embarrassed.
when we were young.
The Chevalier de Guise made the feelings and designs he had for
Mademoiselle de Chartres so apparent that they were not unknown to anyone.
He nevertheless saw only impossibility in what he desired: he knew well that
he was not a match that suited Mademoiselle de Chartres, due to the little
wealth he had to support his rank; and he also knew well that his brothers
would not approve of him marrying, for fear of the degradation that younger
marriages usually bring in great houses.
The Cardinal of Lorraine soon showed him that he was not mistaken. He
condemned the attachment he showed for Mademoiselle de Chartres with
extraordinary warmth, but he did not tell her the real reasons.
This cardinal had a hatred for the vidame, which was secret then, and
which has since come to light. He would have rather consented to see his
brother enter into any other alliance than that of this Vidame, and he declared
so publicly how far he was from it that Madame de Chartres was noticeably
offended. She took great care to show that the Cardinal of Lorraine had nothing
to fear, and that she was not thinking of this marriage. The vidame took the
same behavior, and felt even more than Madame de Chartres that of the
Cardinal of Lorraine, because he knew the cause better.
The Prince of Cleves had not given less public marks of his passion than
had the Chevalier de Guise. The Duke of Nevers learned of this attachment
with sorrow; he nevertheless believed that he only had to speak to his son to
make him change his behavior; but he was very surprised to find in him the
intention of marrying Miss de Chartres. He blamed this design; he lost his
temper; he hid his anger so little that the subject soon spread throughout the
court, and even reached Madame de Chartres. She had not doubted that M.
de Nevers regarded his daughter's marriage as an advantage for his son; she
was very surprised that the house of Cleves and
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Guise fear his alliance instead of wishing for it. The disappointment she felt
made her think of finding a partner for her daughter who would put her above
those who thought they were above her. After examining everything, she stopped
at the prince dauphin, son of the Duke of Montpensier. He was then to be
married, and he was the greatest person at court. As Madame de Chartres had
a lot of intelligence, and she was helped by the vidame, who was in great
consideration, she acted with so much skill and so much success that Mr. de
Montpensier seemed to wish for this marriage, and it seemed that there could
be no difficulties there.
The vidame, who knew M. d'Anville's attachment to the queen-dauphine,
nevertheless believed that it was necessary to use the power that this princess
had over him to engage him to serve Mademoiselle de Chartres with the king
and with the prince of Montpensier, of whom he was a close friend. He spoke
about it to this queen, and she entered with joy into a matter where it was a
question of the elevation of a person whom she loved very much; she testified
this to the vidame, and she assured him that, although she knew well that she
would do something unpleasant to the Cardinal of Lorraine, her uncle, she would
happily pass over this consideration, because she had reason to complain about
him, and that he took the queen's interests against his own every day.
Gallant people are always happy to have a pretext to talk to those who love
them. As soon as the vidame had left the dauphine, she ordered Châtelart, who
was a favorite of M. d'Anville, and who knew the passion he had for her, to go
and tell her, on his behalf, to find the evening at the queen's. Châtelart received
this commission with great joy and respect. This gentleman was from a good
house in Dauphiné; but his merit, his spirit, placed him below his birth. He was
received and well treated by all the great lords at court, and the favor of the
house of Montmorency had particularly attached him to M. d'Anville: he was well
made of himself, adroit to all kinds of exercises; he sang pleasantly, he wrote
verses, and had a gallant and passionate spirit which pleased M. d'Anville so
much that he made him confidant of the love he had for the queen-dauphine.
This confidence brought him closer to this princess, and it was by seeing her
often that he began this unfortunate passion which took away his reason and
which finally cost him his life.
M. d'Anville did not fail to be with the queen in the evening; he found himself
happy that the dauphine had chosen him to work on something she desired, and
he promised to obey her orders exactly; but Madame de Valentinois having been
informed of the plan of this marriage, had gone through it with so much care and
had warned the king so much, that when M. d'Anville spoke to her about it, he
made it appear to her that he did not approve of it. not and even ordered him to
tell the Prince of Montpensier. We can judge what Madame de
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Chartres by the rupture of something she had so desired, the bad success of
which gave such a great advantage to her enemies and did such great harm to
her family.
The queen-dauphine expressed to Mademoiselle de Chartres, with great
friendship, the pleasure she had in having been useful to her. You see, she said
to him, that I have mediocre power: I am so hated by the Queen and the
Duchess of Valentinois, that it is difficult for them or those who are dependent
on them to not always go through all the things I desire; However, she added, I
have never thought of anything other than pleasing them: so they only hate me
because of the queen my mother, who once gave them anxiety and jealousy.
The king had been in love with her before he was with Madame de
Valentinois; and, in the first years of his marriage, when he did not yet have any
children, although he loved this duchess, he seemed almost resolved to unmarry
in order to marry the Queen my mother.
Madame de Valentinois, who feared a woman he had already loved, and
whose beauty and wit could diminish his favor, united with the constable, who
also did not want the king to marry a sister of MM. de Guise: they put the fire
king in their feelings; and, although he mortally hated the Duchess of Valentinois,
as he loved the Queen, he worked with them to prevent the King from
unmarrying; but, to absolutely remove the thought of marrying the Queen my
mother, they made her marry with the King of Scotland, who was the widower
of Madame Madeleine, the king's sister, and they did it because he was more
ready to conclude, and failed to fulfill the commitments we had with the King of
England, who ardently desired it. This failure even came close to causing a
rupture between the two kings. Henry VIII could not console himself for not
having married Queen my mother, and whatever other French princess was
proposed to him, he always said that she would never replace the one that had
been taken from him. It is also true that the Queen my mother was a perfect
beauty, and that it is a remarkable thing that, as the widow of a Duke of
Longueville, three kings wished to marry her: her misfortune gave her to the
least, and put her in a kingdom where she finds only sorrows. They say that I
resemble him: I fear that I also resemble him in his unfortunate destiny; and
whatever happiness seems to be prepared for me, I cannot believe that I enjoy
it.
Mademoiselle de Chartres told the queen that these sad presentiments were
so ill-founded that she would not keep them for long, and that she should not
doubt that her happiness corresponded to appearances.
No one any longer dared to think of Mademoiselle de Chartres for fear of
displeasing the king, or for the thought of not succeeding with a person who
had hoped for a prince of the blood. M. de Cleves was not retained by any of these
16
considerations. The death of the Duke of Nevers, his father, which then happened,
gave him complete freedom to follow his inclination, and, as soon as the time for
the propriety of mourning was over, he only thought of the means of marrying Miss
de Chartres. He found himself happy to make the proposal at a time when what
had happened had alienated the other parties, and when he was almost certain
that it would not be refused to him. What disturbed his joy was the fear of not
pleasing her, and he would have preferred the happiness of pleasing her to the
certainty of marrying her without being loved by her.
The Chevalier de Guise had given him a sort of jealousy; but, as it was based
rather on the merit of this prince than on any of the actions of Mademoiselle de
Chartres, he only thought of trying to discover if he was happy enough for her to
approve the thought he had for her; he only saw her among queens or at
assemblies; it was difficult to have a private conversation. However, he found the
means, and he spoke to her of his design and his passion with all the respect
imaginable; he urged her to let him know what feelings she had for him, and he told
her that those he had for her were of a nature that would make him eternally
unhappy if she only obeyed his wishes out of duty. of his mother.
As Mademoiselle de Chartres had a very noble and well-made heart, she was
truly touched with recognition of the Prince of Cleves' procedure.
This recognition gave his responses and his words a certain air of gentleness which
was enough to give hope to a man as desperately in love as this prince was; so
that he flattered himself with a part of what he wished.
She reported this conversation to her mother, and Madame de Chartres told her
that there was so much greatness and good qualities in M. de Clèves, and that he
showed so much wisdom for his age, that if she felt his inclination to marry him,
she would consent with joy.
Mademoiselle de Chartres replied that she noticed the same good qualities in
him, that she would even marry him with less repugnance than anyone else, but
that she had no particular inclination for his person.
The next day, this prince spoke to Madame de Chartres. She accepted the
proposal made to her, and she did not fear giving her daughter a husband she
could not love, by giving her the Prince of Cleves. The articles were concluded;
they spoke to the king, and this marriage was known to everyone.
M. de Cleves found himself happy, without nevertheless being entirely content.
He saw with great difficulty that the feelings of Mademoiselle de Chartres did not
go beyond those of esteem and recognition; and he could not flatter himself that
she was hiding more obliging ones, since the state they were in allowed him to
make them appear without shocking her extreme modesty.
17
Hardly a day went by that he didn't complain to her about it.

– Is it possible, he said to her, that I could not be happy by marrying you?
However, it is true that I am not. You only have a kind of kindness for me that
cannot satisfy me; you have neither impatience, nor worry, nor sorrow; you are
no more touched by my passion than you would be by an attachment which
would be based only on the advantages of your fortune, and not on the charms
of your person.
“There is injustice in complaining to you,” she replied; I don't know what you
can wish for beyond what I do, and it seems to me that propriety does not allow
me to do more.
– It is true, he replied, that you give me certain appearances with which I
would be satisfied if there were something beyond; but instead of decorum
holding you back, it is this alone that makes you do what you do. I touch neither
your inclination nor your heart, and my presence gives you neither pleasure nor
trouble.
“You cannot doubt,” she continued, “that I am delighted to see you, and I
blush so often when I see you, that you cannot doubt that your sight gives me
trouble.
“I am not mistaken by your blush,” he replied; it is a feeling of modesty and
not a movement of your heart, and I only draw from it the advantage that I must
derive from it.
Mademoiselle de Chartres did not know what to answer, and these
distinctions were beyond her knowledge. M. de Cleves saw only too well how
far she was from having feelings for him that could satisfy him, since it even
seemed to him that she did not understand them.
The Chevalier de Guise returned from a trip a few days before the wedding.
He had seen so many insurmountable obstacles to his plan of marrying
Mademoiselle de Chartres that he could not hope to succeed; and nevertheless
he was noticeably distressed to see her become another's wife: this pain did not
extinguish his passion, and he remained no less in love.
Mademoiselle de Chartres was not unaware of the feelings that this prince
had had for her. He informed her on his return that she was the cause of the
extreme sadness which appeared on her face; and he had so much merit and
so much pleasure that it was difficult to make him unhappy without having some
pity for him: so she could not help having some; but this pity did not lead her to
other feelings: she told her mother of the pain that this prince's affection gave
her.
Madame de Chartres admired the sincerity of her daughter, and she admired
it with good reason, because no one has ever had such great and natural
sincerity; but she admired no less that her heart was not touched, and all the
more since she saw clearly that the Prince of Cleves had not touched her, either.
18
than the others. This was the reason that she took great care to attach him to her
husband, and to make him understand what she owed to the inclination he had had
for her before knowing her, and to the passion that he had shown her by preferring
her to all other parties, at a time when no one dared to think of her anymore.
This marriage ended: the ceremony took place at the Louvre; and, in the evening,
the king and queens came to supper at Madame de Chartres, with the whole court,
where they were received with admirable magnificence. The Chevalier de Guise did
not dare to distinguish himself from the others, and would not attend this ceremony;
but he had so little control over his sadness that it was easy to notice it.
M. de Clèves did not find that Miss de Chartres had changed her feelings by
changing her name. Being a husband gave him greater privileges, but it did not give
him another place in his wife's heart. This also meant that, to be her husband, he did
not stop being her lover, because he always had something to wish for beyond his
possession; and although she lived perfectly well with him, he was not entirely happy.
He retained for her a violent and restless passion which disturbed his joy: jealousy
had no part in this disturbance; never has a husband been so far from taking, and
never has a wife been so far from giving. It was nevertheless exposed in the middle
of the courtyard; she went every day to see the queens and Madame. All the young
and gallant men there saw her at her home and at the house of the Duke of Nevers,
her brother-in-law, whose house was open to everyone; but she had an air which
inspired such great respect, and seemed so far from gallantry, that the Marshal of
Saint-André, although daring, and supported by the king's favor, was touched by her
beauty without daring to make it appear to him. than by care and duties.
Several others were in the same state, and Madame de Chartres combined with
her daughter's wisdom a conduct so exact with respect to all decorums that she made
her seem like a person who could not be reached.
The Duchess of Lorraine, while working for peace, had also worked for the
marriage of the Duke of Lorraine, her son; it had been concluded with Madame Claude
de France, second daughter of the king. The wedding was decided for the month of
February.
However, the Duke of Nemours remained in Brussels, entirely occupied with his
designs for England. He continually received or sent letters there: his hopes increased
every day, and finally Lignerolle told him that it was time for his presence to complete
what had been so well started. He received this news with all the joy that an ambitious
young man can have, who sees himself brought to the throne by his reputation alone.
His mind had gradually become accustomed to the
19
greatness of this fortune; and, where he had initially rejected it as something he

could not achieve, the difficulties had been erased from his imagination, and he
no longer saw obstacles.
He sent quickly to Paris to give all the necessary orders to make a magnificent
outfit, in order to appear in England with a splendor proportionate to the design
which led him there, and he himself hastened to come to court to attend the
marriage of M. de Lorraine.
He arrived on the eve of the engagement: and, on the same evening that he
arrived, he went to report to the king on the state of his plan, and to receive his
orders and advice for what remained for him to do. He then went to the queens.
Madame de Cleves was not there, so she did not see him, and did not even
know that he had arrived. She had heard everyone talking about this prince, as
the best and most pleasant thing at court; and above all Madame the dauphine
had depicted it to him in a way and had spoken to him about it so many times
that she had made him curious and even impatient to see it.
She spent the entire day of the engagement at home dressing up, to be at
the ball and the royal feast that took place at the Louvre in the evening. When
she arrived, people admired her beauty and her finery: the ball began; and, as
she was dancing with M. de Guise, there was a rather loud noise towards the
door of the room, as if from someone entering and being made room for.
Madame de Cleves finished dancing, and while she looked around for someone
she intended to take, the king shouted to her to take whoever came. She turned
around and saw a man who at first she thought could only be M. de Nemours,
passing over some seats to get to where they were dancing.
This prince was made in such a way that it was difficult not to be surprised to
see him when you had never seen him, especially that evening, when the care
he had taken to adorn himself increased even more. the brilliant air that was in
his person; but it was also difficult to see Madame de Clèves for the first time
without feeling great astonishment.
M. de Nemours was so surprised by her beauty that when he was close to
her, and she curtseyed to him, he could not help showing signs of his admiration.
When they began to dance, a murmur of praise arose in the room. The king and
queens remembered that they had never seen each other, and found it strange
to see them dancing together without knowing each other. They called them
when they had finished, without giving them the opportunity to speak to anyone,
and asked them if they didn't really want to know who they were, and if they
didn't suspect it.
“As for me, madame,” said M. de Nemours, “I have no uncertainty; but as

Madame de Clèves does not have the same reasons for guessing who
20
I am only those that I have to recognize her, I would really like your majesty to have
the kindness to tell her my name.
“I believe,” said the dauphine, “that she knows it as well as you know hers.
“I assure you, madame,” replied Madame de Clèves, who seemed a little

embarrassed, “that I do not guess as well as you think.
“You guess very well,” replied the dauphine; and there is even something
compelling for M. de Nemours in not wanting to admit that you know him without
ever having seen him.
The queen interrupted them to continue the ball: M. de Nemours took the queen-
dauphine. This princess was of perfect beauty, and had appeared such in the eyes
of M. de Nemours before he went to Flanders; but, all evening, he could only admire
Madame de Clèves.
The Chevalier de Guise, who always adored him, was at his feet, and what had
just happened had given him a noticeable pain. He took it as an omen that fortune
destined M. de Nemours to be in love with Madame de Clèves: and, whether in fact
there had appeared some trouble on his face, or whether jealousy made the
Chevalier de Guise see beyond in truth, he believed that she had been touched by
the sight of this prince, and he could not help telling her that M. de Nemours was
very happy to begin to be known to her through an adventure which had something
gallant and extraordinary.
Madame de Cleves returned home, her mind so full of what had happened at
the ball, that, although it was very late, she went to her mother's room to report to
her; and she praised M. de Nemours with a certain air which gave Madame de
Chartres the same thought that the Chevalier de Guise had had.
The next day, the wedding ceremony took place; Madame de Cleves saw the
Duke of Nemours there with such admirable demeanor and grace that she was
even more surprised.
The following days, she saw him at the queen-dauphine's house, she saw him
playing palm with the king, she saw him chase the ring, she heard him speak; but
she always saw him so far surpass all the others, and make himself so master of
the conversation in all the places where he was, by the appearance of his person,
and by the pleasantness of his spirit, that he made in a short time a great impression
in his heart.
It is also true that, as M. de Nemours felt a violent inclination towards her which
gave him that gentleness and playfulness that the first desire to please inspires, he
was even more amiable than he was accustomed to being. . So that, seeing each
other often, and seeing each other as the most perfect thing at court, it was difficult
for them not to love each other infinitely.
21
The Duchess of Valentinois was at all the pleasure parties, and the King had
the same liveliness and care for her as at the beginning of his passion. Madame
de Cleves, who was at that age when one does not believe that a woman can be
loved when she is past twenty-five, looked with extreme astonishment at the
attachment that the king had for this duchess, who was grandmother, and who
had just married her granddaughter. She often spoke about it to Madame de
Chartres.
– Is it possible, madame, she said to her, that the king has been in love with
her for so long? How could he become attached to a person who was much older
than him, who had been the mistress of his father, and who still is the mistress of
many others, from what I have heard?
– It is true, she replied, that it was neither the merit nor the fidelity of Madame
de Valentinois which gave rise to the king's passion, nor which preserved it; and
this is also why it is not excusable; because, if this woman had had youth and
beauty combined with her birth, if she had had the merit of never having loved
anything, if she had loved the king with exact fidelity, if she would have loved him
loved in relation to his person alone, without interest in grandeur or fortune, and
without using his power except for honest things or things pleasing to the king
himself, it must be admitted that it would have been difficult to prevent oneself
from praise this prince for the great attachment he has for her.
If I did not fear, continued Madame de Chartres, that you would say of me
what is said of all women of my age, that they love to tell the stories of their time,
I would teach you the beginning of the passion for king for this duchess, and
several things from the court of the late king which even have a lot to do with
those which are still happening now.
– Far from accusing you, resumed Madame de Clèves, of repeating past
stories, I complain, madame, that you have not informed me of the present, and
that you have not taught me the various interests and the various court
connections. I ignore them so completely that I believed, a few days ago, that
the Constable was on very good terms with the Queen.
“You had an opinion very opposed to the truth,” replied Madame de Chartres.
The queen hates the constable; and if she ever has any power, he will be only
too aware of it. She knows that he told the king several times that, of all his
children, there were only the natural ones who looked like him.
– I would never have suspected this hatred, interrupted Madame de Clèves,
after having seen the care that the queen took to write to M. the constable during
his prison, the joy that she showed on his return, and how she always calls him
my friend, as well as the king.
– If you judge by appearances in this place, replied Madame de Chartres, you
will often be deceived: what appears is almost never the truth.
22
But, to return to Madame de Valentinois, you know that her name is Diane
de Poitiers; his house is very illustrious; it comes from the ancient dukes of
Aquitaine; her grandmother was the natural daughter of Louis XI, and finally
there is nothing but great in her birth. Saint-Vallier, his father, found himself
embarrassed in the affair of the constable of Bourbon, of which you have heard.
He was condemned to have his head cut off, and taken to the scaffold.
His daughter, whose beauty was admirable, and who had already pleased
the late king, did so well (I do not know by what means) that she obtained her
father's life. They gave him grace as he only awaited the blow of death; but fear
had so seized him that he no longer had consciousness, and he died a few
days later. His daughter appeared at court as the king's mistress. The trip to
Italy and the prison of this prince interrupted this passion; when he returned
from Spain, and the regent went to meet him at Bayonne, she led all her
daughters, among whom was Mademoiselle de Pisseleu, who has since been
the Duchess of Étampes. The king fell in love with her. She was inferior in birth,
in spirit and in beauty to Madame de Valentinois, and she had only the
advantage of great youth above her. I heard her say several times that she was
born the day Diane de Poitiers was married.
Hatred made her say it and not the truth, because I am very much mistaken
if the Duchess of Valentinois did not marry M. de Brézé, grand seneschal of
Normandy, at the same time that the king became in love with Madame
d'Étampes. Never has there been such great hatred as that of these two
women. The Duchess of Valentinois could not forgive Madame d'Étampes for
having taken away the title of mistress of the king. Madame d'Étampes had a
violent jealousy against Madame de Valentinois, because the king maintained
a business with her. This prince did not have exact loyalty to his mistresses:
there was always one who had the title and the honors, but the ladies who were
called from the little gang shared it in turn. The loss of the dauphin his son, who
died at Tournon and who was believed to be poisoned, gave him a significant
affliction. He did not have the same tenderness nor the same taste for his
second son, who currently reigns; he did not find in her enough boldness nor
enough vivacity. He complained about it one day to Madame de Valentinois,
and she told him that she wanted to make him fall in love with her to make him
more lively and more pleasant. She succeeds as you see: this passion has
lasted for more than twenty years without it having been altered either by time
or by obstacles.
The late king was initially opposed to it; and, whether he still had enough
love for Madame de Valentinois to be jealous, or whether he was pushed by the
Duchess of Étampes, who was in despair that M. le dauphin was attached to
his enemy, It is certain that he experienced this passion with an anger and a
sorrow of which he showed signs every day. His son did not fear
23
his anger nor his hatred, and nothing could force him to diminish his attachment or hide it;
The king had to get used to putting up with it. Also this opposition to his wishes further
distanced him from him, and attached him more to the Duke of Orléans, his third son. He
was a well-made prince, handsome, full of fire and ambition, of a fiery youth, who needed
to be moderate, but who would also have made a prince of great elevation if his age had
matured. his mind.
The rank of eldest that the dauphin had, and the favor of the king that the Duke of
Orléans had, created between them a sort of emulation which went as far as hatred. This
emulation had begun in their childhood and had always been preserved. When the Emperor
passed through France, he gave complete preference to the Duke of Orléans over M. the
Dauphin, who felt it so keenly that, as this Emperor was at Chantilly, he wanted to force M.
the Constable to arrest him without wait for the king's command. The constable did not
want this: the king later blamed him for not having followed his son's advice, and when he
removed him from court this reason had a lot to do with it.
The division of the two brothers gave the Duchess of Étampes the idea of relying on
the Duke of Orléans to support her with the king against Madame de Valentinois. She
succeeded in this: this prince, without being in love with her, was hardly less in her interests
than the dauphin was in those of Madame de Valentinois. This created two cabals in the
courtyard, such as you can imagine; but these intrigues were not limited only to women's
quarrels.
The emperor, who had retained friendship for the Duke of Orléans, had offered several
times to hand over the Duchy of Milan to him. In the proposals which were made since then
for peace, he hoped to give him the seventeen provinces and to make him marry his
daughter. The Dauphin wanted neither peace nor this marriage. He used Mr. Constable,
whom he always loved, to show the king how important it was not to give his successor a
brother as powerful as a Duke of Orléans would be with the alliance of the emperor and the
seventeen provinces. Mr. the Constable entered into the feelings of Mr. the Dauphin all the
better, as he thereby opposed those of Madame d'Étampes, who was his declared enemy,
and who wished
ardently for the elevation of M. the Duke of Orléans.

M. the dauphin then commanded the king's army in Champagne, and had reduced that
of the emperor to such an extremity that it would have perished entirely if the Duchess of
Étampes, fearing that too great advantages would make us refuse the peace and the
alliance of the Emperor for the Duke of Orléans, would not have secretly warned the
enemies to surprise Épernay and Château-Thierry, which were full of provisions. They did
so, and by this means saved their entire army.
24
This duchess did not enjoy the success of her betrayal for long. Shortly
afterwards, the Duke of Orléans died at Farmoutier of a kind of contagious
disease. He loved one of the most beautiful women at court and was loved by her.
I will not name her for you, because she has since lived with so much wisdom,
and she even hid with so much care the passion she had for this prince, that
she deserved to be preserved. his reputation. As luck would have it, she
received the news of her husband's death on the same day that she learned
of M. d'Orléans; so that she had this pretext to hide her true affliction, without
having the trouble of forcing herself.
The king hardly survived the prince his son; he died two years later.
He recommended that the Dauphin use Cardinal de Tournon and Admiral
d'Annebault, and did not speak of the Constable, who was then relegated to
Chantilly. It was nevertheless the first thing that the king, his son, did to recall
him and give him the government of affairs.
Madame d'Étampes was expelled, and received all the ill-treatment that
she could expect from an all-powerful enemy: the Duchess of Valentinois then
took full revenge both on this duchess and on all those who had displeased
her. His power appeared more absolute on the king's mind than it had
appeared while he was dauphin. For twelve years that this prince has reigned,
she has been absolute mistress of all things; she disposes of the offices and
affairs: she had Cardinal de Tournon, Chancellor Olivier and Villeroy chased
away. Those who wanted to enlighten the king on his conduct perished in this
enterprise. The Count of Taix, grandmaster of the artillery, who did not like
him, could not help talking about his gallantries, and especially that of the
Count of Brissac, of whom the king had already been very jealous:
nevertheless she did so well that the Count of Taix was disgraced; her office
was taken from her, and, what is almost incredible, she had it given to the
Count of Brissac, and then made him Marshal of France. The king's jealousy
nevertheless increased to such an extent that he could not tolerate this
marshal remaining at court; but jealousy, which is bitter and violent in all
others, is gentle and moderate in him, through the extreme respect he has for
his mistress; so that he only dared to remove his rival on the pretext of giving
him the government of Piedmont. He spent several years there. He returned
last winter, under the pretext of asking for troops and other things necessary
for the army he commands. The desire to see Madame de Valentinois again
and the fear of being forgotten perhaps had a lot to do with this trip. The king received him with g
MM. de Guise, who do not love him, but who do not dare to testify to it
because of Madame de Valentinois, used M. le vidame, who is his declared
enemy, to prevent him from obtaining any of the things that 'he had come to
ask. It was not difficult to harm him: the king hated him and his presence
made him worry; so that he was forced to return
25
without gaining any fruit from his journey other than having perhaps rekindled in the heart
of Madame de Valentinois feelings that absence was beginning to extinguish.
The king had other reasons for jealousy; but either he did not know them, or he did
not dare to complain about them.
– I don’t know, my daughter, added Madame de Chartres, if you will not find
that I have taught you more things than you wanted to know.
“I am very far from making this complaint, madame,” replied Madame de Clèves; and,
without the fear of bothering you, I would still ask you several circumstances of which I
am unaware.
Mr. de Nemours' passion for Madame de Clèves was at first so violent that it took
away from him the taste and even the memory of all the people he had loved and with
whom he had maintained business during his absence.
He not only took care to look for pretexts to break with them: he could not have the
patience to listen to their complaints and respond to their reproaches.
Madame la dauphine, for whom he had had rather passionate feelings, could not
hold in his heart against Madame de Clèves. His impatience for the journey to England
even began to slow down, and he no longer pressed with so much ardor the things which
were necessary for his departure.
He often went to the queen-dauphine, because Madame de Clèves often went there;
and he was not sorry to let people imagine what people believed about his feelings for
this queen. Madame de Cleves seemed so valuable to him that he resolved rather to fail
to give her signs of his passion than to risk making her known to the public. He did not
even speak of it to the Vidame de Chartres, who was his close friend, and from whom
he had nothing hidden. He behaved so wisely and observed himself with so much care
that no one suspected him of being in love with Madame de Clèves except the Chevalier
de Guise: and she would have had difficulty noticing it herself, if he The inclination she
had for him would not have given him special attention to his actions which would not
allow him to doubt them.
She did not find herself in the same disposition to tell her mother what she thought of
this prince's feelings as she had been to speak to her about her other lovers: without
having a formed intention of hiding it from her, she did not find it from him. spoke point.
But Madame de Chartres saw him only too clearly, as well as the fondness her daughter
had for him.
This knowledge gave her a perceptible pain: she well judged the danger faced by
this young person in being loved by a man like M. de Nemours, for whom she had an
inclination. She was entirely confirmed in her suspicions of this inclination by something
which happened a few days later.
26
The marshal of Saint-André, who sought every opportunity to show off his magnificence,
begged the king, on the pretext of showing him his house, which had only just been
completed, to do him the honor of go to dinner with the queens. This marshal was also
very happy to show to Madame de Clèves this dazzling expenditure which amounted to
profusion.
A few days before the one who had been chosen for this supper, the king-dauphin,
whose health was quite poor, had felt ill and had not seen anyone. The queen, his wife,
had spent the whole day with him. In the evening, as he was feeling better, he brought in
all the people of quality who were in his anteroom. The queen-dauphine went to her house:
there she found Madame de Clèves and some other ladies who were most familiar with
her.
As it was already quite late, and she was not dressed, she did not go to the queen: she
sent word that she was not seen, and had her jewels brought, in order to choose some for
the ball of the Marshal of Saint-André, and to give some to Madame de Clèves, to whom
she had promised some.
As they were engaged in this occupation, the Prince de Condé arrived. Its quality made
all entries free.
The queen-dauphine told him that he probably came from her husband's king,
and asked him what they were doing there.
“We are arguing against M. de Nemours, madame,” he replied; and he defends the
cause he supports with so much warmth that it must be his own.
I believe he has some mistress who gives him anxiety when she is at the ball, as he finds
it an unfortunate thing for a lover to see the person he loves there.
“How can it be,” replied the dauphine, “M. de Nemours does not want his mistress to
go to the ball? I had believed that husbands could wish that their wives did not go there;
but, as for lovers, I never thought that they could feel this way.
– M. de Nemours finds, replied the Prince de Condé, that the ball is the most unbearable
thing for lovers, whether they are loved or not. He says that, if they are loved, they have
the sorrow of being less loved for several days; that there is no woman whom the care of
her adornment does not prevent from thinking of her lover; that they are entirely occupied
with it; that this care of adorning oneself is for everyone, as well as for the one they love;
that, when they are at the ball, they want to please everyone who looks at them; that, when
they are satisfied with their beauty, they have a joy of which their lover does not make the
greatest part. He also says that, when one is not loved, one suffers even more from seeing
one's mistress in an assembly; that, the more she is admired by the public, the more
27
we find ourselves unhappy not to be loved by them; that one always fears that his
beauty will give birth to some love happier than his own: finally he finds that there
is no suffering like that of seeing his mistress at the ball, except knowing that it is
there, and not to be there.
Madame de Clèves did not pretend to hear what the Prince de Condé said,
but she listened to him attentively.
She easily judged what part she had in the opinion held by M. de Nemours,
and especially in what he said about the sadness of not being at the ball where
his mistress was, because he was not to be at the one of Marshal de Saint André,
and that the king sent him to meet the Duke of Ferrara.
The Queen-Dauphin laughed with the Prince de Condé, and did not approve
of the opinion of M. de Nemours.
– There is only one occasion, Madame, said the Prince de Condé to her, when
M. de Nemours consents to his mistress going to the ball, and that is when it is
he who gives it; and he said that, the last year that he gave one to Your Majesty,
he found that his mistress did him a favor to come there, although she only
seemed to follow you there; that it is always a favor to a lover to share in the
pleasure he gives; that it is also a pleasant thing for the lover that his mistress
sees him the master of a place where the whole court is, and that she sees him
doing the honors well.
“M. de Nemours was right,” said the queen-dauphine, smiling, “to approve of
his mistress going to the ball. There were then such a large number of women to
whom he gave this quality that, if they had not come, there would have been few
people.
As soon as the Prince de Condé had begun to relate the feelings of M. de

Nemours about the ball, Madame de Clèves had felt a great desire not to go to
that of the Maréchal de Saint-André. She easily came to the opinion that one
should not go to a man who loved one; and she was very pleased to have a
reason for severity to do something which was a favor for M. de Nemours; she
nevertheless took away the ornament that the queen-dauphine had given her; but
in the evening, when she showed it to her mother, she told her that she had no
intention of using it; that Marshal de Saint-André took so much care to show that
he was attached to her, that she had no doubt that he also wanted to make people
believe that she would take part in the entertainment that he was to give to the
king , and that, under the pretext of doing the honors of his home, he would render
her care which perhaps she would be embarrassed about.
28
Madame de Chartres fought her daughter's opinion for some time, as finding it
peculiar; but seeing that she was stubborn about it, she went there, and told him that
she had to play sick to have a pretext for not going, because the reasons which
prevented her from going would not be approved, and that it was even necessary to
prevent them from being suspected.
Madame de Cleves willingly agreed to spend a few days at her house, so as not
to go to a place where Monsieur de Nemours was not supposed to be, and he left
without having the pleasure of knowing that she would not go there.
He returned the day after the ball; he knew that she had not been there; but as he
did not know that the conversation at the king-dauphin's had been repeated in her
presence, he was far from believing that he was happy enough to have prevented
her from going there.
The next day, as he was at the queen's house and speaking to the dauphine,
Madame de Chartres and Madame de Clèves came there and approached this
princess. Madame de Cleves was a little neglected, like a person who had been ill,
but her face did not correspond to her clothing.
You are so beautiful, said the dauphine, that I cannot believe that you were ill. I think
that M. le Prince de Condé, by telling you M. de Nemours' opinion on the ball,
persuaded you that you would be doing Marshal de Saint-André a favor to go to his
house, and that it is what stopped you from coming there. Madame de Cleves blushed
at what the dauphine guessed so correctly, and at what she said in front of M. de
Nemours what she had guessed.
Madame de Chartres saw at that moment why her daughter had not wanted to go
to the ball; and, to prevent M. de Nemours from judging him as well as she did, she
spoke with an air which seemed to be based on the truth. I assure you, madame, she
said to the dauphine, that your majesty does more honor to my daughter than she
deserves. She was truly ill; but I believe that if I had not stopped her, she would still
have followed you and shown herself as changed as she was, to have the pleasure
of seeing all that was extraordinary. to last night's entertainment.
Madame la dauphine believed what Madame de Chartres said. M. de Nemours

was very sorry to find it an appearance; nevertheless the blush of Madame de Clèves
made him suspect that what Madame la dauphine had said was not entirely far from
the truth. Madame de Clèves had at first been angry that M. de Nemours had reason
to believe that it was he who had prevented her from going to see Marshal de Saint-
André; but then she felt some kind of sorrow that her mother had entirely taken the
thought away from her.
Although the assembly of Cercamp had been broken up, the negotiations for
peace had always continued, and things were arranged in such a way that at the end
of February they assembled at Cateau-Cambresis. The same
29
deputies returned there, and the absence of Marshal de Saint-André defeated

M. de Nemours from the rival who was more formidable to him by the attention
he had in observing those who approached Madame de Clèves, than by the
progress he could do with her.
Madame de Chartres did not want to let her daughter see that she knew
her feelings for this prince, for fear of making herself suspect of the things she
wanted to tell him.
One day she began to talk about him, she said good things about him, and
mixed with it a lot of poisonous praise about the wisdom he had in being
incapable of becoming lovers, and about the fact that he only thought a
pleasure and not a serious attachment to the trade of women. It is not, she
added, that he was not suspected of having a great passion for the queen-
dauphine; I even see that he goes there very often, and I advise you to avoid,
as much as you can, speaking to him, especially in particular, because
Madame la dauphine treating you as she does, one would soon say that you
are their confidante, and you know how unpleasant this reputation is. I am of
the opinion, if this noise continues, that you go a little less to Madame la
dauphine, so as not to find yourself involved in gallantry adventures.
Madame de Clèves had never heard of the Duke of Nemours and the
Dauphin; she was so surprised by what her mother said to her and she thought
she saw so clearly how wrong she had been in everything she had thought
about the feelings of this prince, that her face changed. Madame de Chartres
noticed this; he came from the world at that moment. Madame de Cleves went
home and locked herself in her study.
We cannot express the pain she felt at knowing, through what her mother
had just told her, the interest she took in M. de Nemours; she had not yet dared
to admit it to herself. She then saw that the feelings she had for him were those
that M. de Cleves had asked so much of her; she found how shameful it was
to have them for someone other than a husband who deserved them. She felt
hurt and embarrassed by the fear that M. de Nemours wanted to use her as a
pretext for Madame la dauphine, and this thought determined her to tell
Madame de Chartres what she had not yet told him.
The next morning she went to her room to carry out what she had resolved;
but she found that Madame de Chartres had a little fever, so that she did not
want to speak to her. This evil nevertheless seemed so insignificant that
Madame de Cleves did not fail to go to Madame la Dauphin's after dinner; she
was in her study with two or three ladies who were most familiar with her. We
were talking about M. de Nemours, said this queen when she saw her, and we
admired how much he had changed.
30
since his return from Brussels; before going there, he had an infinite number
of mistresses, and this was even a fault in him, because he was equally
considerate of those who had merit and those who did not; since he returned,
he recognizes neither one nor the other; there has never been such a big
change, I even find that there is one in his mood and that he is less cheerful
than usual.
Madame de Cleves made no reply, and she thought with shame that she
would have taken everything that was said about the change in this prince
for signs of his passion if she had not been undeceived. She felt somewhat
bitter against the dauphine to see her looking for reasons and being surprised
by something the truth of which she apparently knew better than anyone.
She could not help telling her something about it, and as the other ladies
were leaving, she approached her and said in a low
voice: – Is it also for me, madame, that you have just spoken? ? and
would you like to hide from me that you were the one who made M. de
Nemours change his behavior?
“You are unjust,” said the dauphine to him; you know that I have nothing
hidden from you. It is true that M. de Nemours, before going to Brussels,
had, I believe, the intention of letting me understand that he did not hate me;
but since he came back, it has not even seemed to me that he remembers
the things he had done, and I admit that I am curious to know what made
him change. It will be very difficult for me to unravel it, she added; the
Vidame de Chartres, who is his close friend, is in love with a person over
whom I have some power, and I will know by this means what made this
change. Madame la dauphine spoke in an air which persuaded Madame de
Cleves, and she found herself, despite herself, in a calmer and gentler state
than that in which she had been before.
When she returned to her mother, she knew that she was much worse
off than she had left her. His fever had redoubled, and in the following days
it increased to such an extent that it appeared that it would be a considerable
illness. Madame de Clèves was in extreme distress, she did not leave her
mother's room; M. de Clèves also passed there almost every day, both out
of the interest he took in Madame de Chartres, and to prevent his wife from
giving in to sadness, but also to have the pleasure of seeing her; his passion
was not diminished.
Mr. de Nemours, who had always had a lot of friendship for him, had
continued to show him this since his return from Brussels. During Madame
de Chartres's illness, this prince found a way to see Madame de Clèves
several times, pretending to look for her husband or to come and take him
for a walk. He looked for him even at times when he knew he was not there,
and under the pretext of waiting for him he stayed in
31
Madame de Chartres's antechamber, where there were always several people

of quality. Madame de Clèves often came there, and although she was
distressed, she seemed no less beautiful to M. de Nemours. He showed her
how much interest he took in her affliction, and he spoke to her about it with
such a gentle and submissive air that he easily convinced her that it was not
the dauphine with whom he was in love.
She could not help being disturbed by the sight of him and yet having
pleasure in seeing him; but when she no longer saw him and she thought that
this charm that she found in his sight was the beginning of passions, she almost
believed she hated him, through the pain that this thought gave her. .
Madame de Chartres worsened so considerably that people began to

despair of her life; she received what the doctors told her of the danger she
was in with a courage worthy of her virtue and piety. After they had gone out,
she had everyone withdraw and call Madame de Cleves.
“You must leave us, my daughter,” she said to him, holding out her hand;
the danger in which I leave you and the need you have for me increase the
displeasure I have in leaving you. You have an inclination for M. de Nemours; I
am not asking you to admit it to me: I am no longer in a position to use your
sincerity to lead you. I noticed this inclination a long time ago; but I didn't want
to talk to you about it at first, for fear of making you see it yourself. You know it
only too well now, you are on the edge of the precipice: it takes great efforts
and great violence to hold you back. Think about what you owe to your
husband, think about what you owe to yourself, and think that you are going to
lose this reputation that you have acquired for yourself, and that I so desired
for you. Have strength and courage, my daughter; withdraw from court, force
your husband to take you away; do not be afraid of taking decisions that are
too harsh or too difficult: however dreadful they may seem to you at first, they
will later be sweeter than the misfortunes of gallantry.
If reasons other than those of virtue and your duty could oblige you to what I
wish, I would tell you that, if anything were capable of disturbing the happiness
that I hope for in leaving this world, it would be to see you fall like other women;
but if this misfortune should happen to you, I receive death with joy, so as not
to be a witness to it.
Madame de Clèves burst into tears on her mother's hand, which she held
tightly between hers, and Madame de Chartres, feeling touched herself: -
Farewell, my daughter, she said to her, let us finish a conversation which
softens both of them too much, and remember, if you can, everything I have
just told you.
32
She turned to the other side as she finished these words, and ordered her
daughter to call her wives, without wanting to listen to her or speak further.
Madame de Cleves left her mother's room in the state that one can imagine, and
Madame de Chartres only thought of preparing herself for death. She lived for
two more days, during which she no longer wanted to see her daughter, who
was the only thing to which she felt attached.
Madame de Clèves was in extreme distress; her husband did not leave her
side, and as soon as Madame de Chartres died, he took her to the countryside
to keep her away from a place which only made her pain worse. We have never
seen anything like it: although tenderness and gratitude had the greatest part in
it, the need she felt she had for her mother to defend herself against M. de
Nemours did not fail to be there. have a lot of them.
She found herself unhappy at being abandoned to herself at a time when she
had so little control over her feelings, and when she would have liked so much to
have someone who could pity her and give her strength.
The way in which M. de Cleves used it for her made her wish more strongly
than ever not to fail in anything that she owed him. She also showed him more
friendship and tenderness than she had ever done before; she did not want him
to leave her; and it seemed to her that by becoming so attached to him, he was
defending her against M. de Nemours.
This prince came to see M. de Clèves in the countryside: he did what he
could to also pay a visit to Madame de Clèves; but she did not want to receive
him; and, feeling very well that she could not help finding him amiable, she had
made a strong resolution to prevent herself from seeing him, and to avoid all the
opportunities that depended on her.
M. de Cleves came to Paris to pay court, and promised his wife to
return the next day; However, he did not return until the following day.
– I was expecting you all yesterday, Madame de Clèves said to him when he
arrived, and I must reproach you for not having come as you had promised me.
You know that if I could feel a new affliction in the state I am in, it would be the
death of Madame de Tournon, which I learned of this morning; I would have
been touched by it even if I had not known it; it is always a thing worthy of pity
that a young and beautiful woman like this should have died in two days; but
what's more, she was one of the people in the world who pleased me more, and
who seemed to have as much wisdom as merit.
“I was very sorry not to return yesterday,” replied M. de Cleves; but I was so
necessary to the consolation of an unfortunate person that it was impossible for
me to leave him. For Madame de Tournon, I do not advise you to be distressed
by it, if you miss her as a woman full of wisdom and worthy of your esteem. “You
astonish me,” replied Madame de Clèves, “and I
33
I have heard you say several times that there was no woman at court whom
you esteemed more.
“It is true,” he replied; but women are incomprehensible, and when I see
them all, I find myself so happy to have you that I cannot admire my
happiness enough.
“You esteem me more than I am worth,” replied Madame de Clèves,
sighing, “and it is not yet time to find me worthy of you.
Tell me, I beg you, what disabused you of Madame de Tournon.
– I have been for a long time, he replied, and I know that she liked the
Count of Sancerre, to whom she gave hopes of marrying her.
– I cannot believe, interrupted Madame de Clèves, that Madame de
Tournon, after this extraordinary estrangement that she has shown in favor
of marriage since she was a widow, and after the public declarations she
has made not to remarry never gave Sancerre hope.
“If she had only given it to him,” replied M. de Cleves, “we should not be
surprised; but what is surprising is that she also gave them to Estouteville at
the same time, and I will tell you the whole story.
34
Second part
You know the friendship there is between Sancerre and me; nevertheless
he became in love with Madame de Tournon about two years ago, and hid it
from me with great care, as well as from everyone else: I was far from
suspecting it. Madame de Tournon still seemed inconsolable over the death of
her husband, and lived in austere retirement. Sancerre's sister was almost the
only person she saw, and it was at her house that he became
lover.
One evening, when there was to be a comedy at the Louvre, and only the
King and Madame de Valentinois were expected to begin, people came to say
that she had been unwell, and that the king would not come. It was easily
judged that the illness of this duchess was some conflict with the king: we
knew the jealousies he had had of Marshal de Brissac while he had been at
court; but he had returned to Piedmont a few days ago, and we could not
imagine the subject of this quarrel.
As I was discussing it with Sancerre, M. d'Anville arrived in the room, and

told me in a low voice that the king was in an affliction and anger that was
pitiful; that in a reconciliation which had taken place between him and Madame
de Valentinois, a few days ago, over disputes they had had over Marshal de
Brissac, the king had given her a ring, and had asked her to carry it; that, while
she was dressing to come to the play, he had noticed that she did not have
this ring, and had asked her the reason; that she seemed surprised not to have
it; that she had asked her wives, who, through misfortune or lack of being well
instructed, had replied that it had been four or five days since they had seen
her.
This time was precisely that of the departure of Marshal de Brissac,

continued M. d'Anville: the king had no doubt that she had given him the ring
when bidding him farewell. This thought so vividly aroused all his jealousy,
which was not yet completely extinguished, that he lost his temper, unusually,
and reproached her a thousand times. He has just returned home very
distressed; but I do not know if it is more the opinion that Madame de
Valentinois sacrificed her ring than the fear of having displeased her with her anger.
35
As soon as Mr. d'Anville had finished telling me this news, I approached Sancerre
to tell him; I tell it like a secret that someone had just confided to me, and of which I
forbade him to speak.
The next morning I went to my sister-in-law's house quite early; I found Madame
de Tournon at her bedside: she did not like Madame de Valentinois, and she knew
well that my sister-in-law had no reason to praise her. Sancerre had been at home
after the comedy. He had told him of the king's quarrel with this duchess; and
Madame de Tournon had come to tell it to my sister-in-law, without knowing or
thinking that it was I who had told it to her lover.
As soon as I approached my sister-in-law, she told Madame de Tournon that she

could confide to me what she had just told her; and, without waiting for Madame de
Tournon's permission, she told me word for word everything I had said in Sancerre
the previous evening. You can judge how surprised I was. I looked at Madame de
Tournon; she seemed embarrassed to me. His embarrassment gave me suspicion; I
had only said the thing in Sancerre, he had left me after the comedy, without telling
me the reason; I remembered hearing him praise Madame de Tournon extremely
highly. All these things opened my eyes, and I had no difficulty in discerning that he
had an affair with her, and that he had seen her since he left me.
I was so piqued to see that he was hiding this adventure from me, that I said
several things which made Madame de Tournon aware of the imprudence she had
made: I put her back in her carriage; and I assured her, as I left her, that I envied the
happiness of the one who had informed her of the quarrel between the King and
Madame de Valentinois.
I went, that very hour, to find Sancerre: I reproached him, and I told him that I
knew of his passion for Madame de Tournon, without telling him how I had discovered
it; he was forced to confess it to me. I then told him what had taught me, and he also
told me the details of their adventure: He told me that, although he was the junior of
his house, and very far from being able to claim such a good match, nevertheless
she was determined to marry him. One cannot be more surprised than I was. I told
Sancerre to hasten the conclusion of his marriage, and that there was nothing he
should not fear from a woman who had the artifice of supporting, in the eyes of the
public, a character so far removed from the truth. He replied that she had been truly
distressed; but that the inclination she had had for him had overcome this affliction,
and that she had not been able to let everything appear
36
suddenly such a big change. He told me several other reasons to excuse her, which
showed me to what extent he was in love with her; he assured me that he would make
her agree that I knew of the passion he had for her, since it was she herself who had
taught me about it. He indeed obliged her, although with great difficulty, and I was then
very intimate in their confidence.
I have never seen a woman behave so honestly and so pleasantly towards her lover;
nevertheless I was still shocked at her affectation of still appearing distressed. Sancerre
was so in love, and so happy with the way in which she used it for him, that he almost did
not dare to press her to conclude their marriage, for fear that she would believe that he
wanted it more out of interest than for a reason. true passion. However, he spoke to her
about it, and she seemed determined to marry him; she even began to leave this retirement
where she lived, and to return to the world; she came to my sister-in-law's house at times
when part of the court was there. Sancerre only rarely came there; but those who were
there every evening, and who saw her there often, found her very pleasant.
Shortly after she had begun to leave solitude, Sancerre thought he saw some cooling
in the passion she had for him. He spoke to me about it several times, without my
providing any basis for his complaints; but in the end, as he told me that instead of ending
their marriage she seemed to be pushing him away, I began to believe that he was not
wrong to be worried; I replied that, when Madame de Tournon's passion diminished, after
having lasted two years, we should not be surprised; that even if, without being diminished,
she would not be strong enough to force him to marry her, he should not complain about
it; that this marriage, with regard to the public, would do her extreme harm, not only
because he was not a good enough match for her, but by the damage it would bring to
her reputation; that thus all he could wish for was that she would not deceive him and give
him false hopes. I also told him that if she did not have the strength to marry him, or if she
admitted to him that she loved someone else, he should not lose his temper or complain;
but that he should retain esteem and recognition for her.
I am giving you, I said to him, the advice that I would take for myself; because sincerity
touches me in such a way that I believe that if my mistress, or even my wife, admitted to
me that she liked someone, I would be distressed, without being embittered; I would leave
the character of lover or husband, to advise her and to pity her.
These words made Madame de Cleves blush, and she found in them a certain
connection with the state she was in which surprised her, and which gave her a disturbance
from which she took a long time to recover.
37
Sancerre spoke to Madame de Tournon, continued M. de Clèves, he told

her everything I had advised him; but she reassured him with so much care,
and seemed so offended by his suspicions that she removed them entirely from
him. She nevertheless postponed their marriage until after a trip he was going
to make, which was to be quite long; but she behaved so well until his departure,
and seemed so distressed, that I believed, as well as he did, that she truly loved him.
He left about three months ago; during her absence, I saw little of Madame de
Tournon; you kept me completely occupied, and I only knew that he must return
soon.
The day before yesterday, on arriving in Paris, I learned that she was dead;
I sent to see if we had heard from him; I was informed that he had arrived the
day before, which was precisely the day of Madame de Tournon's death. I went
to see him that very hour, fully suspecting the state in which I would find him;
but his affliction was much greater than I had imagined.
I have never seen pain so deep and tender: the moment he saw me, he
kissed me, bursting into tears. I won't see her anymore, he said to me, I won't
see her anymore, she is dead, I wasn't worthy of her; but I will follow her soon.
After that he was silent, and then, from time to time, always saying: “She is
dead, and I will see her no more,” he returned to cries and tears, and remained
like a man who no longer had reason. . He told me that he had not often
received her letters during his absence, but that he was not surprised, because
he knew her, and he knew the difficulty she had in hazard his letters. He had no
doubt that he would have married her on his return; he looked upon her as the
most amiable and faithful person who had ever been; he thought he was
tenderly loved; he lost her at the moment when he thought he would attach
himself to her forever. All these thoughts plunged him into a violent affliction
with which he was entirely overwhelmed; and I admit that I couldn't help but be
touched by it.
I was nevertheless forced to leave him to go to the king; I promised him I
would come back soon. I actually returned, and I was never so surprised as to
find it completely different from how I had left it. He was standing in his room,
with a furious face, walking and stopping as if he were beside himself.
– Come, come, he said to me, come and see the most desperate man in the
world; I am a thousand times more unhappy than I was earlier, and what I have
just learned from Madame de Tournon is worse than her death.
I believed that the pain disturbed him entirely, and I could not imagine that
there was anything worse than the death of a mistress whom one loves and is
loved by. I told him that as long as his affliction had
38
had limits, I had approved it, and that I had entered into it; but that I would no
longer pity him if he gave in to despair, and if he lost his reason.
– I would be too happy to have lost her, and my life too, he cried: Madame
de Tournon was unfaithful to me, and I learned of her infidelity and her betrayal
the day after I learned of her death , in a time when my soul is filled and
penetrated with the deepest pain and the most tender love that anyone has
ever felt; in a time when her idea is in my heart as the most perfect thing that
has ever been, and the most perfect with regard to me: I find that I was wrong,
and that she does not deserve that I mourn her; However, I have the same
affliction at her death as if she were faithful to me, and I feel her infidelity as if
she were not dead. If I had learned of his change in the face of his death,
jealousy, anger, rage would have filled me and would have hardened me in
some way against the pain of his loss; but I am in a state where I can neither
console myself nor hate it.
You can judge whether I was surprised by what Sancerre told me: I asked
him how he knew what he had just told me. He told me that a moment after I
had left his room, Estouteville, who is his close friend, but who knew nothing of
his love for Madame de Tournon, had come to see him; that, as soon as he
was seated, he began to cry, and that he told her that he asked her forgiveness
for having hidden from him what he was going to teach her; that he begged him
to have pity on him; that he had come to open his heart to her, and that he saw
the man in the world most distressed by the death of Madame de Tournon.
– This name, Sancerre told me, surprised me so much that, although my

first impulse was to tell him that I was more distressed by it than him, I
nevertheless did not have the strength to speak. He continued, and told me that
he had been in love with her for six months, that he had always wanted to tell
me, but that she had expressly forbidden him to do so, and with so much
authority that he had not dared to disobey him; that he had pleased her almost
at the same time as he had loved her; that they had hidden their passion from
everyone; that he had never been to her house publicly; that he had had the
pleasure of consoling her for the death of her husband, and that he was finally
going to marry her at the time she was dead; but that this marriage, which was
an effect of passion, would have seemed an effect of duty and obedience; that
she had won over her father to be commanded to marry him, so that there
might not be too great a change in her conduct, which had been so far from remarrying.
As long as Estouteville spoke to me, Sancerre told me, I gave credence to
his words, because I found plausibility in them, and because the time when he
told me that he had begun to love Madame de Tournon is precisely the one
where she seemed to me changed; but, a moment later, I believed him to be a
liar, or at least a visionary: I was ready to tell him so; I then thought
39
to want to clarify myself; I questioned him, I made him appear doubtful:

finally I did so much to assure myself of my misfortune that he asked me if I
knew Madame de Tournon's handwriting; he put four of his letters and his
portrait on my bed: my brother entered at this moment. Estouteville's face
was so full of tears that he was forced to go out so as not to be seen; he told
me that he would come back this evening to ask for what he had left me,
and I chased my brother away, on the pretext of feeling unwell, out of
impatience to see these letters that had been left for me. , and hoping to find
something there which would not persuade me of everything that Estouteville had just told me.
But unfortunately ! What did I not find there! What tenderness! what oaths!
what assurances to marry him! what letters! She has never written me
anything like this. Thus, he added, I experience both the pain of death and
that of infidelity: these are two evils that have often been compared, but
which have never been felt at the same time by the same person.
I confess, to my shame, that I feel its loss even more than its change; I
cannot find her guilty enough to consent to her death. If she lived, I would
have the pleasure of reproaching her and taking revenge on her by making
her know her injustice; but I will see her no more; this evil is the greatest of
all evils: I would like to restore his life at the expense of mine. What a wish!
if she came back, she would live for Estouteville. How happy I was yesterday!
he cried; how happy I was! I was the most afflicted man in the world; but my
affliction was reasonable, and I found some comfort in thinking that I should
never console myself.
Today all my feelings are unjust: I pay to a feigned passion that she had
for me the same tribute of pain that I believed I owed to a true passion.
I can neither hate nor love his memory; I cannot console myself nor
grieve: at least, he said to me, turning suddenly towards me, please, I beg
you, that I never see Estouteville; his name alone horrifies me. I know very
well that I have no reason to complain about it; it is my fault for having hidden
from him that I was in love with Madame de Tournon; if he had known it,
perhaps he would not have become attached to it; she would not have been
unfaithful to me; he came to look for me to confide his pain to me: he makes
me feel sorry for him. Hey! it is with good reason, he cried. He loved Madame
de Tournon, he was loved by her, and he will never see her: I nevertheless
feel that I cannot help hating him. And, once again, I implore you to ensure
that I do not see it.
Sancerre then began to cry again, to miss Madame de Tournon, to speak
to her and to say the most tender things in the world: he then returned to
hatred, complaints, reproaches and imprecations against her.
40
As I saw him in such a violent state, I knew well that I needed some
assistance to help me calm his mind: I sent for his brother whom I had just
left with the king; I went to speak to him in the antechamber before he
entered, and I told him about the state Sancerre was in. We gave orders to
prevent him from seeing Estouteville, and we spent part of the night trying
to make him capable of reason. This morning I found him more distressed;
his brother remained with him, and I have returned to you.
You couldn't be more surprised than I am, said Madame de Clèves, and
I believed Madame de Tournon incapable of love and deception. Address
and dissimulation, continued M. de Cleves, cannot go further than it has
taken them. Notice that when Sancerre believed that she was changed for
him, she truly was, and that she began to love Estouteville. She told the
latter that he consoled her for the death of her husband, and that it was he
who was the cause of her leaving this great retreat; and it seemed to
Sancerre that it was because we had resolved that she would no longer
testify to being so distressed. She persuaded Estouteville to hide their
intelligence, and to appear obliged to marry her by the command of her
father, as an effect of the care she had of his reputation; and it was to
abandon Sancerre, without him having any reason to complain about it. I
must go back, continued M. de Cleves, to see this unfortunate man, and I
believe that you must also return to Paris. It is time that you see the world
and that you receive this infinite number of visits which you cannot do
without.
Madame de Cleves consented to his return, and she returned the next
day. She found herself calmer about M. de Nemours than she had been;
everything that Madame de Chartres had said to him as she died, and the
pain of her death, had suspended his feelings, which made him believe
that they were entirely erased.
The same evening that she arrived, the dauphine came to see her; and
after showing her the part she had taken in her affliction, she told her that,
to distract her from her sad thoughts, she wanted to inform her of everything
that had happened at court in her absence: she told him several more
particular things. But what I most want to teach you, she added, is that it is
certain that M. de Nemours is passionately in love, and that his most
intimate friends not only are not in his confidence, but that they cannot
guess who is the person he loves. However, this love is strong enough to
make him neglect, or rather abandon, the hopes of a crown.
The dauphine then recounted everything that had happened in England.

I learned what I have just told you, she continued, from M. d’Anville, and
41
he told me this morning that the king sent for M. de Nemours yesterday evening, on
letters from Lignerolle, who asks to return, and who writes to the king that he can no
longer support the queen of England the delays of M. de Nemours; that she was
beginning to take offense, and that even though she had not given a positive word,
she had said enough to risk a trip.
The king read this letter to M. de Nemours, who, instead of speaking seriously as
he had done at the beginning, only laughed, joked, and mocked Lignerolle's hopes.
He said that all Europe would condemn his imprudence if he risked going to England
as a pretended husband of the queen, without being assured of success.
– It also seems to me, he added, that I would not take my time to make this trip, at
present that the King of Spain is making such great demands to marry this queen. He
would perhaps not be a very formidable rival in a gallantry; but I think that, in a
marriage, Your Majesty would not advise me to dispute something with him.
“I would advise you on this occasion,” replied the king; but you will have nothing to
argue with him: I know he has other thoughts; and, even if he did not have one, Queen
Mary found herself too unhappy with the yoke of Spain to believe that her sister would
want to take it back, and that she would allow herself to be dazzled by the brilliance of
so many crowns joined together. together.
– If she does not allow herself to be dazzled by it, replied M. de Nemours, it seems
that she will want to make herself happy through love. She loved Lord Courtenay
several years ago: he was also loved by Queen Mary, who would have married him
with the consent of all England, without her knowing that the youth and beauty of her
sister affected more than the hope of reigning. Your Majesty knows that the violent
jealousies she felt led her to put both of them in prison, to then exile my Lord
Courtenay, and finally determined her to marry the King of Spain. I believe that
Elizabeth, who is currently on the throne, will soon recall this lord, and that she will
choose a man whom she loved, who is very lovable, who suffered so much for her,
rather than another whom she has never seen.
“I would be of your opinion,” replied the king, “if Courtenay still lived; but I learned
a few days ago that he died in Padua, where he was relegated. I see clearly,” he
added as he left M. de Nemours, “that we should arrange your marriage as we would
that of the Dauphin, and send the Queen of England to marry by ambassadors.
M. d'Anville and M. le vidame, who were at the king's with M. de Nemours, are
convinced that it is this same passion with which he is occupied which diverts him
from such a great design.
42
The vidame, who sees him more closely than anyone, told Madame de
Martigues that this prince is so changed that he no longer recognizes him; and
what astonishes him more is that he sees no commerce, nor any particular
hours when he evades; so that he believes that he has no understanding with
the person he loves; and this is what makes M. de Nemours misunderstand, to
see him loving a woman who does not respond to his
love.
What poison for Madame de Clèves is the speech of Madame the Dauphin!
The way of not recognizing yourself for this person whose name you didn't
know; and the means of not being penetrated with gratitude and tenderness by
learning, through a path that could not be suspected by her, that this prince,
who already touched her heart, hid his passion from everyone, and neglected,
for 'love of her, the hopes of a crown!
So we cannot represent what she felt and the turmoil that arose in her soul.
If the dauphine had looked at her attentively, she would have easily noticed
that the things she had just said were not indifferent to her; but, as she had no
suspicion of the truth, she continued speaking, without giving it any thought.
“M. d’Anville,” she added, “who, as I have just told you, taught me all this
detail, believes me to be better informed than he; and he has such a high
opinion of my charms that he is convinced that I am the only person who can
make such great changes in M. de Nemours.
These last words of the dauphine gave a different kind of trouble to Madame
de Clèves than that which she had had a few moments before.
“I would easily be of M. d’Anville’s opinion,” she replied; and it is very likely,

madame, that it takes no less than a princess like you to make the Queen of
England despise.
– I would admit it to you, if I knew it, replied Madame la dauphine, “and I
would know it if it were true. These kinds of passions do not escape the sight
of those who cause them: they are the first to notice them. Mr. de Nemours has
never shown me anything but slight complaisance; but there is nevertheless
such a great difference in the way he lived with me from the way he lives there
now, that I can answer you that I am not the cause of the indifference he has
for the crown of 'England.
I am forgetting myself with you, added the dauphine, and I do not remember
that I must go and see Madame. You know that peace is almost concluded; but
you do not know that the King of Spain did not want to pass any article unless
he married this princess, instead of Prince Don Carlos, her son.
43
The king had great difficulty in resolving to do so: finally he consented; and
he went today to announce this news to Madame. I believe she will be
inconsolable: it is not something that could please her, to marry a man of the
age and temperament of the King of Spain, especially to her who has all the joy
that gives early youth combined with beauty, and who expected to marry a
young prince for whom she had an inclination without having seen him. I don't
know if the king will find in her all the obedience he desires: he has charged me
to see her, because he knows that she loves me, and because he believes that
I will have some power on his mind. I will then make another very different visit,
I will go and rejoice with Madame, sister of the king.
Everything has been decided for her marriage to M. de Savoie, and he will
be here in a short time. Never has anyone of this princess's age had such
complete joy at getting married.
The courtyard is going to be more beautiful and bigger than we have ever
seen it; and, despite your affection, you must come to help make strangers
aware that we do not have mediocre beauties.
After these words, the dauphine left Madame de Clèves; and, the next day,
Madame's marriage was known to everyone. The following days, the king and
queens went to see Madame de Clèves. Mr. de Nemours, who had awaited her
return with extreme impatience, and who ardently wished to be able to speak to
her without witnesses, waited to go to her house until everyone would leave,
and apparently no one would return. . He succeeded in his design, and he
arrived as the last visitors left.
This princess was on her bed; it was hot ; and the sight of M. de Nemours
gave her a blush which did not diminish her beauty; he sat down opposite her
with that fear and timidity that true passions give. He remained for some time
without being able to speak. Madame de Cleves was no less taken aback, so
that they remained silent for quite a long time.
Finally M. de Nemours spoke, and complimented him on his affliction;

Madame de Cleves, being very happy to continue the conversation on this
subject, spoke at some length about the loss she had suffered; and finally she
said that, when time had lessened the violence of her pain, she would still have
such a strong impression of it that her mood would be changed. Great afflictions
and violent passions, M. de Nemours explains, cause great changes in the mind;
and, for me, I haven't recognized myself since I came back from Flanders. Many
people have noticed this change, and even the dauphine was talking to me
about it again yesterday. It is true, replied Madame de Clèves, that she noticed
it, and I think I heard her say something about it. I'm not angry, madam, replied
44
M. de Nemours, let her have noticed it; but I wish she wasn't the only one to
notice it. There are people to whom we dare not give any other sign of the
passion we have for them than things that concern them none; and, not
daring to make it appear to them that we love them, we would at least like
them to see that we do not want to be loved by anyone.
We would like them to know that there is no beauty, whatever its rank,
that we do not look at with indifference, and that there is no crown except the
we wanted to buy at the price of never seeing them. Women usually judge
the passion we have for them, he continued, by the care we take to please
them and to seek them out; but it is not a difficult thing, as long as they are
lovable: what is difficult is not to abandon oneself to the pleasure of following
them, it is to avoid them through the fear of letting it appear to the public, and
even to themselves, the feelings we have for them. And what marks a true
attachment even better is to become entirely opposed to what one was, and
to have no more ambition or pleasure, after having been occupied all one's
life with one and on the other.
Madame de Clèves easily understood the part she had in these words. It
seemed to her that she had to respond to them, and not suffer them. It also
seemed to her that she should not hear them, nor testify that she took them
for herself: she thought she should speak, and thought she should say
nothing. M. de Nemours' speech pleased her and offended her almost
equally: she saw in it the confirmation of everything that Madame la dauphine
had made her think; she found there something gallant and respectful, but
also something bold and too intelligible.
M. de Cleves came to tell his wife news from Sancerre; but she did not
have much curiosity for the continuation of this adventure. She was so
occupied with what had just happened, that she could scarcely conceal the
distraction of her mind. When she was free to dream, she knew well that she
had been mistaken when she thought she had nothing but indifference for M.
de Nemours. What he had said to her had made all the impression he could
have wished for, and had entirely convinced her of his passion. The actions
of this prince agreed too well with his words to leave this princess with any
doubt. She no longer flattered herself with the hope of not loving him, she
only thought of never giving him any sign of it.
It was a difficult undertaking, the pains of which she already knew; she
knew that the only way to succeed was to avoid the presence of this prince;
and as her mourning caused her to be more withdrawn than usual, she used
this pretext to no longer go to places where he could see her.
45
She was in deep sadness; the death of his mother seemed to be the cause,
and no other cause was sought.
M. de Nemours was in despair at hardly seeing her anymore; and,
knowing that he would not find her in any assembly or in any of the
entertainments where the whole court was, he could not bring himself to
appear there; he feigned a great passion for hunting, and he played games
on the same days that there were assemblies at the queens' house. A slight
illness served him for a long time as an excuse to stay at home, and to
avoid going to all the places where he knew well that Madame de Clèves would not be.
M. de Clèves was ill at about the same time. Madame de Clèves did not
leave her room during her illness; but when he felt better and saw people,
and among others M. de Nemours, who, on the pretext of being still weak,
spent the greater part of the day there, she found that she did not like it.
could stay there; However, she did not have the strength to get out the first
times he came there. It had been too long since she had seen him to
resolve not to see him. This prince found a way to make her understand,
through speeches which only seemed general, but which she nevertheless
heard, because they were related to what he had said to her at her home,
that he was going to the hunted to dream, and that he did not go to the
assemblies, because she was not there.
She finally carried out the resolution she had made to leave her
husband's house when he arrived; However, this was done with extreme violence.
This prince saw clearly that she was fleeing from him and was noticeably touched.
M. de Cleves did not at first take heed of his wife's conduct; but finally
he realized that she did not want to be in her room when there were people
there. He spoke to her about it, and she replied that she did not believe that
decorum dictated that she should be with the youngest at court every
evening; that she begged him to see it as good for her to lead a more retired
life than she was accustomed to; that the virtue and presence of her mother
authorized many things that a woman of her age could not support.
M. de Cleves, who naturally had a lot of gentleness and complacency

towards his wife, did not have any on this occasion, and he told her that he
did not absolutely want her to change her behavior. She was ready to tell
him that there was a rumor in the world that M. de Nemours was in love
with her, but she did not have the strength to name him. She also felt
ashamed of wanting to use a false reason, and of disguising the truth from
a man who had such a good opinion of her.
A few days later, the king being with the queen at circle time, they talked
about horoscopes and predictions. Opinions were divided on the belief that
should be given to it. The queen added a lot of faith to it;
46
she maintained that after so many things that had been predicted and seen
happening, one could not doubt that there was some certainty in this science.
Others maintained that, among this infinite number of predictions, the few that
were true made it clear that it was only an effect of chance.
I was once very curious about the future, said the king, but I was told so many
false and improbable things that I remained convinced that nothing true can be
known. Some years ago a man of great reputation in astrology came here.
Everyone went to see him: I went there like the others, but without telling him
who I was, and I led M. de Guise and Descars; I made them go first. The
astrologer, nevertheless, addressed me first, as if he had judged me to be the
master of others: perhaps he knew me; However, he said something to me that
would not have suited me, if he had known me. He predicted that I would be
killed in a duel.
He then told M. de Guise that he would be killed from behind, and to Descars
that his head would be broken by a horse kick. M. de Guise was almost offended
by this prediction, as if he had been accused of having to flee. Descars was
hardly satisfied to find that he had to end in such an unfortunate accident.
Finally we all left very unhappy with the astrologer. I don't know what will happen
to M. de Guise and Descars, but there is little likelihood that I will be killed in a
duel. We have just made peace, the King of Spain and I; and, if we had not done
so, I doubt that we would fight and that I would have him summoned as the king
my father had Charles V summoned.
After the misfortune which the king said had been predicted to him, those
who had supported astrology abandoned the party, and agreed that no belief
should be given to it. For me, said M. de Nemours aloud, I am the man in the
world who must have the least; and, turning to Madame de Clèves, with whom
he was: it was predicted to me, he said to her in a low voice, that I would be
happy by the kindness of the person in the world for whom I would have the
most violent and more respectful passion. You can judge, madam, whether I
should believe the predictions.
Madame the dauphine, who believed, from what M. de Nemours had said out
loud, that what he said in a low voice was some false prediction that had been
made to him, asked this prince what he said to Madame de Cleves. If he had
had less presence of mind, he would have been surprised by this request; but,
speaking without hesitation: I told her, madam, he replied, that it was predicted
to me that I would be raised to such a high fortune that I would not even dare to claim it.
If only this prediction has been made to you, replied Madame la dauphine,
smiling and thinking of the English affair, I do not advise you to decry astrology,
and you could find reasons to support it.
Madame de Clèves understood well what the dauphine meant; but
47
she also understood clearly that the fortune that M. de Nemours wanted to talk
about was not being king of England.
As it had already been quite a long time since her mother's death, she had
to begin to appear in society and to pay court as she was accustomed to: she
saw M. de Nemours at Madame la dauphine's, she saw him at M. de Cleves,
where he often came with other quality people of his age, so as not to be
noticed; but she no longer saw him except with a disturbance which he easily
noticed.
However careful she was to avoid his glances and to speak to him less than
to anyone else, certain things escaped her which started from a first movement
which made this prince judge that he was not indifferent to her. A man less
penetrating than him would perhaps not have noticed it; but he had already
been loved so many times that it was difficult for him not to know when he was
loved. He saw clearly that the Chevalier de Guise was his rival, and this prince
knew that M. de Nemours was his. He was the only man at court who had
unraveled this truth; his interest had made him more clear-sighted than the
others: the knowledge they had of their feelings gave them a bitterness which
appeared in all things, without however breaking out in any conflict; but they
were opposed, always on different sides in the ring races, in the fights at the
barrier and in all the entertainments where the king enjoyed himself, and their
emulation was so great that it could not be hidden.
The affair of England often recurred in the mind of Madame de Clèves: it
seemed to her that M. de Nemours would not resist the advice of the king and
the entreaties of Lignerolle. She saw with difficulty that the latter had not yet
returned, and she awaited him impatiently. If she had followed his movements,
she would have carefully informed herself of the state of this affair; but the same
feeling which gave her curiosity obliged her to conceal it, and she inquired only
into the beauty, the wit, and the humor of Queen Elizabeth. One of her portraits
was brought to the king, which she found more beautiful than she had wanted
to find, and she could not help saying that he was flattered. I don't believe it,
replied Madame la dauphine, who was present: this princess has the reputation
of being beautiful and of having a strong mind above the common, and I know
well that she was offered to me all the time. my life as an example. She must
be lovable if she resembles Anne de Boulen, her mother. Never has a woman
had so many charms and so many pleasures in her person and in her mood. I
have heard that there was something lively and singular about her face, and
that she had no resemblance to other English beauties. It also seems to me,
continued Madame de Clèves, that we
48
said she was born in France. Those who believed him were wrong, replied
Madame la dauphine, and I will tell you her story in a few words.
Anne de Boulen was from a good English house. Henry VIII had been in
love with his sister and mother, and it was even suspected that she was his
daughter. She came here with the sister of Henry VII, who married King
Louis XII. This princess, who was young and gallant, had great difficulty
leaving the court of France after the death of her husband; but Anne de
Boulen, who had the same inclinations as her mistress, could not bring
herself to leave. The late king was in love with her, and she remained maid
of honor to Queen Claude. This queen died, and Madame Marguerite,
sister of the king, duchess of Alençon, and since then queen of Navarre,
whose tales you have seen, took her to her side, and she took from this
princess the tinctures of the new religion . She then returned to England
and charmed everyone there; she had the French manners which please
all nations; she sang well; she danced admirably: she was made the
daughter of Queen Catherine of Aragon, and King Henry VIII became madly in love with her.
Cardinal Wolsey, his favorite and his prime minister, had claimed the
pontificate, and, unhappy with the emperor, who had not supported him in
this claim, he resolved to take revenge and unite the king his master to
France. He put it in Henry VIII's mind that his marriage with the emperor's
aunt was void, and suggested that he marry the Duchess of Alençon,
whose husband had just died. Anne de Boulen, who had ambition, saw this
divorce as a path that could lead her to the throne. She began to give the
King of England impressions of Luther's religion, and urged the late king to
favor Henry's divorce in Rome, based on the hope of Madame d'Alençon's
marriage. Cardinal Wolsey had himself deputed to France on other pretexts
to deal with this affair; but his master could not bring himself to allow even
the proposal to be made, and he sent him an order to Calais not to speak
of this marriage.
On his return from France, Cardinal Wolsey was received with honors
similar to those paid to the king himself; never has a favorite carried pride
and vanity to such a high point. He arranged an interview between the two
kings, which took place in Boulogne. Francis I gave his hand to Henry VIII,
who did not want to receive it: they treated each other in turn with
extraordinary magnificence, and gave each other clothes similar to those
they had had made for themselves. I remember hearing that those which
the late king sent to the King of England were of crimson satin, decorated
in a triangle with pearls and diamonds, and the dress of white velvet
embroidered with gold. After having been in Boulogne for a few days, they went again to Cala
49
Anne de Boulen was lodged with Henry VIII with the style of a queen, and
Francis I made her the same presents and paid her the same honors as if
she had been. Finally, after a passion of nine years, Henry VIII married her
without waiting for the dissolution of his first marriage which he had requested
from Rome for a long time. The pope uttered the fulminations against him
with haste, and Henry was so irritated that he declared himself head of
religion, and led all England into the unfortunate change in which you see it.
Anne de Boulen did not enjoy her greatness for long; because, when she
thought she was most assured by the death of Catherine of Aragon, one day
when she attended with the whole court the ring races that the Viscount of
Rochefort, her brother, was doing, the king was struck by it. such jealousy,
that he abruptly left the spectacle, came to London, and left orders to arrest
the queen, the Viscount de Rochefort and several others whom he believed
to be lovers and confidants of this princess. Although this jealousy seemed
born at that moment, it had already been inspired for some time by the
Viscountess de Rochefort, who, unable to tolerate her husband's close
connection with the queen, made her look to the king as a criminal friendship;
so that this prince, who moreover was in love with Jeanne de Seymour, only
thought of getting rid of Anne de Boulen. In less than three weeks he put this
queen and her brother on trial, had their heads cut off and married Jeanne
Seymour. He then had several wives whom he repudiated or put to death,
including Catherine Howart, whose confidant the Countess de Rochefort was
and who had her head cut off with her. She was thus punished for the crimes
she had accused of Anne de Boulen, and Henry VIII died having become
prodigiously large.
All the ladies who were present at Madame la dauphine's story thanked
her for having so well informed them about the English court, and among
others Madame de Cleves, who could not help asking her several more
questions about Queen Elizabeth. .
The queen-dauphine had small portraits made of all the beautiful people
of the court to send them to the queen, her mother. The day that Madame de
Cleves' day was ending, Madame la dauphine came to spend the after-
dinner at her house. M. de Nemours did not fail to be there; he did not miss
any opportunity to see Madame de Clèves, without however letting it appear
that he was looking for them. She was so beautiful that day that he would
have fallen in love with her even if he hadn't: he didn't dare keep his eyes on
her while they were painting her, and he was afraid of revealing too much.
the pleasure he had in looking at her.
The dauphine asked M. de Clèves for a small portrait that he had of his
wife, to see alongside the one that was being completed: everyone said
50
her feelings about both, and Madame de Clèves ordered the painter to mend
something to the hairstyle of the one who had just been brought.
The painter, to obey him, removed the portrait from the box in which it was, and,
after working on it, he put it back on the table.
M. de Nemours had long wanted to have a portrait of Madame de Clèves. When
he saw the one that belonged to M. de Cleves, he could not resist the urge to steal it
from a husband whom he believed to be tenderly loved: and he thought that, among
so many people who were in this same place, he would not be suspected rather
than anyone else.
Madame la dauphine was sitting on the bed, and speaking in a low voice to
Madame de Clèves, who was standing in front of her. Madame de Clèves saw,
through one of the curtains which was only half closed, M. de Nemours, his back
against the table, which was at the foot of the bed; and she saw that, without turning
his head, he deftly took something from the table. She had no difficulty in guessing
that it was her portrait; and she was so disturbed that the dauphine noticed that she
was not listening to her, and asked her out loud what she was looking at. M. de
Nemours turned at these words; he met the eyes of Madame de Clèves which were
still fixed on him, and he thought that it was not impossible that she had seen what
he had just done.
Madame de Clèves was not a little embarrassed; reason dictated that she asked
for his portrait; but, by asking it publicly, it was telling everyone the feelings that this
prince had for her, and, by asking her in particular, it was almost encouraging her to
speak to him about her passion; finally she judged that it was better to leave it to
him, and she was very happy to grant him a favor that she could do for him without
him even knowing that she was doing it to him. M. de Nemours, who noticed her
embarrassment, and who almost guessed the cause, approached her and said in a
low voice: If you saw what I dared to do, have the kindness, madame, to tell me let
people believe that you don't know it; I dare not ask you more; and he withdrew after
these words and did not wait for his answer.
Madame the dauphine went out for a walk, followed by all the ladies, and M. de
Nemours went to shut himself up in his home, not being able to bear the joy of
having a portrait of Madame de Clèves in public. He felt everything that passion can
make you feel most pleasant; he loved the most amiable person at court; he made
herself loved in spite of her, and he saw in all her actions the sort of trouble and
embarrassment that love causes in the innocence of early youth.
In the evening, we looked for this portrait with great care: as we found the box
where it was supposed to be, we did not suspect that it had been stolen, and we
believed that it had fallen by chance. M. de Cleves was grieved at this loss, and,
after a further search in vain, he said to his wife, but
51
in a way which showed that he did not think so, that she undoubtedly had some
hidden lover to whom she had given this portrait, or who had stolen it, and that no
one other than a lover would would not be happy with the painting without the box.
These words, although said with a laugh, made a strong impression on the
mind of Madame de Clèves: they gave her remorse; she reflected on the violence
of the inclination which drew her towards M. de Nemours; she found that she was
no longer in control of her words and her face; she thought that Lignerolle had
returned, that she no longer feared the affair of England; that she no longer had
any suspicions about Madame la dauphine; that finally there was nothing left that
could defend her, and that there was no safety for her except by moving away. But
as she was unable to move away, she found herself in great extremity, and ready
to fall into what seemed to her the greatest misfortune, which was to let M. de
Nemours see the inclination that 'she had for him. She remembered everything
that Madame de Chartres had said to her when she was dying, and the advice she
had given her to take all kinds of decisions, however difficult they might be, rather
than embarking on a gallantry.
What M. de Cleves had said about sincerity, when speaking of Madame de

Tournon, came back to her mind: it seemed to her that she should confess to him
the inclination she had for M. de Nemours. This thought occupied him for a long
time; then she was surprised to have had it, she found madness in it, and fell back
into the embarrassment of not knowing which side to take.
Peace was signed: Madame Élisabeth, after much reluctance, had resolved to
obey the king, her father. The Duke of Alba had been appointed to come and marry
her in the name of the Catholic king, and he was soon to arrive. The Duke of Savoy
was expected, who was coming to marry Madame, sister of the king, and whose
wedding was to take place at the same time.
The king only thought of making these weddings famous by entertainments
where he could show off the skill and magnificence of his court. We proposed
everything the greatest that could be done for ballets and comedies; but the king
found these entertainments too particular, and he wanted greater splendor. He
resolved to hold a tournament, where foreigners would be welcomed, and where
the people could be spectators. All the princes and young lords entered into the
king's plan with joy, and especially the Duke of Ferrara, M. de Guise and M. de
Nemours, who excelled all the others in these kinds of exercises. The king chooses
them to be the four holders of the tournament.
It was published throughout the kingdom that in the city of Paris the passage
was opened on the fifteenth of June, by his most Christian majesty, and by the
princes Alphonse of the East, Duke of Ferrara; François de Lorraine, Duke of Guise; And
52
Jacques de Savoie, Duke of Nemours to be held against all comers: to begin the
first combat on horseback in the running, in double piece, four lance strokes, and
one for the ladies.
The second fight with swords, one by one or two by two, at the will of the
masters of the camp.
The third combat on foot, three pike blows and six sword blows which the
defenders would provide with spears, swords and pikes, at the choice of the
attackers, and which, if while running we gave to the horse, we would be put out
ranks. That there would be four masters of the camp to give orders, and that
those of the attackers who broke the most and did the best would have a prize
whose value would be at the discretion of the judges; that all attackers, both
French and foreign, would be required to come and touch one of the shields which
would be hung on the steps at the end of the list, or several, according to their
choice; that there they would find an officer of arms who would receive them to
enlist them according to their rank, and according to the crowns they would have
received; that the attackers would be required to have a gentleman bring their
shield, with their weapons, to hang on the steps three days before the start of the
tournament; that otherwise they would not be received there without the leave of the tenants.
A large list was made near the Bastille which came from the Château des
Tournelles, which crossed the rue Saint-Antoine, and which was going to go to
the royal stables. There were scaffolds and amphitheaters on both sides, with
covered boxes, which formed a kind of gallery which gave a very beautiful effect
to the view, and which could contain an infinite number of people. All the princes
and lords were only occupied with the care of ordering what was necessary for
them to appear brilliantly, and to mix in their figures; or in their mottos, something
gallant which related to the people they loved.
A few days before the arrival of the Duke of Alba, the king played a game of
tennis with M. de Nemours, the Chevalier de Guise and the Vidame de Chartres.
The queens went to see them play, followed by all the ladies, and, among others,
Madame de Cleves. After the game was over, as they were leaving the game of
tennis, Châtelart approached the queen-dauphine and told her that chance had
just placed in her hands a letter of gallantry which had fallen from the pocket of
Mr. de Nemours. This queen, who always had curiosity about what concerned
this prince, told Châtelart to give it to him; she took it, and followed the queen, her
mother-in-law, who was going with the king to see work at the lists. After having
been there for some time, the king had horses brought in that he had recently
brought. Although they were not yet prepared, he wanted to mount them, and had
them given to all those who had followed him. The king and M. de Nemours found
themselves among the most fiery; these horses wanted to throw each other at
each other. M. de Nemours, for fear of hurting
53
the king, suddenly backed away, and carried his horse against a pillar of the
riding school with so much violence that the shock made him stagger. They
ran to him, and believed him to be considerably injured. Madame de Clèves
thought he was even more injured than the others. The interest she took in it
gave her an apprehension and a disturbance which she did not think of hiding;
she approached him with the queens, and with a face so changed that a man
less interested than the Chevalier de Guise would have noticed it; so he
noticed it easily, and he paid much more attention to the state in which
Madame de Clèves was than to that in which M. de Nemours was. The blow
that this prince had given himself was so dazzling that he remained for some
time with his head bent towards those who supported him. When he raised
her, he first saw Madame de Clèves; he knew in her face the pity she had for
him, and he looked at her in a way that could make him judge how touched he
was. He then thanked the queens for the kindness they showed him, and
apologized for the state he had been in before them. The king ordered him to go and rest.
Madame de Cleves, after having recovered from the fright she had had,
soon reflected on the marks she had given. The Chevalier de Guise did not
leave her for long in the hope that no one would have noticed, he gave her his
hand to lead her out of the lists. I am more to be pitied than M. de Nemours,
madame, he said to her: forgive me if I go beyond this deep respect that I
have always had for you, and if I show you the deep pain that I feel from what
I just saw; This is the first time I have been bold enough to speak to you, and
it will also be the last. Death, or at least eternal distance, will take me from a
place where I can no longer live, since I have just lost the sad consolation of
believing that all those who dare to look at you are as unhappy as me.
Madame de Clèves only responded with a few poorly arranged words, as if

she had not heard what those of the Chevalier de Guise meant. In another
time she would have been offended that he had spoken to her about the
feelings he had for her; but, at that moment, she only felt the affliction of
seeing that he had noticed those she had for M. de Nemours. The Chevalier
de Guise was so convinced and so overcome with pain that, from that day on,
he resolved never to think of being loved by Madame de Clèves. But, to leave
this enterprise which had seemed so difficult and so glorious to him, he needed
someone else whose grandeur could occupy him. He decided to take Rhodes,
of whom he had already had some thoughts; and, when death took him from
the world in the flower of his youth, and at the time when he had acquired the
reputation of one of the greatest princes of his century, the only regret he
showed at leaving life was to have been unable to carry out such a beautiful
resolution, the success of which he believed to be infallible through all the care he had taken.
54
Madame de Cleves, leaving the lists, went to the queen, her mind well occupied
with what had happened. M. de Nemours came there a short time later, dressed
magnificently, and like a man who did not feel the accident that had happened to
him: he even seemed more cheerful than usual, and the joy of what he believed
having seen it gave him an air which further increased his pleasure. Everyone was
surprised when he entered; and there was no one who did not ask him for news,
except Madame de Clèves, who remained near the fireplace, without pretending
to see him. The king came out of a study where he was, and, seeing him among
the others, he called him to tell him about his adventure. M. de Nemours passed
by Madame de Clèves and said to her in a low voice: I have received marks of
your pity today, Madam, but it is not one of those of which I am most worthy.
Madame de Cleves had well suspected that this prince had noticed the
sensitivity she had had for him, and these words made her see that she had not
been mistaken. It was a great pain for him to see that she was not able to hide her
feelings, and to have let them appear to the Chevalier de Guise. She also had
many that M. de Nemours knew; but this last pain was not so complete and it was
mixed with a sort of sweetness. The Queen-Dauphin, who was extremely impatient
to know what was in the letter that Châtelart had given her, approached Madame
de Clèves. Go read this letter, she said to him, it is addressed to M. de Nemours,
and, to all appearances, it is from this mistress for whom he left all the others: if
you cannot read it now, keep there ; Come this evening when I go to bed to give it
back to me and to tell me if you know the writing.
The dauphine left Madame de Cleves after these words, and left her so
astonished and in such great shock that she was for some time unable to leave
her place. Her impatience and confusion did not allow her to stay with the queen;
she went home, although it was not the hour when she was accustomed to retire.
She held this letter with a trembling hand; her thoughts were so confused that she
did not have a distinct one, and she found herself in a sort of unbearable pain that
she did not know and that she had never felt.
As soon as she was in her study, she opened this letter and found it as follows:
“I loved you too much to let you believe that the change that appears to you in me
is an effect of my lightness; I want to teach you that your infidelity is the cause. You
are very surprised that I am talking to you about your infidelity; you had hidden it
from me with so much skill, and I took so much care to hide it from you that I knew
it, that you are right to be surprised that it was known to me. I'm surprised myself
that I wasn't able to tell you anything about it.
55
Never has pain been like mine: I believed that you had a violent passion for me; I no
longer hid from you the one that I had for you, and, in the time that I let you see it in
full, I learned that you were deceiving me, that you loved another, and that, according
to all appearances, you sacrifice me to this new mistress. I found out the day of the ring
race; that's why I didn't go there.
I pretended to be ill to hide the disorder of my mind; but I actually became one, and my
body could not support such violent agitation.
When I began to feel better, I still pretended to be very ill, in order to have an excuse
not to see you and not to write to you. I wanted to have time to decide how I should
deal with you: I made and left the same resolutions twenty times; but finally I found you
unworthy to see my pain, and I resolved not to show it to you.
I wanted to hurt your pride by making you see that my passion was weakening of its
own accord. I thought this would reduce the price of the sacrifice you were making; I
didn't want you to have the pleasure of showing how much I loved you in order to
appear more lovable. I resolved to write you lukewarm and languid letters, to convey to
the mind of the one to whom you gave them that people were ceasing to love you. I did
not want her to have the pleasure of learning that I knew that she triumphed over me,
nor to increase her triumph by my despair and by my reproaches.
I thought that I would not punish you enough by breaking up with you, and that I would
only give you slight pain if I stopped loving you when you no longer loved me. I found
that you had to love me to feel the pain of not being loved, which I felt so cruelly. I
believed that if anything could rekindle the feelings you had had for me, it was to make
you see that mine had changed, but to make you see it by pretending to hide it from
you, and as if I had not didn't have the strength to admit it.
I stopped at this resolution; but how difficult it was for me to take! and seeing you, it
seemed difficult to execute! I was ready a hundred times to burst out with my reproaches
and my tears: the state in which I was still in terms of my health served me to disguise
my trouble and my affliction.
I was then sustained by the pleasure of dissembling with you, as you dissembled with
me; nevertheless I took such great pains to tell you and to write to you that I loved you,
that you saw sooner than I had intended to let you see that my feelings were changed.
You were hurt; you complained about it: I tried to reassure you, but it was in such a
forced way that you were even more convinced that I no longer loved you. Finally I did
everything I had intended to do. The strangeness of your heart made you come back
to me as you saw that I was moving away from you. I have enjoyed all the pleasure
that revenge can give; It seemed to me that you loved me better than you ever did, and
I showed you that I no longer loved you.
I had reason to believe that you had completely abandoned the one for whom you left
me. I also had reason to be convinced that you had never spoken to him about me, but
your return and your discretion could not repair your thoughtlessness. Your heart was
divided between me and another: you deceived me. This is enough to take away the
pleasure of being loved by you, as I believed I deserved to be, and to leave me in this
resolution that I have taken to never see you, and of which you are so surprised. »
56
Madame de Clèves read this letter and reread it several times, without
however knowing what she had read: she only saw that M. de Nemours did
not love her as she had thought, and that he loved others than he cheated like
her. What a sight and what knowledge for a person of her temper, who had a
violent passion, who had just given marks to a man she considered unworthy,
and to another whom she mistreated for love of him ! Never had an affliction
been so stinging and so acute: it seemed to him that what made this affliction
so bitter was what had happened that day, and that if M. de Nemours had not
taken place of to believe that she loved him, she would not have cared if he
had loved another. But she was mistaken herself; and this evil, which she
found so unbearable, was jealousy with all the horrors with which it can be
accompanied.
She saw from this letter that M. de Nemours had been gallant for a long
time. She found that the one who had written the letter had wit and merit: she
seemed worthy of being loved; she found more courage in him than she found
in herself, and she envied the strength she had had in hiding her feelings from
M. de Nemours. She saw, by the end of the letter, that this person thought she
was loved: she thought that the discretion that this prince had shown her, and
by which she had been so touched, was perhaps only the effect of the passion
he had for this other person whom he feared displeasing. Finally she thought
of everything that could increase her affliction and her despair.
What reflections did she make on herself! what reflections on the advice
his mother had given him! How much did she repent of not having persisted in
separating herself from the commerce of the world, in spite of M. de Cleves,
or of not having followed the thought she had had of confessing to him the
inclination she had for M. de Nemours! She found that she would have done
better to reveal it to a husband whose goodness she knew, and who would
have had an interest in hiding it, than to let it be seen to a man who was
unworthy of it, who cheated on her, who sacrificed her perhaps. -being, and
who only thought of being loved by her through a feeling of pride and vanity;
finally she found that all the evils that could happen to her and all the extremes
she could go to were less than having let M. de Nemours see that she loved
him, and knowing that he loved one of them. other. All that consoled her was
to at least think that after this knowledge she no longer had anything to fear
from herself, and that she would be entirely cured of the inclination she had
for this prince.
She hardly thought of the order that the dauphine had given her to be at
bedtime; she got into bed and pretended to be unwell; so that when M. de
Cleves returned from the king's house, he was told that she was asleep; but it
was far removed from the tranquility that leads
57
to sleep. She spent the night doing nothing but grieving and rereading the letter
in her hands.
Madame de Clèves was not the only person whose rest this letter disturbed.
The Vidame de Chartres who had lost it, and not M. de Nemours, was extremely
worried: he had spent the whole evening with M. de Guise, who had given a
large supper to the Duke of Ferrara, his step-in-law. brother, and to all the
youth of the court.
As luck would have it, at supper, we talked about pretty letters. The Vidame
de Chartres said that he had one on him prettier than any that had ever been
written. He was pressed to show it, but he refused. M. de Nemours assured
him that he had none; and that he only spoke out of vanity. The vidame replied
that he was pushing his discretion to the limit, that nevertheless he would not
show the letter, but that he would read some places in it which would make it
appear that few men received such letters.
At the same time he wanted to take this letter, but did not find it. He sought
it in vain, people made war against him; but he seemed so worried that they
stopped talking to him about it. He retired earlier than the others, and went
home impatiently to see if he had left the letter he was missing.
As he was still looking for her, the queen's first valet came to him to tell him
that the Viscountess of Uzès had thought it necessary to promptly warn him,
that it had been said at the queen's house that he had fallen letter of gallantry
from his pocket while he was playing tennis; that much of what was in the letter
had been told; that the queen had shown great curiosity to see her that she
had sent to ask one of her gentleman servants, but that he had replied that he
had left her in the hands of Châtelart.
The first valet said many other things to the Vidame de Chartres, which
caused him great distress. He left at the same time to go to a gentleman who
was a close friend of Châtelart; he made him get up, although the hour was
extraordinary to go and ask for this letter, without saying who it was who asked
for it, and who had lost it. Châtelart, who was aware that she belonged to M.
de Nemours, and that this prince was in love with Madame la dauphine, had
no doubt that it was he who made him ask for her again. He replied, with
malicious joy, that he had placed the letter in the hands of the queen-dauphine.
The gentleman came to make this response to the Vidame de Chartres: it
increased the anxiety he already had, and added new ones. After having been
undecided for a long time about what he should do, he found that only M. de
Nemours could help him get out of the embarrassment he was in.
He went home, and entered his room, when daylight was only beginning to
dawn. This prince slept peacefully; what he had
58
seen the previous day by Madame de Clèves, had only given him general
ideas.
He was very surprised to find himself awakened by the Vidame de
Chartres, and he asked him if it was to take revenge for what he had said to
him during supper that he had come to disturb his rest. The vidame made
him judge, by his face, that there was nothing serious about the subject that
brought him. I have come to entrust you with the most important matter of my
life, he told her. I know very well that you should not be obliged to me, since
it is at a time when I need your help; but I also know very well that I would
have lost your esteem if I had told you everything I am going to tell you
without necessity having forced me to do so. I dropped this letter I was talking
about last night; it is of extreme consequence to me that no one knows that it is addressed to me
She was seen by many people who were in the tennis court where she fell
yesterday; you were there too, and I ask your grace to say that it was you
who lost her. You must believe that I have no mistress, replied M. de
Nemours, smiling, to make me such a proposition, and to imagine that there
is no one with whom I could quarrel by letting people believe that I receive
such letters.
I beg you, said the vidame, listen to me seriously: if you have a mistress, as I
have no doubt, although I do not know who she is, it will be easy for you to
justify yourself; I will give you the infallible means; if you do not justify yourself
to her, it can only cost you to be confused for a few moments; but I, through
this adventure, dishonor a person who loved me passionately and who is one
of the most estimable women in the world; and, on the other hand, I attract an
implacable hatred, which will cost me my fortune and perhaps something
more.
I cannot hear everything you say to me, replied M. de Nemours, but you give
me a glimpse that the rumors which have circulated of the interest that a great
princess took in you are not entirely false. They are not, too, remarked the
Vidame de Chartres, and would to God that they were! I would not find myself
in the embarrassment I find myself in; but I must tell you everything that
happened, to show you everything I have to fear.
Since I have been at court, the queen has always treated me with great
distinction and kindness, and I had reason to believe that she was kind to me;
nevertheless there was nothing in particular, and I had never thought of
having any other feelings for her than those of respect.
I was even very much in love with Madame de Thémines, it is easy to judge,
when seeing her, that one can have a lot of love for her when one is loved,
and I was. Nearly two years ago, as the court was at Fontainebleau, I found
myself two or three times in conversation with the queen at times when there
were very few people there. It seemed to me that my mind pleased him, and
59
that she understood everything I said to her. One day, among other things,
we started talking about trust: I said that there was no one in whom I had
complete trust; that I found that one always repented of having them, and
that I knew many things of which I had never spoken. The queen told me that
she esteemed me more; that she had not found anyone in France who had
secrets, and that this was what had embarrassed her the most, because it
had taken away the pleasure of giving her confidence; that it was a necessary
thing in life to have someone to whom one could talk, and especially for
people of one's rank. The following days, she continued the same
conversation again; she even told me about some pretty special things that
were happening. Finally it seemed to me that she wanted to be sure of my
secret, and that she wanted to confide hers to me. This thought attached me
to her: I was touched by this distinction, and I paid my court to her with much
more assiduity than I was accustomed. One evening when the king and all
the ladies had gone for a horseback ride in the forest where she had not
wanted to go because she had felt a little unwell, I stayed with her: she went
down to the edge from the pond, and left the hand of his squires to walk more
freely. After she had done a few laps, she approached me and ordered me
to follow her. I want to speak to you, she said to me, and you will see, by
what I want to tell you, that I am one of your friends. She stopped at these
words, and looking at me fixedly: You are in love, she continued; and because
you perhaps trust no one, you believe that your love is not known; but it is
known, and even to interested people. We observe you, we know the places
where you see your mistress; we intend to surprise you there. I don't know
who she is, I'm not asking you, and I only want to protect you from the
misfortunes you may fall into.
She wanted to know if I was in love, and by not asking who I was in love with,
and by only letting me see the sole intention of pleasing me, she took away
the thought that she was speaking to me out of curiosity or by design.
However, against all sorts of appearances, I unraveled the truth. I was in
love with Madame de Thémines; but, although she loved me, I was not happy
enough to have special places to see her and to fear being surprised there,
and so I saw clearly that it could not be the one the queen wanted to talk
about. I also knew well that I had a chitchat with another woman less beautiful
and less severe than Madame de Thémines, and that it was not impossible
that the place where I saw her had been discovered; but, as I cared little
about it, it was easy for me to protect myself from all kinds of dangers by
ceasing to see her. So I decided not to admit anything to the queen, and to
assure her, on the contrary, that it had been a very long time since I had
abandoned the desire to be loved by women from whom I could hope to be
loved. , because I found almost all of them unworthy of attaching a
60
honest man, and that there was only something far above them which could bind me.
You do not answer me sincerely, replied the queen; I know the opposite of what you
are telling me. The way I speak to you should force you not to hide anything from me.
I want you to be one of my friends, she continued; but I do not want, by giving you this
place, to ignore what your attachments are. See if you want to buy it at the cost of
teaching me: I'll give you two days to think about it; but, after that time, think carefully
about what you will say to me, and remember that if later I find that you have deceived
me, I will not forgive you for the life of me.
The queen left me after saying these words to me without waiting for my response.
You can believe that my mind was full of what she had just told me. The two days she
gave me to think about it didn't seem too long to make up my mind. I could see that
she wanted to know if I was in love, and that she didn't want me to be. I saw the
consequences and consequences of the course I was going to take; my vanity was
not a little flattered by a particular liaison with a queen, and a queen whose person is
still extremely amiable. On the other hand, I loved Madame de Thémines; and,
although I committed a kind of infidelity for this other woman I spoke to you about, I
could not bring myself to break up with her. I also saw the danger to which I exposed
myself by deceiving the queen, and how difficult it was to deceive her; nevertheless I
could not bring myself to refuse what fortune offered me, and I took the chance of
everything that my bad behavior could attract to me. I broke up with this woman whose
affair could be discovered, and I hoped to hide the one I had with Madame de
Thémines.
At the end of the two days that the queen had given me, as I entered the room
where all the ladies were in the circle, she said to me out loud with a serious air which
surprised me: Have you thought about this matter which I charged you, and do you
know the truth? Yes, madam, I replied, and she is as I told your majesty. Come this
evening at the time I have to write, she replied, and I will finish giving you my orders. I
made a deep bow without replying, and did not fail to find myself at the time she had
marked out for me. I found her in the gallery where her secretary and one of her wives
were. As soon as she saw me, she came to me and led me to the other end of the
gallery. Well ! she asked me, is it after having thought about it carefully that you have
nothing to say to me and does the way in which I deal with you not deserve that you
speak to me sincerely? It is because I am speaking to you sincerely, Madam, I said to
her, that I have nothing to say to you, and I swear to your majesty, with all the respect
I owe, that I have no attachment for any woman of the court.
I want to believe it, replied the queen, because I wish it, and I wish it
61
because I want you to be entirely attached to me, and it would be impossible

for me to be happy with your friendship if you were in love. We cannot trust
those who are, we cannot be sure of their secret: they are too distracted
and too divided, and their mistress gives them a first occupation which does
not agree with the way in which I want you are attached to me. Remember
then that it is on the word you give me that you have no commitment that I
choose you to give you all my confidence. Remember that I want all of
yours; that I want you to have no friend except those who will please me,
and that you abandon all other care than that of pleasing me. I will not make
you lose that of your fortune; I will conduct it with more diligence than you
yourself, and whatever I do for you, I will be far too rewarded if I find you for
me as I hope. I choose you to confide to you all my sorrows and to help me
soften them. You can judge that they are not mediocre. I apparently suffer,
without much difficulty, the king's attachment to the Duchess of Valentinois,
but it is unbearable to me. She governs the king, she deceives him, she
despises me; all my people are hers. The queen, my daughter, proud of her
beauty and the credit of her uncles, does not owe me any duty. The
constable of Montmorency is master of the king and the kingdom; he hates
me, and has given me marks of his hatred which I cannot forget. Marshal
de Saint-André is a bold young favorite, who doesn't deal with me any better
than the others. The details of my misfortunes would make you pity; I have
not dared to trust anyone until now; I trust you; let me not repent of it, and
be my only consolation. The queen's eyes reddened as she finished these
words; I thought of throwing myself at her feet, I was so truly touched by the
kindness she showed me. From that day on, she had complete confidence
in me; she no longer did anything without talking to me, and I maintained an
affair which still lasts.
62
Third part
However, however full and busy I was with this new connection with the
queen, I was attached to Madame de Thémines by a natural inclination that I
could not overcome: it seemed to me that she was ceasing to love me; and,
instead of, if I had been wise, I would have used the change that appeared in her
to help me heal myself, my love redoubled, and I behaved so badly that the
queen had some knowledge of this attachment. Jealousy is natural to people of
her nation, and perhaps this princess has stronger feelings for me than she
herself realizes. But finally the rumor that I was in love gave her such great worry
and such great sorrow that I thought myself lost a hundred times near her. I
finally reassured her with care, submission and false oaths; but I would not have
been able to deceive her for long, if Madame de Thémines' change had not
separated me from her in spite of myself. She made me see that she no longer
loved me; and I was so convinced of this that I was forced not to torment her any
further and to leave her at rest. Some time later, she wrote me this letter which I
lost. I learned from this that she had known about the relationship I had had with
this other woman of whom I spoke to you, and that this was the cause of her
change. As I then had nothing left to share with me, the queen was quite pleased
with me; but as the feelings I have for her are not of a nature to make me
incapable of any other attachment, and as one is not in love by one's will, I have
become one with Madame de Martigues, for whom I had already had a great
inclination while she was Ville-Montais, daughter of the queen-dauphine.
I have reason to believe that I am not hated by it; the discretion that I make
appear to her, and for which she does not know all the reasons, is pleasant to
her. The queen has no suspicions about her subject; but she has another which
is hardly less annoying. As Madame de Martigues is still with the Queen-
Dauphin, I also go there much more often than usual. The queen imagined that
it is this princess that I am in love with. The rank of the queen-dauphine, which
is equal to hers, and the beauty and youth that she has above her give her a
jealousy that goes to the point of fury, and a hatred against her daughter-in-law.
that she could no longer hide. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who seems to me to
have long been aspiring to the good graces of the Queen, and who sees clearly
that I occupy a place that he would like to fill under the pretext of reconciling
Madame la dauphine with her, has entered into the disagreements that they had
together. I have no doubt that he unraveled the real
63
subject of the queen's bitterness, and I believe that he does me all sorts of
bad offices, without letting her see that he intends to do them to me. This is
the state of things as I speak to you. Judge what effect the letter that I lost,
and that my misfortune made me put in my pocket to return to Madame de
Thémines, can produce. If the queen sees this letter, she will know that I
deceived her, and that, almost at the same time as I deceived her for
Madame de Thémines, I deceived Madame de Thémines for another: judge
what idea this can give her of me, and if she can ever trust my words. If she
doesn't see this letter, what will I tell her? She knows that it has been placed
in the hands of Madame la dauphine: she will believe that Châtelart
recognized the writing of this queen and that the letter is from her: she will
imagine that the person whose jealousy is perhaps itself: finally there is
nothing that she does not have reason to think, and there is nothing that I
should not fear from her thoughts. Add to this that I am deeply touched by
Madame de Martigues; that Madame la dauphine will certainly show him this
letter, which she will believe was written recently: thus I will be equally at
odds with the person in the world whom I love the most, and with the person
in the world whom I must fear the most. See, after that, if I am not right to
implore you to say that the letter is yours, and to ask you for the grace of
going to take it from the hands of the dauphine.
I see clearly, said M. de Nemours, that one cannot be in a greater
embarrassment than that in which you are, and it must be admitted that you
deserve it. I have been accused of not being a faithful lover, and of having
several gallantries at the same time; but you pass me by so far that I would
not even have dared to imagine the things you have undertaken. Could you
pretend to keep Madame de Thémines by engaging with the queen, and did
you hope to engage with the queen and be able to deceive her? She is
Italian and a queen, and, therefore, full of suspicion, jealousy and pride;
when your good fortune, rather than your good conduct, removed you from
the commitments you were in, you took on new ones, and you imagined that
in the middle of the court you could love Madame de Martigues without the
queen I noticed it. You couldn't take too much care to take away the shame
of having taken the first steps. She has a violent passion for you: your
discretion prevents you from telling me and mine from asking you; but finally
she loves you; she is distrustful and the truth is against you.
Is it up to you to overwhelm me with reprimands, interrupted the vidame, and
should not your experience give you indulgence for my faults? However, I
am willing to admit that I am wrong: but think, I implore you, of pulling me
out of the abyss in which I find myself. It seems to me that you should see
the queen-dauphine as soon as she is awake, to ask her for this letter as
having lost it. I have already told you, continued M. de Nemours, that the
64
The proposal you made to me is a little extraordinary, and my particular interest

may cause me to find difficulties in it; but, moreover, if this letter was seen to
fall from your pocket, it seems to me difficult to persuade that it fell from mine.
I thought I had told you, replied the vidame, that the queen-dauphine was told
that it was yours that she had fallen from.
How ! replied M. de Nemours abruptly, who saw at that moment the bad offices
that this mistake could do him with Madame de Clèves, “was the queen-
dauphine told that it was I who dropped this letter? Yes, replied the vidame,
they told him so; and what made this mistake was that there were several
gentlemen of the queens in one of the rooms of the tennis court where our
clothes were, and that your people and mine were looking for them at the
same time: letter fell, these gentlemen picked it up and read it aloud. Some
believed it was yours, and others believed it was mine. Châtelart, who took it,
and from whom I have just asked for it, said that he had given it to the queen-
dauphine as a letter which was yours; and those who spoke of it to the queen
said, unfortunately, that it was mine: so you can easily do what I wish, and
relieve me of the embarrassment I am in.
M. de Nemours had always loved the Vidame de Chartres very much, and
what he was to Madame de Clèves made him even more dear. However, he
could not bring himself to take the chance that she would hear about this letter
as something in which he had an interest. He began to dream deeply, and the
vidame, roughly suspecting the subject of his reverie: I do believe, he said to
him, that you fear falling out with your mistress, and you would even give me
reason to believe that it is with the queen-dauphine, if the little jealousy that I
see from M. d'Anville does not take the thought away from me; but, in any
case, it is right that you do not sacrifice your rest for mine, and I want to give
you the means to make the one you love see that this letter is addressed to
me and not to YOU ; Here is a note from Madame d'Amboise, who is a friend
of Madame de Thémines, and in whom she trusted all the feelings she had for
me. With this note, she asks me again for this letter from her friend; that I lost.
My name is on the note, and what is inside proves, without a doubt, that the
letter that I am being asked for is the same one that was found. I place this
note in your hands, and I agree that you show it to your mistress to justify
yourself. I implore you not to waste a moment and to go this morning to
Madame la dauphine. M. de Nemours promised it to the Vidame de Chartres,
and took Madame d'Amboise's note: nevertheless his intention was not to see
the Queen-Dauphin, he found that he had something more urgent to do. He
had no doubt that she had already spoken to Madame de Clèves about the
letter, and he did not
65
could bear that a person he loved desperately had reason to believe that he had some
attachment to another.
He went to her at the hour he thought she might be awake, and told her that he
would not ask to have the honor of seeing her at such an extraordinary hour if a matter
of consequence did not interest him. obliged to do so. Madame de Cleves was still in
bed, her mind sour and agitated by the sad thoughts she had had during the night.
She was extremely surprised when she was told that M. de Nemours was asking for
her. The bitterness she felt did not make her hesitate to answer that she was ill and
that she could not speak to him.
This prince was not hurt by this refusal: a mark of coldness at a time when she could
be jealous was not a bad omen.
He went to the apartment of M. de Clèves, and told him that he came from that of his
wife; that he was very sorry at not being able to talk to her, because he had to speak
to her about an important matter for the Vidame de Chartres.
He made M. de Clèves understand in a few words the consequence of this affair, and
M. de Clèves took him that very hour to his wife's room. If she had not been in the
dark, she would have had difficulty hiding her confusion and her astonishment at
seeing M. de Nemours enter led by her husband. M. de Clèves told him that it was a
letter in which his help was needed for the interests of the vidame; that she would see
with M. de Nemours that there was work to be done, and that, for him, he was going
to the king, who had just sent for him.
M. de Nemours remained alone with Madame de Clèves, as he could have wished.
– I have come to ask you, madame, he said to her, if the dauphine has not spoken
to you about a letter which Châtelart gave her into her hands yesterday.
“She told me something about it,” replied Madame de Clèves; but I do not see
what this letter has in common with my uncle's interests, and I can assure you that he
is not named in it.
“It is true, madame,” replied M. de Nemours, “he is not named there; nevertheless
it is addressed to him, and it is very important to him that you take it out of the hands
of the dauphine.
– I find it difficult to understand, resumed Madame de Clèves, why it matters to her
that this letter be seen, and why it must be requested again under his name.
– If you want to give yourself the leisure to listen to me, madame, said M. de
Nemours, I will soon show you the truth, and you will learn things so important for M.
le vidame, that I would not even have confided them to the Prince of Cleves, if I had
not needed his help to have the honor of seeing you.
“I think that anything you would take the trouble to tell me would be useless,”
replied Madame de Clèves with a rather dry air; and it is better that
66
you were going to find the queen-dauphine, and, without looking for any
detours, you tell her the interest you have in this letter, since she has also been
told that it comes from you.
The bitterness that M. de Nemours saw in the mind of Madame de Clèves
gave him the most sensitive pleasure he had ever had, and countered his
impatience to justify himself.
“I do not know, madame,” he continued, “what anyone may have said to the
dauphine; but I have no interest in this letter, and it is addressed to the vidame.
“I believe so,” replied Madame de Clèves; but the queen-dauphine was told
the opposite, and it will not seem likely to her that the letters from M. le Vidame
would fall out of your pockets: that is why, unless you have some reason, I do
not don't know, to hide the truth from the queen-dauphine, I advise you to
confess it to her.
“I have nothing to confess to him,” he continued; the letter is not addressed
to me, and, if there is anyone I wish to persuade, it is not Madame his dauphine:
but, madame, as this is about the fortune of Mr. the vidame, find it good that I
teach you things which are even worthy of your curiosity.
Madame de Cleves testified by her silence that she was ready to listen to
him; and M. de Nemours told him, as succinctly as possible, everything he had
just learned from the vidame.
Although these were things calculated to cause astonishment and to be
listened to with attention, Madame de Cleves heard them with such great
coldness that it seemed as if she did not believe them to be true or that they
were indifferent to her. His mind remained in this situation until M. de Nemours
spoke to him about the note from Madame d'Amboise, which was addressed
to the Vidame de Chartres, and which was proof of everything he had just told her.
As Madame de Clèves knew that this woman was a friend of Madame de
Thémines, she found an appearance of truth in what Mr. de Nemours told her,
which made her think that the letter was perhaps not addressed to him.
This thought suddenly, and in spite of herself, brought her out of the coldness
she had felt until then. This prince, after having read to her the note which
made his justification, presented it to her to read, and told her that she could
know the writing: she could not help taking it, looking at the top to see if he
addressed himself to the Vidame de Chartres, and to read it in its entirety, to
judge whether the letter that was requested was the same one that she had in her hands.
M. de Nemours told her everything he thought would persuade her; and as one
easily persuades an agreeable truth, he convinced Madame de Cleves that he
had no part in this letter.
67
She then began to reason with him about the embarrassment and the danger the
vidame was in, to blame him for his wicked behavior, to seek means to help him: she
was surprised at the queen's action; she admitted to M. de Nemours that she had the
letter; finally, as soon as she believed him innocent, she entered with an open and
calm mind into the same things which at first she seemed not to deign to hear. They
agreed that it was not necessary to return the letter to the queen-dauphine, for fear
that she would show it to Madame de Martigues, who knew the handwriting of
Madame de Thémines, and who would easily have guessed, by the interest which
she took from the vidame, which she addressed to him. They also found that it was
not necessary to entrust to the queen-dauphine everything that concerned the queen,
her mother-in-law. Madame de Clèves, under the pretext of her uncle's business, took
pleasure in keeping all the secrets that M. de Nemours confided to her.
This prince would not have always spoken to him about the interests of the
vidame, and the freedom he had to talk to him would have given him a boldness that
he had not yet dared to take, if someone had not come to tell Madame de Cleves
that the queen-dauphine ordered him to go find her. M. de Nemours was forced to
withdraw.
He went to find the vidame to tell him that after leaving him, he had thought that it
was more appropriate to address Madame de Clèves, who was his niece, than to go
straight to Madame la dauphine. He did not lack reasons to have what he had done
approved, and to hope for good success.
However, Madame de Cleves dressed in diligence to go to the queen. She had
barely appeared in her room when this princess brought her near and said to her in a
low voice: “I have
been waiting for you for two hours, and I have never been so embarrassed to
disguise the truth that I been this morning.
The queen has heard of the letter I gave you yesterday; she believes that it was
the Vidame de Chartres who let her down. You know that she takes some interest in
it: she sent for this letter; she asked for it from Châtelart, he said that he had given it
to me: someone came to ask for it on the pretext that it was a pretty letter which made
the queen curious.
I didn't dare say that you had it; I thought she would imagine that I had put it in your
hands because of the vidame, your uncle, and that there was great understanding
between him and me.
It already seemed to me that she suffered with difficulty when he saw me often;
so that I said that the letter was in the clothes that I had yesterday, and that those
who had the key to it were taken out.
Give me this letter promptly, she added, so that I can send it to him, and read it
before sending it, to see if I will know the writing.
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Madame de Cleves found herself even more embarrassed than she had expected.
“I don’t know, madame, how you will do it,” she replied; because M. de Cleves, to
whom I had given it to read, returned it to M. de Nemours, who came this morning to
ask him to ask you for it again. M. de Clèves had the imprudence to tell him that he
had it, and he had the weakness to give in to the requests that M. de Nemours made
to him to return it to him.
“You put me in the greatest embarrassment I could ever be in,” replied the
dauphine, “and you are wrong to have returned this letter to M. de Nemours: since it
was I who gave it to you, you do not should not return it without my permission. What
do you want me to say to the queen? and what will she be able to imagine? She will
believe, and apparently, that this letter concerns me, and that there is something
between the vidame and me. No one will ever persuade him that this letter is to M. de
Nemours.
“I am very distressed,” replied Madame de Cleves, “at the embarrassment I am
causing you: I believe it to be as great as it is; but it is the fault of M. de Cleves, and
not mine.
“It is yours,” replied the dauphine, “for having given him the letter; and you are the
only woman in the world who confides in her husband everything she knows.
“I think I am wrong, madame,” replied Madame de Clèves; but think of repairing

my fault, and not of examining it.
Don't you remember roughly what's in this letter? then said the queen-dauphine.
– Yes, Madam, she replied, I remembered it and reread it more than once.
“If that is so,” replied the dauphine, “you must go and have it written in an unknown
hand presently; I will send it to the queen, she will not show it to those who have seen
it; when she did, I would always maintain that it was the one that Châtelart gave me,
and he would not dare say the opposite.
Madame de Cleves entered into this expedient, and all the more so because she
thought that she would send for M. de Nemours to get the letter itself, in order to have
it copied word for word, and to have it almost imitated writing ; and she believed that
the queen would infallibly be deceived. As soon as she was at home, she told her
husband of the embarrassment of the dauphine, and begged him to send for M. de
Nemours. They looked for him; he came by diligence. Madame de Cleves told him
everything she had already taught her husband, and asked him for his letter; but M.
de Nemours replied that he had already returned it to the Vidame de Chartres, who
had been so happy to have it back and to find himself out of the danger he would
have run, that he had sent it back to the same time to the friend of Madame de
Thémines. Madame de Clèves found herself in a new embarrassment; and finally,
after careful consultation, they resolved to write the letter from memory.
69
They locked themselves in to work there: an order was given at the door not to let
anyone in, and all of M. de Nemours' people were sent away. This air of mystery
and confidence was of no small charm to this prince, and even to Madame de
Cleves. The presence of her husband and the interests of the Vidame de Chartres
in some way reassured her of her scruples; she only felt the pleasure of seeing M.
de Nemours; she had a pure and unadulterated joy about it that she had never
felt: this joy gave her a freedom and playfulness in her mind that Mr. de Nemours
had never seen in her, and which redoubled her love. As he had not yet had such
pleasant moments, his vivacity was increased; and when Madame de Cleves
wanted to begin to remember the letter and write it, this prince, instead of helping
her seriously, only interrupted her and said pleasant things to her. Madame de
Cleves entered in the same spirit of gaiety, so that they had already been locked
up for a long time, and the queen-dauphine had already come twice to tell Madame
de Cleves to hurry up. , that they had not yet finished half the letter.
M. de Nemours was very happy to prolong a time which was so pleasant to

him, and forgot the interests of his friend. Madame de Clèves was not bored, and
also forgot her uncle's interests; finally, barely at four o'clock, the letter was
finished, and it was so bad, and the writing from which it was copied resembled
so little to that which it had been intended to imitate, that it would have been The
queen had to have taken little care to clarify the truth not to know it: so she was
not deceived.
However much care was taken to persuade her that this letter was addressed
to M. de Nemours, she remained convinced not only that it was to the Vidame de
Chartres, but she believed that the queen-dauphine had a share in it, and that
'there was some understanding between them: this thought increased so much
the hatred she had for this princess, that she never forgave her and that she
persecuted her until she had brought her out of the France.
As for the Vidame de Chartres, he was ruined with her; and, whether the
Cardinal of Lorraine had already made himself master of her mind, or whether the
adventure of this letter, which made him see that she was deceived, helped her
to unravel the other deceptions that the vidame had already made on her , it is
certain that he was never able to sincerely reconcile with her: their affair broke
down, and she then lost him to Ambroise's conspiracy, where he found himself embarrassed.
After the letter had been sent to the dauphine, M. de Clèves and M. de
Nemours left. Madame de Cleves remained alone, and, as soon as she was no
longer supported by this joy that comes from the presence of what one loves, she
returned as if from a dream, and looked with astonishment at the prodigious
difference in the state. where she was in the evening, from where she was then:
she put the sourness and coldness before her eyes
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which she had published to M. de Nemours as long as she believed that the
letter from Madame de Thémines was addressed to him. What calm and what
gentleness had succeeded this bitterness, as soon as he had persuaded her
that this letter was none of his business! When she thought that she had
reproached herself as a crime, the previous day, for having given him marks
of sensitivity that compassion alone could have given rise to, and that through
her bitterness she had made him appear to have feelings of jealousy which
were certain proofs of passion, she no longer recognized herself: when she
still thought that M. de Nemours saw clearly that she knew his love; that he
also saw clearly that, despite this knowledge, she did not treat him any worse
in the presence of her husband; that on the contrary she had never looked at
him so favorably; that she was the cause that M. de Cleves had sent for her,
and that they had just spent an after-dinner together in private, she found that
she was on good terms with M. de Nemours; that she was deceiving the
husband in the world who least deserved to be deceived, and she was
ashamed of appearing so little worthy of esteem even in the eyes of her lover.
But what she could bear less than everything else was the memory of the
state in which she had spent the night, and the burning pain that the thought
that M. de Nemours loved elsewhere, and that she was deceived, had caused her. .
Until then she had ignored the mortal worries of distrust and jealousy; she
had only thought of preventing herself from loving M. de Nemours, and she
had not yet begun to fear that he loved another.
Although the suspicions that this letter had given her were erased, they still
opened her eyes to the chance of being deceived, and gave her impressions
of distrust and jealousy that she had never had. She was surprised to have
not yet thought how unlikely it was that a man like M. de Nemours, who had
always made women appear so frivolous, was capable of a sincere and lasting
attachment. She found it almost impossible that she could be happy with her
passion. But when I could be, she said, what would I want to do with it? Do I
want to suffer it? Do I want to answer it? Do I want to engage in chivalry? Do
M. de Clèves want to miss me? Do I want to miss myself? And do I finally
want to expose myself to the cruel repentance and mortal pain that love gives?
I am defeated and overcome by an inclination which carries me along in spite
of myself; all my resolutions are useless; I thought yesterday everything I think
today, and I am doing today the complete opposite of what I resolved
yesterday. I must tear myself away from the presence of M. de Nemours; I
must go to my companion, however strange my journey may seem; and if M.
de Cleves persists in preventing it, or in wanting to know the reasons, perhaps
I will do him the harm, and myself too, by telling him them. She remained in
this resolution, and spent all
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that evening at her house, without going to find out from Madame la dauphine what had happened
with the false letter from the vidame.
When M. de Clèves returned, she told him that she wanted to go to the
country, that she was unwell and needed to get some fresh air.
M. de Cleves, to whom she appeared of a beauty which did not convince him
that her sufferings were considerable, at first mocked the proposal of this
journey, and replied that she forgot that the wedding of the princesses and the
tournament was going to take place, and that she did not have much time to
prepare to appear there with the same magnificence as the other women. Her
husband's reasons did not make her change her plans; she asked him to see
fit that, while he went to Compiègne with the king, she went to Coulommiers,
which was a beautiful house, a day's journey from Paris, which they had built
with care. M. de Cleves consented: she went there with the intention of not
returning so soon, and the king left for Compiègne, where he was only to be there for a few days.
M. de Nemours had been very sad at not having seen Madame de Clèves
since that afternoon which he had spent pleasantly with her, and which had
increased his hopes. He had an impatience to see her again which gave him
no rest; so that when the king returned to Paris, he resolved to go to his sister,
the Duchess of Mercoeur, who was in the countryside, quite near Coulommiers.
He suggested to the vidame to go there with him; he easily accepted this
proposal, and M. de Nemours made it in the hope of seeing Madame de Clèves
and going to her house with the viscount.
Madame de Mercoeur received them with great joy, and only thought of
entertaining them and giving them all the pleasures of the countryside. As they
were hunting deer, M. de Nemours got lost in the forest. On inquiring about the
route he should take to return, he learned that he was close to Coulommiers.
At this word from Coulommiers, without making any reflection and without
knowing what his intention was, he went at full speed in the direction shown to him.
He arrived in the forest, and let himself be led at random by carefully made
roads which he judged to be good ones which led towards the castle. He found
at the end of these roads a pavilion whose underneath was a large living room
accompanied by two closets, one of which opened onto a flower garden which
was only separated from the forest by palisades, and the second overlooked a
large path in the park. He entered the pavilion, and he would have stopped to
look at its beauty, had he not seen Mr. and Mrs. de Cleves coming down this
avenue from the park, accompanied by a large number of servants. As he had
not expected to find M. de Cleves, whom he had left with the king, his first
impulse led him to hide: he entered the study which overlooked the flower
garden, with the thought of exit through a door which was open onto the forest;
but seeing that Madame de Clèves and her husband had sat down under the
pavilion, that their servants remained in the park, and that they
72
could not come to him without passing through the place where Mr. and Mrs. de
Cleves were, he could not deny himself the pleasure of seeing this princess, nor
resist the curiosity of listening to her conversation with a husband who gave him
more jealousy than any of its rivals.
He heard that M. de Cleves said to his wife: But why do you not want to
return to Paris? Who can keep you in the countryside? For some time now, you
have had a taste for solitude which surprises me and distresses me, because it
separates us. I find you even sadder than usual, and I fear that you have some
cause for distress. I have nothing untoward in my mind, she replied with an
embarrassed air: but the tumult of the court is so great, and there are always
such a large number of people at your house, that it is impossible for the body to
and the mind does not tire, and one does not seek rest. Rest, he replied, is hardly
appropriate for a person of your age. You are at home, and in the courtyard, so
as not to give you weariness, and I would rather fear that you would be very
happy to be separated from me. You would do me a great injustice to have this
thought, she continued with an ever-increasing embarrassment; but I beg you
to leave me here. If you could stay there, I would be very happy, provided that
you lived there alone, and that you were willing not to have this infinite number
of people there who almost never leave you. Ah! Madam, cried M. de Cleves,
your appearance and your words make me see that you have reasons for
wishing to be alone that I do not know, and I implore you to tell me them. He
urged her for a long time to teach him them, without being able to force her to do
so; and, after she had defended herself in a manner which always increased her
husband's curiosity, she remained in profound silence, with lowered eyes: then,
suddenly, speaking, and looking at him: Don't Do not force me, she said to him,
to confess to you something that I do not have the strength to confess to you,
although I have had the intention of doing so several times.
Just remember that prudence does not dictate that a woman of my age, and in
control of her conduct, remains exposed in the middle of the court. What are you
making me consider, madame? cried M. de Cleves. I wouldn't dare tell you, for
fear of offending you. Madame de Cleves did not respond: and her silence
completed the confirmation of her husband in what he had thought: You are not
telling me anything, he continued, and that tells me that I am not mistaken. Well !
sir, she replied, throwing herself at his knees, I am going to make a confession
to you that no one has ever made to her husband: but the innocence of my
behavior and my intentions gives me the strength. It is true that I have reasons
for moving away from court, and that I want to avoid the dangers in which people
of my age sometimes find themselves. I have never given any sign of weakness,
and I would not be afraid to let it appear, if you gave me the freedom to withdraw
from court, or if I still had Madame de Chartres to
73
help lead me. However dangerous the course I take, I take it with joy to keep
myself worthy of being yours. I ask you a thousand pardons if I have feelings
that displease you; at least I will never displease you by my actions. Remember
that, to do what I do, one must have more friendship and more esteem for a
husband than one has ever had: lead me, have pity on me, and love me again ,
if you can.
M. de Cleves remained throughout this speech with his head resting on his
hands, beside himself; and he had not thought of raising his wife.
When she had stopped speaking, and he cast his eyes on her, and saw her at
his knees, her face covered with tears, and such admirable beauty, he thought
he would die of pain; and, kissing her as he raised
her: – Have pity on me, yourself, madame, he said to her, I am worthy of it,
and forgive if, in the first moments of an affliction as violent as the mine, I do
not respond as I should to a process like yours. You seem to me more worthy
of esteem and admiration than any woman there has ever been in the world;
but also I find myself the most unhappy man who has ever existed. You gave
me passion from the first moment I saw you: your rigors and your possession
have not been able to extinguish it, it still lasts: I have never been able to give
you love, and I see that you fear having it for another. And what is he, madame,
this happy man who gives you this fear? Since when have you liked him? What
did he do to please you? What path did he find to get to your heart? I had
consoled myself, in a way, for not having touched him, by the thought that he
was incapable of being touched. However, another does what I could not do: I
have the jealousy of a husband and that of a lover at the same time; but it is
impossible to have that of a husband after a process like yours. He is too noble
not to give me security, he even consoles me as your lover. The trust and
sincerity you have for me are of infinite value: you esteem me enough to
believe that I will not abuse this confession. You are right, madame, I will not
abuse it, and I will love you no less. You make me unhappy with the greatest
mark of fidelity that a woman has ever given to her husband; but, madame,
finish, and tell me who it is that you wish to avoid.
– I beg you not to ask me, she replied, I am resolved not to tell you, and I
believe that prudence does not dictate that I mention it to you.
– Do not be afraid, madame, replied M. de Cleves, I know the world too well
to ignore that the consideration of a husband does not prevent one from being
in love with his wife. We must hate those who are and not run away from them
74
complain; and, once again, madame, I implore you to teach me what I want to know.
– You would be pressing me unnecessarily, she replied, I have the strength to do

what I don’t think I should say. The confession I made to you was not out of weakness;
and it takes more courage to admit this truth than to attempt to hide it.
M. de Nemours did not miss a word of this conversation, and what Madame de
Clèves had just said gave him hardly less jealousy than her husband. He was so
madly in love with her that he believed everyone had the same feelings. It was also
true that he had several rivals; but he imagined even more, and his mind wandered in
search of the one of whom Madame de Cleves wanted to speak. Many times he had
believed that he was not disagreeable to her; and he had made this judgment on
things which seemed so slight to him at that moment, that he could not imagine that
he would have given a passion which must have been very violent to have recourse
to such an extraordinary remedy. He was so transported that he hardly knew what he
was seeing, and he could not forgive M. de Cleves for not urging his wife enough to
tell him this name that she was hiding from him.
M. de Cleves nevertheless made every effort to find out; and after

that he had pressed her unnecessarily:
“It seems to me,” she replied, “that you must be pleased with my sincerity; do not
ask me more, and do not give me reason to repent of what I have just done: be
satisfied with the assurance that I still give you that none of my actions have made
my feelings appear , and that no one has ever said anything to me that could have
offended me.
– Oh! madame, replied M. de Cleves suddenly, I cannot believe you. I remember
the embarrassment you felt the day your portrait was lost. You gave, madame, you
gave this portrait which was so dear to me, and which so legitimately belonged to me.
You have not been able to hide your feelings: you love us, we know it; your virtue
until now has guaranteed you the rest.
“Is it possible,” cried this princess, “that you can think that there is some disguise
in a confession like mine, which no reason obliged me to make to you? Trust my
words; it is with a fairly high price that I buy the confidence that I ask of you. Believe
me, I beg you, that I did not give my portrait: it is true that I saw it taken; but I did not
want to make it appear that I saw him, for fear of exposing myself to being told things
that no one has yet dared to say to me.
– How did they show you that they loved you? continued M. de
Cleves, and what marks of passion have you been given?
75
– Spare me the trouble, she replied, of telling you details which make me
ashamed of having noticed them, and which have only too convinced me of
my weakness.
“You are right, madame,” he replied, “I am unjust; refuse me every time I

ask you for such things: but do not be offended if I ask them.
At this moment, several of their people who had remained in the aisles
came to warn M. de Cleves that a gentleman was coming to fetch him on
behalf of the king, to order him to be in Paris that evening. M. de Cleves was
forced to leave; and he could say nothing to his wife, except that he begged
her to come the next day, and that he implored her to believe that, although
he was distressed, he had a tenderness and esteem for her with which she
should be satisfied. .
When this prince had left, when Madame de Cleves was left alone, when
she looked at what she had just done, she was so horrified that she could
hardly imagine that it was a truth. She found that she had taken away her
husband's heart and esteem, and that she had dug herself an abyss from
which she would never escape. She wondered why she had done such a
risky thing, and she found that she had undertaken it without almost having
had the intention of doing so. The singularity of such a confession, of which
she could find no example, made her see all the danger.
But when she came to think that this remedy, however violent it was, was
the only one that could defend her against Mr. de Nemours, she found that
she should not repent too much, and had not risked too much. She spent the
whole night, full of uncertainty, trouble and fear; finally calm returned to his
mind. She even found sweetness in having given this testimony of fidelity to
a husband who deserved it so well, who had so much esteem and so much
friendship for her, and who had just given her further signs of it by the way in
which he had received what she had confessed to him.
Meanwhile M. de Nemours had left the place where he had heard a
conversation which touched him so noticeably, and had gone into the forest.
What Madame de Cleves had said about his portrait had given him new life,
by making him know that it was him she did not hate. At first he abandoned
himself to this joy; but it did not last long, when he reflected that the same
thing which had just informed him that he had touched the heart of Madame de
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Cleves also had to persuade him that he would never receive any mark from it,
and that it was impossible to hire a person who had recourse to such an
extraordinary remedy. However, he felt a perceptible pleasure at having
reduced her to this extremity. He found glory in having made himself loved by
a woman so different from all those of his sex. Finally he found himself happy
and unhappy a hundred times at the same time. Night surprised him in the
forest, and he had great difficulty finding his way back to Madame de Mercoeur's
house. He arrived there at daybreak; he was quite embarrassed to give an
account of what had detained him; he sorted it out as best as he could, and
returned that very day to Paris with the vidame.
This prince was so filled with his passion and so surprised by what he had
heard, that he fell into a rather ordinary imprudence, which is to speak in
general terms of his particular feelings, and to relate his own adventures under
names borrowed. When he returned, he turned the conversation to love, he
exaggerated the pleasure of being in love with a person worthy of being loved.
He spoke of the bizarre effects of this passion, and finally, not being able to
contain within himself the astonishment which Madame de Clèves' action gave
him, he related it to the vidame, without naming the person, and without telling
him that 'there was no share; but he told it with so much warmth and with so
much admiration that the Vidame easily suspected that this story concerned
this prince. He extremely urged him to confess it to him; he told him that he
had known for a long time that he had some violent passion, and that it was
unfair to distrust a man who had confided to him the secret of his life. M. de
Nemours was too much in love to confess his love; he had always hidden it
from the vidam, although it was the man of the court whom he loved best. He
replied that one of his friends had told him about this adventure, and had made
him promise not to speak of it, and that he also begged him to keep it a secret.
The vidame assured him that he would not speak of it; nevertheless M. de
Nemours repented of having taught him so much.
Meanwhile M. de Cleves had gone to find the king, his heart filled with
mortal pain. Never had a husband had such a violent passion for his wife, and
had never esteemed her so much. What he had just learned did not take away
his esteem, but it gave him esteem of a different kind from that which he had
had until then. What occupied him most was the desire to guess who had
managed to please him. M. de Nemours first came to mind as the most amiable
person at court; and the Chevalier de Guise, and the Maréchal de Saint-André,
as two men who had thought to please him, and who still paid him much
attention; so that he stopped short of believing that it must be one of the three.
He arrived at the Louvre, and the king took him to his cabinet to tell him that he
had chosen him to take Madame to Spain; that he had believed that no one
would acquit himself better than him of
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this commission, and that no one would do so much honor to France as

Madame de Clèves. M. de Cleves received the honor of this choice as he
should, and even considered it as something which would remove his wife from
the court, without there appearing to be any change in his conduct: nevertheless
the time for this departure was still too far away to be a remedy for the
embarrassment he found himself in. He wrote, at that very moment, to Madame
de Cleves to tell her what the king had just told her, and he also asked her that
he absolutely wanted her to return to Paris. She returned there, as he ordered;
and when they saw each other, they both found themselves in extraordinary sadness.
M. de Cleves spoke to her as the most honest man in the world and the
most worthy of what she had done. I have no concern about your conduct, he
said to him; you have more strength and more virtue than you think; It is also
not the fear of the future that afflicts me, I am only distressed to see you for
someone else with feelings that I was unable to give you.
I don't know what to answer you, she said to him, I'm dying of shame talking
to you about it; Spare me, I beseech you, from such cruel conversations;
regulate my behavior, make sure that I see no one; that's all I ask of you; but
please be glad that I no longer speak to you about something which makes me
appear so unworthy of you, and which I find so unworthy of myself. You are
right, madame, he replied, I abuse your gentleness and your confidence; but
also have some compassion for the state you have put me in, and remember
that, whatever you have said to me, you are hiding a name from me which
gives me a curiosity with which I cannot live. However, I am not asking you to
satisfy it, but I cannot help telling you that I believe that the one I must envy is
the Marshal of Saint-André, the Duke of Nemours or the Knight of Guise. I will
not answer you anything, she said to him, blushing, and I will not give you any
reason, through my answers, to diminish or strengthen your suspicions; but if
you try to clarify them by observing me, you will cause me an embarrassment
that will be visible to everyone. In the name of God, she continued, find it good
that, under the pretext of some illness, I see no one.
– No, madame, he replied, we would soon discover that it was a supposed

thing, and, moreover, I only want to trust you: this is the path that my heart
advises me to take , and reason advises me too. From the mood you are in, by
giving you your freedom, I give you narrower limits than I could prescribe to
you.
M. de Cleves was not mistaken: the confidence he showed in his wife
strengthened her more against M. de Nemours, and made her take more
austere resolutions than any constraint could have done. She therefore went
to the Louvre and to the queen-dauphine as usual; but she avoided the
presence and the eyes of M. de Nemours with so much care, that it took away from him
78
almost all the joy he had in believing he was loved by her. He saw nothing in his
actions that would not convince him otherwise. He almost didn't know if what he
had heard was not a dream, as he found it so unlikely. The only thing that assured
him that he had not been mistaken was the extreme sadness of Madame de
Clèves, whatever effort she made to hide it: perhaps looks and obliging words
would not have helped. this austere behavior greatly increased the love of M. de
Nemours.
One evening when Mr. and Mrs. de Cleves were at the queen's house,
someone said that the rumor was going around that the king would appoint
another great lord of the court to take Madame to Spain. M. de Clèves had his
eyes on his wife at the time when it was added that it would perhaps be the
Chevalier de Guise or Marshal Saint-André. He noticed that she had not been
moved by these two names, nor by the proposal that they make this trip with her.
This made her believe that neither of them was the one whose presence she
feared; and, wanting to clear up his suspicions, he entered the queen's cabinet
where the king was. After having stayed for some time, he returned to his wife,
and told her in a low voice that he had just learned that it would be M. de Nemours
who would go with them to Spain.
The name of M. de Nemours and the thought of being exposed to seeing him
every day during a long journey, in the presence of her husband, gave such
trouble to Madame de Clèves that she could not hide it and, wanting to give other
reasons:
“It is a very unpleasant choice for you,” she replied, “that of this prince. He will
share all the honors, and it seems to me that you should try to have someone
else chosen.
“It is not glory, madame,” replied M. de Clèves, “that makes you fear that M.
de Nemours will come with me. The sorrow you feel comes from another cause.
This sorrow teaches me what I would have learned from another woman, through
the joy she would have had. But do not be afraid: what I have just told you is not
true, and I invented it to assure myself of something that I already believed too
well.
He left after these words, not wanting to increase by his presence the extreme
embarrassment in which he saw his wife.
M. de Nemours entered at this moment, and first noticed the state in which
Madame de Clèves was. He approached her and told her in a low voice that, out
of respect, he did not dare ask her what made her more dreamy than usual. The
voice of M. de Nemours brought her back; and, looking at him without having
heard what he had just said to her, full of her own thoughts and the fear that her
husband would see him
near her: – In the name of God, she said to him, let me on a break.
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– Alas! Madam, he replied, I will leave you too long; what can you complain about? I
don't dare speak to you, I don't even dare look at you; I only approach you trembling.
Where did I get what you just told me? And why do you make me appear that I have
some part in the sorrow that I see you?
Madame de Clèves was very angry at having given M. de Nemours the opportunity to
explain himself more clearly than he had in his entire life.
She left him without answering him, and returned home, her mind more agitated than
she had ever had.
Her husband easily noticed the increase in her embarrassment. He saw that she was
afraid that he would tell her about what had happened. He followed her into a study
where she had entered.
– Don’t avoid me, madame, he said to her, I won’t tell you anything that might
displease you: I ask your pardon for the surprise I gave you earlier; I am punished
enough by what I have learned. M. de Nemours was of all men the one I feared the most.
I see the danger you are in: have power over yourself, for the love of yourself, and, if
possible, for the love of me. I am not asking you as a husband, but as a man to whom
you bring all the happiness, and who has for you a passion more tender and more violent
than the one your heart prefers.
M. de Cleves became moved as he uttered these last words, and had difficulty
finishing them. His wife was moved by it, and, bursting into tears, she kissed him with a
tenderness and a pain which put him in a state little different from her own. They
remained for some time without saying anything to each other, and separated without
having the strength to speak.
The preparations for Madame's wedding were completed. The Duke of Alba arrived
to marry her: he was received with all the magnificence and all the ceremonies that could
be done on such an occasion.
The king sent to meet him the prince of Condé, the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise,
the dukes of Lorraine, Ferrara, Aumale, Bouillon, Guise and Nemours. They had several
gentlemen, and a large number of pages dressed in their liveries. The king himself waited
for the Duke of Alba at the first door of the Louvre, with the two hundred gentlemen
servants, and the constable at their head.
When this duke was near the king, he wanted to kiss his knees; but the king prevented
him, and made him walk at his side to the queen and Madame, to whom the Duke of
Alba brought a magnificent present from his master. He then went to Madame Marguerite,
sister of the king, to pay her the compliments of M. de Savoie, and to assure her that he
would arrive in a few days.
Large assemblies were held at the Louvre to show the Duke of Alba,
and to the Prince of Orange who had accompanied him, the beauties of the court.
80
Madame de Cleves did not dare avoid being there, however much she
wanted to, for fear of displeasing her husband, who absolutely ordered her to
go there. What determined him even more was the absence of M. de Nemours.
He had gone to meet M. de Savoie; and, after this prince had arrived, he was
obliged to be almost always near him, to help him with all things relating to his
wedding ceremonies; This meant that Madame de Cleves did not meet this
prince as often as she was accustomed, and she found herself in a sort of rest.
The Vidame de Chartres had not forgotten the conversation he had had with
M. de Nemours. It remained in his mind that the adventure that this prince had
told him was his own; and he observed it with so much care that perhaps he
would have unraveled the truth, if the arrival of the Duke of Alba and that of M.
de Savoie had not brought about a change and an occupation in the court which
prevented him from seeing what could have enlightened him. The desire to
clarify things, or rather the natural disposition that one has to tell everything one
knows to those one loves, made him repeat to Madame de Martigues the
extraordinary action of this person who had confessed to her husband the
passion she had for another. He assured her that M. de Nemours was the one
who had inspired this violent passion, and he begged her to help him observe
this prince. Madame de Martigues was very pleased to hear what the vidame
told her; and the curiosity that she had always seen in Madame la dauphine
regarding what concerned M. de Nemours gave her even more desire to enter into this adventure.
A few days before the wedding ceremony was chosen, the queen-dauphine
gave supper to the king, her father-in-law, and to the duchess of Valentinois.
Madame de Clèves, who was busy dressing, went to the Louvre later than
usual. On her way there, she found a gentleman who came to collect her from
the dauphine. As she entered the room, this princess shouted to him from
above her bed, where she was, that she was waiting for him with great
impatience:
– I believe, madame, she replied, that I must not thank you for this impatience,
and that it is undoubtedly caused by something other than the desire to see me.
“You are right,” replied the queen-dauphine; but nevertheless you must be
obliged to me, for I want to teach you an adventure which I am assured you will
be very happy to know.
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Madame de Cleves knelt before her bed, and luckily for her,
she didn't have daylight in her face.
“You know,” said this queen, “the desire we had to guess what caused the
change that appears to the Duke of Nemours; I think I know, and it's something
that will surprise you. He is madly in love and much loved by one of the most
beautiful people at court.
These words, which Madame de Cleves could not attribute to herself, since
she did not believe that anyone knew that she loved this prince, caused her a
pain that it is easy to imagine.
“I see nothing in that,” she replied, “that should surprise a man.
of the age of M. de Nemours, and does as he is.
“That is not also,” replied the dauphine, “which must surprise you; but it is to
know that this woman, who loves M. de Nemours, has never given him any sign
of it, and that the fear she had of not always being mistress of her passion made
her confessed it to her husband, so that he would remove her from court. And it
is M. de Nemours himself who related what I am telling you.
If Madame de Cleves had initially felt pain at the thought that she had no part
in this adventure, the last words of Madame the dauphine gave her despair
because of the certainty of having too much.
She could not answer, and remained with her head bent on the bed while the
queen continued to speak, so occupied with what she was saying that she took
no notice of this embarrassment.
When Madame de Cleves had recovered a
little: – This story hardly seems likely to me, madame, she replied, and I would
like to know who told it to you.
– It was Madame de Martigues, replied Madame la dauphine, who learned it
from the Vidame de Chartres. You know he is in love with her; he entrusted it to
him as a secret, and he knows it from the Duke of Nemours himself; it is true that
the Duke of Nemours did not tell him the name of the lady, and did not even admit
to him that it was he who was loved by her; but the Vidame de Chartres has no
doubt of it.
As the queen-dauphine finished these words, someone approached the bed.
Madame de Cleves was turned in a way which prevented her from seeing who it
was; but she did not doubt it when the dauphine cried out with an air of
cheerfulness and surprise:
– There he is himself, and I want to ask him what is going on.
Madame de Cleves knew well that it was the Duke of Nemours, as in fact he
was. Without turning to her side, she advanced hastily towards the dauphine, and
told her in a low voice that she must be careful not to speak to her of this
adventure; that he had entrusted it to the Vidame de Chartres, and that
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it would be something capable of confusing them. The dauphine replied with a laugh
that she was too cautious, and turned towards M. de Nemours. He was ready for the
evening assembly; and, speaking with that grace which was so natural to him:
– I believe, madame, he said to her, that I can think, without rashness, that you were
talking about me when I came in, that you intended to ask me something, and that
Madame de Cleves was opposed to it.
It is true, replied the dauphine; but I will not have the complacency for her that I am
accustomed to having. I want to know from you if a story that was told to me is true,
and if you are not the one who is in love and loved by a woman of the court who hides
her passion with care and who has confessed it her husband.
The confusion and embarrassment of Madame de Clèves were beyond anything

that one can imagine; and if death had presented itself to rescue her from this state,
she would have found it pleasant; but M. de Nemours was even more embarrassed, if
possible. The speech of Madame la dauphine, which he had reason to believe was not
hated, in the presence of Madame de Clèves, who was the person at court in whom
she had the most confidence, and who had also the most in her, gave him such a great
confusion of strange thoughts, that it was impossible for him to be master of his face.
The embarrassment in which he saw Madame de Cleves, through his fault, and the
thought of the right reason he gave her to hate him, caused him a shock which did not
allow him to respond. The dauphine, seeing to what extent he was forbidden: Look at
him, look at him, she said to Madame de Clèves, and judge if this adventure is not hers.
However, Mr. Nemours, returning from his first disturbance, and seeing the
importance of emerging from such a dangerous step, suddenly gained control of his
mind and his face.
– I admit, madame, he said, that one cannot be more surprised and more distressed
than I am by the infidelity committed to me by the Vidame de Chartres in recounting the
adventure of one of my friends, which I had entrusted to him.
– I could take revenge, he continued, smiling with a calm air which almost took away
from Madame la dauphine the suspicions she had just had. He confided to me things
which are not of minor importance: but I do not know, madame, he continued, why you
are doing me the honor of taking part in this adventure.
The vidame can't say she's looking at me, since I told him otherwise. The quality of
a man in love may suit me; but, for that of a beloved man, I do not believe, madame,
that you can give it to me.
83
This prince was very happy to say something to the dauphine which was
related to what he had shown her at other times, in order to distract her mind from
the thoughts she may have had. She also thought she heard what he said; but,
without answering, she continued to wage war with him over her embarrassment.
– I was disturbed, madame, he replied, for the interest of my friend, and by the
just reproaches he could make of me for having repeated something which is
dearer to him than life. However, he only half entrusted it to me, and he did not
name the person he loves: I only know that he is the most loving and most pitiable
man in the world.
– Do you find him so much to be pitied, replied the dauphine, since he is loved?
– Do you believe that he is, madame, he continued, and that a person who had
a real passion could discover it in her husband? This person probably does not
know love, and she has taken for it a slight recognition of the attachment that we
have for her. My friend cannot flatter himself with any hope: but, unhappy as he is,
he finds himself happy to have at least given the fear of loving him, and he would
not change his state for that of the happiest lover of the world.
“Your friend has a passion that is very easy to satisfy,” said the dauphine, “and
I am beginning to believe that it is not you that you are talking about. I am almost,
she continued, less than of the opinion of Madame de Clèves, who maintains that
this adventure cannot be true.
“I do not believe, in fact, that it can be,” replied Madame de Clèves, who had
not yet spoken; and, even if it were possible that it was, how could we have
known? there is no doubt that a woman capable of such an extraordinary thing
would have the weakness to tell it; apparently her husband would not have told it
either, or he would be a husband very unworthy of the treatment that would have
been had with him.
Mr. de Nemours, who saw Madame de Clèves' suspicions about her husband,
was very happy to confirm them to her. He knew that it was the most formidable
rival he had to destroy.
– Jealousy, he replied, and curiosity to perhaps know more
that he has not been told, can make a husband do many imprudent things.
Madame de Cleves was at the last test of her strength and courage; and, no
longer able to carry on the conversation, she was about to say that she was
unwell, when, fortunately for her, the Duchess of Valentinois entered, who told the
dauphine that the king was coming. This queen went into her study to dress.
M. de Nemours approached Madame de Clèves, as she wanted to follow.
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– I would give my life, madame, he said to her, to speak to you for a moment:
but, of all that I would have of importance to tell you, nothing seems more
important to me than to beg you to believe that, if I said something in which the
dauphine could take part, I did it for reasons which do not concern her. Madame
de Cleves did not pretend to hear M. de Nemours: she left him without looking
at him, and began to follow the king who had just entered. As there were many
people, she got confused in her dress and made a false step: she used this
pretext to leave a place where she did not have the strength to stay, and,
pretending not to To be able to support herself, she went home.
M. de Clèves came to the Louvre, and was surprised not to find his wife
there: he was told of the accident that had happened to her. He returned at the
same time to hear her news; he found her in bed, and he knew that her illness
was not considerable. When he had been with her for some time, he noticed
that she was in such excessive sadness that he was surprised.
– What is the matter with you, madam? he said to him ; it seems to me that you have something
other pain than the one you are complaining about.
– I have the most sensitive affliction that I could ever have, she replied: what
use have you made of the extraordinary, or rather crazy, confidence that I had
in you? Didn't I deserve the secret? and, even if I had not deserved it, would not
your own interest commit you to it? Was it necessary that the curiosity of knowing
a name that I should not tell you obliged you to confide in someone to try to
discover it? It can only be this curiosity alone that made you commit such cruel
imprudence; the consequences are as unfortunate as they could be. This
adventure is known, and it has just been told to me, not knowing that I had the
main interest in it.
What do you tell me, madam? he replied; you accuse me of having told what
happened between you and me; and you tell me that the thing is known. I do not
justify myself for having repeated it; you would not believe it; and you must
undoubtedly have taken for yourself what you have been told about someone
else.
– Oh! sir, she continued, there is not another adventure in the world like
mine; there is no other woman capable of the same thing. Chance cannot have
caused it to be invented; we never imagined it, and this thought never entered
any mind other than mine. Mrs.
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dauphine has just told me about this whole adventure; she learned of it from the
Vidame de Chartres, who knew it from M. de Nemours.
– M. de Nemours! cried M. de Cleves with an action which marked transport and

despair. What ! Mr. de Nemours knows that you love him and that I know it!
“You always want to choose M. de Nemours rather than another,” she replied; I told
you I would never answer your suspicions. I don't know if M. de Nemours knows the
part I have in this adventure and that you gave him; but he told it to the Viscount of
Chartres, and told him that he knew it from one of his friends who had not named the
person. This friend of M. de Nemours must be one of you and you must have trusted
him to try to clarify your situation.
– Do we have a friend in the world to whom we would like to make such a

confidence? replied M. de Cleves, “and would we want to clarify our suspicions at the
cost of telling someone what we would like to hide from ourselves?
Instead, think, madam, who you spoke to. It is more likely that it was through you than
through me that this secret escaped. You were unable to bear the embarrassment you
found yourself in alone, and you sought relief by complaining to some confidante who
had betrayed you.
“Don’t continue to overwhelm me,” she cried, “and don’t have the harshness to
accuse me of a mistake you have made. Can you suspect me? and since I was able
to speak to you, am I able to speak to anyone else?
The confession that Madame de Cleves had made to her husband was such a
great mark of her sincerity, and she so strongly denied having confided in anyone, that
Monsieur de Cleves did not know what to think; on the other hand he was assured of
having said nothing again; it was something that no one could have guessed, it was
known, so it had to be by one of the two; but what caused him violent pain was the
knowledge that this secret was in someone's hands and that apparently it would soon
be divulged.
Madame de Clèves thought almost the same things; she also found it impossible
that her husband had spoken and not spoken; what M. de Nemours had said, that
curiosity could make a husband commit imprudence, seemed to her to relate so closely
to the state of M. de Clèves, that she could not believe that it was something that
chance would have said, and this plausibility determined her to believe that M. de
Cleves had abused the confidence she had in him. They were both so occupied with
their thoughts that they did not speak for a long time, and they did not leave this place.
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silence only to repeat the same things that they had already said several times,
and remained with their hearts and minds further removed and more altered than
they had ever been before.
It is easy to imagine in what state they spent the night. M. de Cleves had
exhausted all his constancy in supporting the misfortune of seeing a woman he
adored touched with passion for another. He had no courage left; he even believed
he should not find any in a thing where his glory and his honor were so seriously
injured. He no longer knew what to think of his wife; he no longer saw what
conduct he should make him take, nor how he should conduct himself, and he
found on all sides only precipices and abysses. Finally, after a very long period of
agitation and uncertainty, seeing that he would soon have to go to Spain, he
decided not to do anything which could increase suspicion or knowledge of his
unfortunate state. He went to find Madame de Clèves and told her that it was not
a question of unraveling between them who had broken the secret, but that it was
a question of showing that the story that had been told was a fable. where she
had no share; that it was up to her to persuade M. de Nemours and the others;
that she only had to act towards him with the severity and coldness that she
should have for a man who showed love for her; that by this process she would
easily remove from him the opinion that she had of the inclination for him; that
thus it was not necessary to be distressed by everything that he might have
thought, because if in the future she did not show any weakness, all his thoughts
would easily be destroyed, and that above all it was necessary that she go to the
Louvre and assemblies as usual.
After these words, M. de Cleves left his wife without waiting for her response.
She found a lot of reason in everything he said to her, and the anger she felt
against M. de Nemours made her believe that she would also find it very easy to
carry it out; but it seemed difficult to him to be at all the wedding ceremonies and
to appear there with a calm face and a free mind; nevertheless, as she had to
wear the dress of the dauphine, and that it was something in which she had been
preferred to several other princesses, there was no way of renouncing it without
making a lot of noise and without making it look for reasons.
She therefore resolved to make an effort on herself, but she took the rest of
the day to prepare for it and to abandon herself to all the feelings with which she
was agitated. She locked herself alone in her study: of all her evils, the one which
presented itself to her with the most violence was having cause to complain about
M. de Nemours, and finding no means of justifying it. She could not doubt that he
had told this adventure to the Vidame de Chartres, he had admitted it, and she
could not doubt also, by the way in which he had spoken, that he knew that the
adventure concerned him. . How to apologize
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such great imprudence? and what had become of the extreme discretion of this
prince, by whom she had been so touched? He was discreet, she said, as long as
he thought he was unhappy; but a thought of happiness, even uncertain, has ended
its discretion. He could not imagine that he was loved, without wanting people to know it.
He said everything he could say, I didn't admit that it was him I loved, he suspected
it and he let his suspicions show. If he had had certainties, he would have used
them in the same way. I was wrong to believe that there was a man capable of
hiding what flatters glory. However, it is for this man that I believed to be so different
from the rest of men, that I find myself like other women, being so far from
resembling them. I lost the heart and the esteem of a husband who was to make
me happy. I will soon be seen by everyone as a person who has a crazy and violent
passion. The one for whom I have it is no longer unaware of it, and it is to avoid
these misfortunes that I have risked all my rest and even my life! These sad
reflections were followed by a torrent of tears; but, whatever pain she found herself
overwhelmed with, she felt that she would have had the strength to bear it if she
had been satisfied with M. de Nemours.
This prince was not in a calmer state. The imprudence he had made in speaking
to the Vidame de Chartres, and the cruel consequences of this imprudence, gave
him mortal displeasure. He could not imagine, without being overwhelmed, the
embarrassment, the trouble of the affliction in which he had seen Madame de
Cleves. He was inconsolable at having said things to her about this adventure
which, although gallant in themselves, seemed to him, at that moment, rude and
not very polite, since they had made Madame de Clèves understand that he was
unaware not that she was this woman who had a violent passion, and that he was
the one she had it for. All he could have wanted was a conversation with her; but
he found that he should fear her rather than desire her. What would I have to say to
him? he cried. Would I go and show him again what I have already made him know
too well? Will I make her see that I know she loves me, me who never even dared
to tell her that I loved her? Will I begin to speak to him openly about my passion in
order to appear to him as a man who has become bold with hopes? Can I even
think of approaching him, and would I dare give him the embarrassment of holding
my sight? How could I justify myself? I have no excuse, I am unworthy of being
looked at by Madame de Clèves, and I also do not hope that she will ever look at
me. It is true that through my fault I gave her better means to defend herself against
me than all those she was looking for, and which she would perhaps have sought in
vain. Through my imprudence I lose the happiness and glory of being loved by the
most amiable and estimable person in the world; but if I had lost this happiness
without her having suffered and without having given her mortal pain, it would be a
consolation to me, and I feel
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more in this moment the harm that I did to her than that which I caused to myself
near her.
M. de Nemours was sad for a long time and thought the same things.
The desire to speak to Madame de Clèves always came to mind. He thought of
finding the means, he thought of writing to her; but finally he found that after the
mistake he had made, and the mood he was in, the best he could do was to show
him a profound respect through his affliction and his silence, to show him even
that he did not dare to appear before her, and to wait for what time, chance and
the inclination she had for him could do in his favor. He also resolved not to
reproach the Vidame de Chartres for the infidelity he had shown him, for fear of
strengthening his suspicions.
The engagement of Madame, which took place the next day, and the marriage,
which took place the following day, occupied the entire court so much that Madame
de Clèves and M. de Nemours easily hid their sadness and their confusion from
the public. Madame la dauphine only spoke in passing to Madame de Cleves of
the conversation they had had with Monsieur de Nemours; and M. de Cleves
pretended not to speak to his wife any more about all that had happened; so that
she did not find herself in such great embarrassment as she had imagined.
The engagement took place at the Louvre, and, after the feast and the ball, the
entire royal household went to sleep at the Bishop's Palace, as was usual. In the
morning, the Duke of Alba, who was never dressed except very simply, put on a
coat of cloth of gold, mixed with the color of fire, yellow and black, all covered with
precious stones, and he had a closed crown on the head. The Prince of Orange,
dressed also magnificently, with his liveries, and all the Spaniards followed by
theirs, came to take the Duke of Alba from the Hôtel de Villeroi, where he was
staying, and left, walking four by four, to come to the Bishopric. As soon as he
arrived, they went in order to the church: the king led Madame, who also had a
closed crown, and her dress worn by Misses de Montpensier and de Longueville.
The queen walked next, but without a crown. After her walked the Queen-Dauphin,
Madame Sister of the King, Madame de Lorraine and the Queen of Navarre, their
dresses worn by princesses.
The queens and princesses all had their daughters beautifully dressed in the
same colors they were dressed in; so that we knew who the girls were by the color
of their clothes.
They climbed onto the scaffold which was prepared in the church, and the
marriage ceremony was performed. We then returned to dine at the Bishop's
Palace, and about five o'clock we left to go to the palace, where the feast was
held, and where the parliament, the sovereign courts and the town house were invited to attend.
The king, queens, princes and princesses ate on the marble table in the great hall
of the palace, the Duke of Alba seated next to the new
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queen of Spain. Below the steps of the marble table, and at the right hand of the king,
was a table for ambassadors, archbishops and knights of the order, and on the other
side a table for gentlemen of parliament.
The Duke of Guise, dressed in a robe of curled cloth of gold, served the king as
grand master, M. the Prince de Condé as baker, and the Duke of Nemours as
cupbearer. After the tables were cleared, the ball began; it was interrupted by ballets
and extraordinary machines. He was then taken back; and finally, after midnight, the
king and all the court returned to the Louvre.
However sad Madame de Cleves was, she never failed to appear in the eyes of
everyone, and especially in the eyes of Monsieur de Nemours, of incomparable
beauty. He did not dare to speak to her, although the embarrassment of this ceremony
gave him several means; but he showed her so much sadness and such a respectful
fear of approaching him, that she no longer found him so guilty, although he had said
nothing to her to justify himself. He behaved the same way the following days, and
this behavior also had the same effect on the heart of Madame de Clèves.
Finally the day of the tournament arrived. The queens went to the galleries
and on the scaffolds which had been intended for them.
The four supporters appeared at the end of the lists with a quantity of horses and
liveries which produced the most magnificent spectacle that had ever appeared in
France.
The king had no other colors than white and black, which he always wore because
of Madame de Valentinois, who was a widow. M. de Ferrare and all his suite wore
yellow and red. M. de Guise appeared in crimson and white: at first we did not know
why he had these colors; but we remembered that they were those of a beautiful
person whom he had loved when she was a girl, and whom he still loved, although he
no longer dared to show it to her. M. de Nemours had yellow and black: we looked for
the reason in vain. Madame de Cleves had no difficulty in guessing it: she remembered
having said in his presence that she liked yellow, and that she was sorry to be blonde,
because she could not wear it. This prince believed he could appear with this color
without indiscretion, since Madame de Cleves did not wear any, one could not suspect
that it was hers.
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Never has anyone shown so much skill as the four proponents showed.
Although the king was the best horseman in his kingdom, they did not know
to whom to give the advantage.
Mr. de Nemours had an approval in all his actions which could tilt in his
favor people less interested than Madame de Clèves. As soon as she saw
him appear at the end of the lists, she felt an extraordinary emotion, and
during all the races of this prince, she had difficulty hiding her joy, when he
had fortunately provided his career.
In the evening, as everything was almost over and they were about to
retire, the misfortune of the state made the king want to break another lance.
He ordered the Count of Montgomery, who was extremely clever, to put
himself in the running. The count begged the king to excuse him, and offered
all the excuses he could think of; but the king, almost angry, made him say
that he absolutely wanted it. The queen sent word to the king that she begged
him not to run anymore; that he had done so well that he must be happy, and
that she begged him to come back to her. He replied that it was for her sake
that he was going to run again, and entered the barrier. She sent M. de
Savoie back to ask him a second time to come back, but all was in vain. He
ran ; the lances broke, and a splinter from that of the Count of Montgomery
struck him in the eye and remained there.
This prince fell as a result. His squires and M. de Montmorency, who was
one of the marshals, ran to him. They were surprised to see him so injured;
but the king was not surprised. He said it was a small thing, and that he
forgave the Count of Montgomery.
We can judge what trouble and what affliction brought such a disastrous
accident into a day destined for joy. As soon as the king was carried to his
bed, and the surgeons had examined his wound, they found it very
considerable. M. the constable remembered at this moment the prediction
that had been made to the king, that he would be killed in a single combat:
and he had no doubt that the prediction would be fulfilled.
The King of Spain, who was then at Brussels, being informed of this
accident, sent his physician, who was a man of great reputation; but he
judged the king without hope.
A court so divided, and so full of opposing interests, was not in mediocre

agitation on the eve of so great an event; nevertheless
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all movements were hidden, and they seemed to be occupied only with the sole
concern of the king's health. The queens, princes and princesses hardly ever
left his antechamber.
Madame de Cleves, knowing that she was obliged to be there, that she
would see Mr. de Nemours there, that she could not hide from her husband the
embarrassment that this sight caused her, knowing also that the mere presence
of this The prince justified him in his eyes and destroyed all his resolutions,
decided to pretend to be ill. The court was too busy to pay attention to his
conduct, and to determine whether his evil was false or true. Only her husband
could know the truth, but she was not sorry that he knew it: so she remained at
home, little concerned with the great change which was preparing and, filled
with her own thoughts, she had all the freedom to abandon yourself to it.
Everyone was at the king's house. M. de Cleves came at certain times to

tell him the news. He maintained the same procedure with her that he had
always had, except that, when they were alone, there was something a little
colder and less free. He had not spoken to her again about everything that had
happened; and she did not have the strength, and did not even think it
appropriate to resume this conversation.
M. de Nemours, who had expected to find a few moments to speak to
Madame de Clèves, was very surprised and very distressed at not only having
the pleasure of seeing her.
The king's illness was found to be so considerable that on the seventh day
he was in despair of doctors. He received the certainty of his death with
extraordinary firmness, and all the more admirable since he lost his life by an
accident so unfortunate that he died in the flower of his age, happy, adored by
his people and loved by a mistress he loved desperately. The day before his
death, he arranged for the marriage of Madame, his sister, to M. de Savoie,
without ceremony. We can judge in what state the Duchess of Valentinois was.
The queen did not allow her to see the king, and sent him to ask for the seals
of this prince and the jewels of the crown which she had in custody.
This duchess inquired if the king was dead; and when she was told no: So I
don't have a master yet, she replied, and no one can force me to return what
his trust has placed in my hands.
As soon as he had expired at the Château des Tournelles, the Duke of
Ferrara, the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Nemours took the queen mother,
the king, and the queen his wife to the Louvre. M. de Nemours led the queen
mother. As they began to walk, she stepped back a few steps, and said to the queen,
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her daughter-in-law, that it was her turn to go first; but it was easy to see that
there was more bitterness than propriety in this compliment.
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Fourth part
The Cardinal of Lorraine had made himself absolute master of the mind of the
Queen Mother; the Vidame de Chartres no longer had any share in her good graces,
and the love he had for Madame de Martigues and for liberty had even prevented him
from feeling this loss as much as it deserved to be felt. This cardinal, during the ten
days of the king's illness, had had the leisure to form his designs, and to make the
queen take resolutions conforming to what he had planned; so that, as soon as the
king was dead, the queen ordered the constable to remain at Tournelles near the body
of the late king, to perform the ordinary ceremonies. This commission removed him
from everything, and took away his freedom to act.
He sent a courier to the King of Navarre to bring him quickly, in order to oppose
together the great elevation where he saw that MM. de Guise were going to arrive.
Command of the armies was given to the Duke of Guise, and finances to the Cardinal
of Lorraine. The Duchess of Valentinois was chased from court; Cardinal de Tournon,
declared enemy of the constable, and Chancellor Olivier, declared enemy of the
Duchess of Valentinois were brought back: finally the court completely changed its
face. The Duke of Guise took the same rank as the princes of the blood in wearing the
king's mantle at the funeral ceremonies: he and his brothers were entirely the masters,
not only by the credit of the cardinal on the mind of the queen, but because that this
princess believed that she could keep them away if they gave her umbrage, and that
she could not keep away the constable who was supported by the princes of the blood.
When the mourning ceremonies were completed, the constable came to the Louvre,
and was received by the king with great coldness. He wanted to speak to her in private;
but the king called MM. de Guise, and told him, in front of them, that he advised him
to rest, that the finances and command of the armies were given, and that, when he
needed his advice, he would call him to his person. He was received by the queen
mother even more coldly than by the king, and she even reproached him for what he
had said to the late king, that his children were not like him.
The King of Navarre arrived and was not better received.

The Prince of Condé, less enduring than his brother, complained loudly: his
complaints were useless; he was removed from court, under the pretext of sending
him to Flanders to sign the ratification of peace. The King of Navarre was shown a
false letter from the King of Spain, which accused him of making
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undertaken on his places, he was made to fear for his lands: finally he was inspired to go
to Béarn. The queen provided him with a means of doing so by giving him the leadership
of Madame Élisabeth, and even obliged him to leave in front of this princess; and thus
there remained no one at court who could balance the power of the house of Guise.
Although it was an unfortunate thing for M. de Cleves not to lead Madame Élisabeth,
nevertheless he could not complain about it, due to the greatness of the one who was
preferred to him; but he regretted this employment less because of the honor he would
have received from it than because it was something which kept his wife away from court,
without it appearing that he had the intention of keeping her away from it.
A few days after the king's death it was decided to go to Reims for the coronation.
As soon as this trip was spoken of, Madame de Cleves, who had always remained at
home, pretending to be ill, begged her husband to think it would be good for her not to
follow the court, but to go to Coulommiers get some fresh air and think about his health.
He replied that he did not want to enter if it was the reason of his health which obliged him
not to make the journey, but that he agreed that she should not do so. He had no difficulty
in consenting to something that he had already resolved: whatever good opinion he had
of his wife's virtue, he saw clearly that prudence did not want him to expose it any longer.
at the sight of a man she loved.
M. de Nemours soon learned that Madame de Clèves was not to follow the court: he
could not bring himself to leave without seeing her, and, the day before his departure, he
went to her house as late as decorum permitted, in order to find her alone.
Fortune favored his intention.

As he entered the courtyard, he found Madame de Nevers and Madame de Martigues
coming out, and who told him that they had left her alone. He went upstairs with an
agitation and a disturbance which can only be compared to that which Madame de Clèves
had when she was told that M. de Nemours was coming to see her. The fear she had that
he would tell her about his passion, the apprehension of responding too favorably, the
worry that this visit could give to her husband, the trouble of telling him about it or hiding it
from him; All these things presented themselves in an instant to her mind, and caused her
such great embarrassment that she resolved to avoid the thing in the world that she
perhaps desired most. She sent one of her women to M. de Nemours, who was in his
anteroom, to tell him that she had just
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find it difficult, and that she was very angry at not being able to receive the honor
he wanted to do her.
What pain for this prince not to see Madame de Cleves, and not to see her
because she did not want him to see her! He was leaving the next day; he had
nothing more to hope from chance: he had said nothing to her since that
conversation at Madame la dauphine's, and he had reason to believe that the
mistake of having spoken to the viscount had destroyed all his hopes: finally he
went with everything that can sour a sharp pain.
As soon as Madame de Cleves had recovered a little from the trouble which
the thought of this prince's visit had given her, all the reasons which had made her
refuse it disappeared: she even found that she had made a mistake, and, if she
Had she dared, or had he still been in time, she would have had him called back.
Mme de Nevers and de Martigues, leaving home, went to see the queen-
dauphine. M. de Clèves was there. This princess asked them where they came
from; they told him that they had come from M. de Clèves, where they had spent
part of the after-dinner with many people, and that they had left only M. de
Nemours there. These words, which they believed to be indifferent, were not so
for M. de Cleves. Although he must have imagined that M. de Nemours could
often find opportunities to speak to his wife, nevertheless the thought that he was
at her house, that he was there alone, and that he could speak to her about his
love, seemed to him at that moment a thing so new and so unbearable, that
jealousy flared up in his heart with more violence than it had ever done before. It
was impossible for him to stay with the queen; he returned, not even knowing why
he was coming back, and whether he intended to go and interrupt M. de Nemours.
As soon as he approached his house, he looked to see if he saw anything that
could make him judge if this prince was still there: he felt relief seeing that he was
no longer there, he found sweetness in to think that he could not have stayed
there for long. He imagined that it was perhaps not M. de Nemours of whom he
should be jealous, and, although he did not doubt it, he tried to doubt it; but so
many things would have convinced him that he did not remain long in this
uncertainty that he desired. He went first to his wife's room; and, after talking to
her for some time about indifferent things, he could not help asking her what she
had done and who she had seen; she told him about it. As he saw that she did
not name M. de Nemours, he asked her trembling if that was all she had seen, in
order to give her reason to name this prince, and not to have the pain that it made
him a finesse. As she had not seen him, she did not name him; and M. de Cleves,
speaking in a tone which marked his affliction:
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“And M. de Nemours,” he said to him, “have you not seen him?” or have you
forgotten it?
“I haven’t seen him in fact,” she replied; I felt bad, and I
sent one of my wives to apologize to him.
So you only felt bad for him, replied M. de Cleves, since you saw everyone; why
distinctions for Mr. de Nemours?
Why is he not like anyone else? Why must you fear the sight of him? Why do you
let her see that you fear her?
Why are you letting him know that you are using the power that his passion gives
you over him? Would you dare refuse to see it if you did not know that it distinguishes
your rigors from incivility? But why must you be strict with him? From a person like
you, madame, everything is favors, apart from indifference.
– I did not believe, replied Madame de Clèves, whatever suspicion you had
about M. de Nemours, that you could reproach me for not having seen him.
– I am making you some, however, madame, he replied, and they are well
founded: why not see him, if he has not said anything to you? But madam, he
spoke to you: if his silence alone had shown you his passion, it would not have
made such a great impression on you, you could not tell me the whole truth, and
you hid it from me the biggest part ; you repented even of the little that you
confessed to me, and you did not have the strength to continue.
I am more unhappy than I thought, and I am the most unhappy of all men. You are
my wife, I love you as my mistress, and I see you loving another; this other is the
most amiable at court, and he sees you every day, he knows that you love him.
And I could believe, he cried, that you would overcome the passion you have for
him! I must have lost my mind to have believed that it was possible.
– I do not know, replied Madame de Cleves sadly, if you were wrong to judge
favorably of a process as extraordinary as mine; but I don't know if I was not
mistaken in believing that you would do me justice. – Do not doubt it, madame,
replied M. de Cleves, you were mistaken, you expected things from me as
impossible as those I expected from you. How could you expect me to retain my
sanity?
So you had forgotten that I loved you madly and that I was your husband? One of
the two can be worn at the ends; What can't the two together? Hey! What don’t
they do too! he continued. I only have violent and uncertain feelings over which I
am not the master. I no longer find myself worthy of you; you no longer seem
worthy of me. I adore you, I hate you; I offend you, I ask your forgiveness; I am
ashamed to admire you. Finally there is no longer any calm or reason in me. I
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I don't know how I have been able to live since you spoke to me at Coulommiers and
since the day you learned from Madame la dauphine that your adventure was known.
I cannot unravel how it came to be known, nor what happened between M. de
Nemours and you on this subject: you will never explain it to me, and I am not asking
you to explain it, I am only asking you to remember that you have made me the
unhappiest man in the world.
M. de Cleves left his wife's house after these words, and left the next day without
seeing her; but he wrote her a letter full of affliction, honesty and gentleness: she
gave him a response so touching and so full of assurance of her past conduct and
that which she would have in the future, that, as his assurances were based on the
truth, and that these were in fact his feelings, this letter made an impression on M. de
Cleves and gave him some calm; attached that M. de Nemours was going to find the
king, as well as him, he had the peace of knowing that he would not be in the same
place as Madame de Clèves. Every time this princess spoke to her husband, the
passion he showed her, the honesty of his behavior, the friendship she had for him
and what she owed him, made impressions on her heart which weakened the idea of
M. de Nemours; but it was only for a while, and this idea soon returned more quickly
and more urgently than before.
The first days of this prince's departure, she hardly felt his absence; then she
seemed cruel to him: since she had loved him, not a day had passed that she had
not feared or hoped to meet him, and she found it very painful to think that he was
not no longer in the power of chance to cause her to meet him.
She went to Coulommiers, and, on the way there, she took care to bring there
large paintings which she had had copied from originals which Madame de Valentinois
had had made for her beautiful house in Anet. All the remarkable actions that had
taken place during the king's reign were in these paintings.
There was, among other things, the siege of Metz, and all those who had distinguished
themselves there were painted very similar. M. de Nemours was among this number,
and it was perhaps what made Madame de Clèves want to have these paintings.
Madame de Martigues, who had not been able to leave with the court, promised
to spend a few days in Coulommiers. The queen's favor, which they shared, had not
caused them to envy or distance themselves from each other: they were friends,
without nevertheless confiding their feelings to each other.
Madame de Clèves knew that Madame de Martigues loved the vidame. But Madame
de Martigues did not know that Madame de Clèves loved M. de Nemours, nor that
she was loved by him. The status of niece of the vidame made Madame de Clèves
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dearer to Madame de Martigues, and Madame de Clèves also loved him as a

person who had a passion as much as she did, and who had it for the intimate
friend of her lover.
Madame de Martigues came to Coulommiers, as she had promised to

Madame de Clèves; she found her in a very solitary life. This princess had even
sought a way to be in complete solitude, and to spend the evenings in the
gardens, without being accompanied by her servants: she came to this pavilion
where M. de Nemours had listened to her; she entered the study which opened
onto the garden. Her wives and servants lived in the other room or under the
pavilion, and did not come to her unless she called them. Madame de Martigues
had never seen Coulommiers; she was surprised by all the beauties she found
there, and especially by the pleasantness of this pavilion: Madame de Clèves
and she spent there every evening. The freedom of being alone at night, in the
most beautiful place in the world, did not allow the conversation between two
young people who had violent passions in their hearts to end; and, although
they did not confide it to each other, they found great pleasure in talking to each
other. Madame de Martigues would have had difficulty leaving Coulommiers if,
when leaving him, she had not had to go to a place where the viscount was.
She left to go to Chambord, where the court was then.
The coronation had been performed in Reims by the Cardinal of Lorraine,

and the rest of the summer was to be spent in the castle of Chambord, which
was newly built. The queen expressed great joy at seeing Madame de Martigues
again, and, after having given her several tokens, she asked her for news of
Madame de Clèves and what she was doing in the countryside. M. de Nemours
and M. de Clèves were then with this queen. Madame de Martigues, who had
found Coulommiers admirable, recounted all its beauties, and she went into
great detail on the description of this pavilion in the forest, and on the pleasure
that Madame de Clèves had in walking there alone for part of it. of the night.
Mr. de Nemours, who knew the place well enough to hear what Madame de
Martigues said about it, thought that it was not impossible that he could see
Madame de Clèves there without being seen except by her. He asked Madame
de Martigues a few questions to clarify the matter further; and M. de Clèves,
who had always looked at him while Madame de Martigues had spoken, thought
he saw at that moment what was going through his mind. The questions that
this prince asked further confirmed him in this thought, so that he had no doubt
that he had the intention of going to see his wife. He was not wrong in his
suspicions. This design entered so strongly into the mind of M. de Nemours, that after having pass
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night thinking of the means of executing him, the next morning he asked the king for
leave to go to Paris, on some pretext that he invented.
M. de Cleves did not doubt the subject of this trip, but he resolved to clarify his
wife's conduct, and not to remain in cruel uncertainty. He wanted to leave at the
same time as M. de Nemours, and to come himself, hidden, to discover what success
this trip would have; but, fearing that his departure would appear extraordinary, and
that M. de Nemours, upon being informed, would take other measures, he resolved
to trust a gentleman who was his, whose fidelity and spirit he knew . He told her of
the embarrassment he found himself in. He told him what the virtue of Madame de
Clèves had been until then, and ordered him to follow in the footsteps of Monsieur
de Nemours, to observe him exactly, to see if he would not go to Coulommiers, and
'he would not enter the garden at night.
The gentleman, who was very capable of such a commission, carried it out with
all imaginable accuracy.
He followed M. de Nemours to a village half a league from Coulommiers, where
this prince stopped, and the gentleman easily guessed that it was to wait there for
the night.
He didn't think it would be wise to wait for her there too; he passed the village,
and went into the forest to the place through which he judged that M. de Nemours
could pass; he was not mistaken in everything he had thought.
As soon as night came, he heard walking, and, although it was dark, he easily
recognized M. de Nemours. He saw him going around the garden, as if to listen if he
could hear anyone, and to choose the place through which he could pass most
easily. The palisades were very high, and there were still some behind them to
prevent anyone from entering; so that it was quite difficult to get through. M. de
Nemours nevertheless succeeded.
As soon as he was in the garden, he had no difficulty in determining where
Madame de Clèves was; he saw many lights in the cabinet: all the windows were
open, and, slipping along the palisades, he approached it with a confusion and an
emotion that it is easy to imagine.
He moved behind one of the windows which served as a door, to see what
Madame de Clèves was doing. He saw that she was alone; but he saw her of such
admirable beauty that he was barely master of the transport which this gave him.
view.
It was hot and she had nothing on her head and throat except her confusedly tied
hair. She was on a daybed, with a table in front of her, where there were several
baskets full of ribbons: she chose some of them, and M. de Nemours noticed that
they were the same colors that he had worn at the tournament. He saw that she was
making knots on a very extraordinary Indian cane, which he had carried for some
time, and which he had
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given to her sister, from whom Madame de Clèves had taken it, without pretending
to recognize it as having belonged to M. de Nemours.
After she had finished her work with a grace and gentleness which spread on her
face the feelings that she had in her heart, she took a torch and went near a large
table, opposite of the painting of the siege of Metz, where was the portrait of M. de
Nemours: she sat down, and began to look at this portrait with an attention and a
reverie that only passion can give.
We cannot express what M. de Nemours felt at that moment. To see, in the

middle of the night, in the most beautiful place in the world, a person he adored, to
see her without her knowing that he was seeing her, and to see her occupied with
things that had to do with him and to the passion she hid from him, it is what has
never been tasted or imagined by any other lover.
This prince was also so beside himself that he remained motionless looking at
Madame de Clèves, without thinking that the moments were precious to him.
When he had recovered a little, he thought he should wait to speak to her until
she went into the garden; he believed that he could do it with more safety, because
she would be further away from his wives; but, seeing that she remained in the
study, he resolved to enter it.
When he wanted to execute it, what trouble he had! what fear of displeasing him!
what a fear to change this face where there was so much gentleness, and to see it
become full of severity and anger!
He found that it had been madness, not in coming to see Madame de Clèves
without being seen, but in thinking of being seen; he saw everything he had not yet
considered. It seemed extravagance to him in his boldness to come and surprise in
the middle of the night a person to whom he had never before spoken of his love.
He thought that he should not pretend that she wanted to listen to him, and that she
would be justly angry at the danger to which he exposed her by the accidents that
could happen. All his courage abandoned him, and he was ready, several times, to
resolve to return without being seen.
Driven nevertheless by the desire to speak to him, and reassured by the hopes
that everything he had seen gave him, he advanced a few steps, but with so much
trouble that a scarf he had got stuck in the window. , made a noise. Madame de
Cleves turned her head, and, whether her mind was full of this prince, or whether he
was in a place where the light was sufficient for her to be able to distinguish him,
she thought she recognized him; and, without swaying or turning towards the side
where he was, she entered the place where her women were. She entered with so
much confusion that, to hide it, she was forced to say that she was
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found it bad; and she also said it to occupy all her people, and to give M. de
Nemours time to retire.
When she had done some reflection, she thought that she had been mistaken,
and that it was an effect of her imagination to have thought she saw M. de Nemours.
She knew he was in Chambord; she found it in no way likely that he had undertaken
such a risky thing; Several times she wanted to go into the study and go into the
garden to see if there was anyone there. Perhaps she wished, as much as she
feared, to find M. de Nemours there; but in the end reason and prudence prevailed
over all her other feelings, and she found that it was better to remain in the doubt
she was in than to take the chance of clarifying it. It took her a long time to resolve
to leave a place to which she thought this prince was perhaps so close, and it was
almost daylight when she returned to the castle.
M. de Nemours had remained in the garden; as long as he had seen the light he
could not lose hope of seeing Madame de Cleves again, although he was convinced
that she had recognized him, and that she had only gone out to avoid him. ; but,
seeing that the doors were closed, he decided that he had nothing more to hope for.
He came to pick up his horse very close to the place where the gentleman of M.
de Cleves was waiting. This gentleman followed him to the same village from which
he had left in the evening.
M. de Nemours resolved to spend the whole day there in order to return at night
to Coulommiers, to see if Madame de Clèves would still have the cruelty to flee
him, or that of not exposing herself to being seen: although he had a perceptible
joy at having found her so full of his idea, he was nevertheless very distressed to
have seen such a natural movement in her to flee him.
Passion has never been so tender and so violent as it was then in this prince.
He went under some willows, along a small stream which flowed behind the
house where he was hidden. He moved as far away as possible, so as not to be
seen or heard by anyone; he abandoned himself to the transports of his love, and
his heart was so pressed that he was forced to let a few tears flow: but these tears
were not those that pain alone causes to flow, they were mixed with sweetness and
of this charm which is only found in love.
He began to go over all the actions of Madame de Clèves since he fell in love
with her: what honest and modest rigor she had always had
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for him, although she loved him! Because after all she loves me, he said, she
loves me, I cannot doubt it; the greatest commitments and the greatest favors
are not such assured marks as those I have had; However, I am treated with
the same rigor as if I were hated. I hoped at the time; I should no longer expect
anything from it. I always see her defending herself equally against me and
against herself. If I were not loved, I would think of pleasing; but I please, people
love me, and they hide it from me. So what can I hope for? and what change
must I expect in my destiny! What ! I will be loved by the kindest person in the
world, and I will only have this excess of love that comes from the first certainties
of being loved to better feel the pain of being mistreated! Let me see that you
love me, beautiful princess, he cried, let me see your feelings! Provided that I
know them through you once in my life, I consent that you resume forever these
rigors with which you overwhelm me. At least look at me with those same eyes
with which I saw you look at my portrait last night: can you have looked at it with
so much gentleness, and fled from me so cruelly? What do you fear? Why is my
love so formidable to you? You love me, you hide it from me uselessly; you
have given me involuntary marks of it.
I know my happiness, let me enjoy it, and stop making me unhappy.

Is it possible, he continued, that I am loved by Madame de Clèves and that I am
unhappy? How beautiful she was last night! how could I resist the urge to throw
myself at his feet? If I had, I might have stopped her from running away from
me; my respect would have reassured her. But perhaps she didn't recognize
me; I grieve more than I should, and the sight of a man at such an extraordinary
hour frightened her.
These same thoughts occupied M. de Nemours all day; he waited impatiently
for the night, and when it came, he returned to Coulommiers. The gentleman of
M. de Cleves, who had disguised himself in order to be less noticed, followed
him to the place where he had followed him the evening before, and saw him
enter the same garden. This prince soon learned that Madame de Cleves did
not want to risk him trying to see her again.
All the doors were closed, he turned around to see if he would see any light, but
it was in vain.
Madame de Clèves, having suspected that M. de Nemours might return,
remained in her room; she had feared that she would not always have the
strength to flee him, and she had not wanted to risk speaking to him in a way
that did not conform to the behavior she had had until then.
Although M. de Nemours had no hope of seeing her, he could not bring
himself to leave so soon from a place where she was so often. He spent the
whole night in the garden, and found some consolation in seeing at least the same
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objects she saw every day. The sun was up before he thought of retiring; but at last the
fear of being discovered obliged him to leave.
It was impossible for him to leave without seeing Madame de Clèves, and he went to
Madame de Mercoeur, who was then in the house she had near Coulommiers. She was
extremely surprised by her brother's arrival. He invented a reason for his trip probable
enough to deceive her, and finally he carried out his plan so skillfully that he forced her
to suggest of her own accord to go to Madame de Cleves.
This proposal was carried out the same day, and M. de Nemours told his sister that
he would leave her at Coulommiers to return quickly to find the king. He made this plan
of leaving her at Coulommiers with the thought of letting her leave first, and he believed
he had found an infallible way of speaking to Madame de Clèves.
As they arrived, she was walking along a large path that borders the lawn. The sight
of M. de Nemours did not cause her a slight disturbance, and left her no longer in doubt
that it was him whom she had seen the previous night: this certainty gave her some
feeling of anger, through her boldness and imprudence that she found in what he had
undertaken. This prince noticed an impression of coldness on his face which gave him
a noticeable pain.
The conversation was about indifferent matters, and nevertheless he found the art of
showing so much wit, so much complacency and so much admiration for Madame de
Clèves, that he dissipated in spite of herself part of the coldness that she had first.
When he felt reassured from his first fear, he showed extreme curiosity to go and
see the forest pavilion: he spoke of it as the most pleasant place in the world, and even
gave such a particular description of it that Madame de Mercoeur told him said that he
had to have been there several times to know all its beauties so well.
– I do not believe, however, replied Madame de Clèves, that M. de Nemours there

has never entered; it is a place that has only recently been completed.
“It has not been long since I was there,” continued de Nemours, looking at her, “and
I do not know if I should not be very glad that you have forgotten to have seen me there.
Madame de Mercœur, who was looking at the beauty of the gardens, paid no
attention to what her brother was saying. Madame de Clèves blushed, and, lowering her
eyes without looking at M. de Nemours:
– I don’t remember, she said to him, having seen you there, and if you
have been, it was without my knowing it.
– It is true, madame, replied M. de Nemours, that I was there without your
orders and I spent the sweetest and cruelest moments of my life there.
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Madame de Clèves heard everything this prince said too well, but she did not respond:
she thought of preventing Madame de Mercœur from going into this cabinet, because the
portrait of M. de Nemours was there, and because she didn't want her to see him there.
She did so well that time passed imperceptibly, and Madame de Mercœur spoke of
returning; but when Madame de Clèves saw that M. de Nemours and his sister were not
going together, she judged well what she was going to be exposed to: she found herself
in the same embarrassment she had found herself in Paris, and she also took the same
side. The fear that this visit was yet another confirmation of her husband's suspicions
contributed not a little to determining her; and, to prevent M. de Nemours from remaining
alone with her, she told Madame de Mercoeur that she was going to take him to the edge
of the forest, and she ordered her carriage to follow her. The pain that this prince felt at
always finding this same continuation of rigor in Madame de Cleves was so violent that he
turned pale at the same moment. Madame de Mercœur asked him if he was unwell; but
he looked at Madame de Cleves, without anyone noticing, and he made her judge by his
looks that he had no other problem than his despair. However, he had to let them go
without daring to follow them; and after what he had said, he could no longer return with
his sister: So he returned to Paris, and left the next day.
The gentleman of M. de Clèves had always observed him: he also returned to Paris;
and, as he saw Mr. Nemours leaving for Chambord, he took the post office in order to
arrive there ahead of him, and to report on his journey. His master awaited his return as
what would decide the misfortune of his entire life.
As soon as he saw him, he judged by his face and his silence that he had only
unpleasant things to teach him.
He remained for some time seized with affliction, his head bowed without being able to
speak; but he made a sign with his hand for him to withdraw.
– Come on, he said to him, I see what you have to tell me; but I don't have the strength
to listen to him.
– I have nothing to teach you, replied the gentleman, on which one can make a
confident judgment; It is true that M. de Nemours entered the forest garden two nights in a
row, and that the next day he went to Coulommiers with Madame de Mercoeur.
“That’s enough,” replied M. de Cleves, “that’s enough, still making him

sign to withdraw, and I do not need further clarification.
The gentleman was forced to leave his master abandoned to his despair. There has
perhaps never been a more violent one; and few men of such great courage and such a
passionate heart as Mr. de Cleves have felt at the same time the pain caused by the
infidelity of a mistress and the shame of being deceived by a woman.
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M. de Cleves could not resist the dejection in which he found himself. The
fever took hold of him that very night, and with such great accidents that from
that moment his illness seemed very dangerous; notice was given to Madame
de Clèves; she came by diligence. When she arrived, he was even worse;
she found something so cold and icy for her that she was extremely surprised
and distressed. It even seemed to him that he received with difficulty the
services she rendered him; but finally she thought that it was perhaps an
effect of her illness.
First of all, she was in Blois, where the court was then, M. de Nemours
could not help but be happy to know that she was in the same place. He tried
to see her and went every day to M. de Clèves, on the pretext of knowing her
news; but it was in vain. She did not leave her husband's room and was in
violent pain at the state in which she saw him. M. de Nemours was in despair
that she was so distressed. He easily judged how much this affliction renewed
the friendship she had for M. de Cleves, and how this friendship created a
dangerous diversion from the passion she had in her heart. This feeling gave
him mortal grief for some time; but the extremity of M. de Cleves' illness
opened up new hopes to him. He saw that Madame de Cleves would perhaps
be at liberty to follow his inclination, and that he might find in the future a
succession of lasting happiness and pleasure. He could not bear this thought,
it gave him so much trouble and transport, and he kept his mind away from
it, for fear of finding himself too unhappy if he were to lose his hopes.
However, Mr. de Cleves was almost abandoned by the doctors. One of

the last days of his illness, after having spent a very unpleasant night, he
said in the morning that he wanted to rest. Madame de Clèves remained
alone in her room; it seemed to him that instead of resting, he was very
worried; she approached and knelt in front of his bed, her face covered with
tears. M. de Cleves had resolved not to show her the violent grief he felt
against her; but the care she gave him and his affliction, which sometimes
seemed genuine to him and which he also sometimes regarded as marks of
dissimulation and perfidy, caused him feelings so opposed and so painful
that he could not contain them in himself.
– You shed many tears, madame, he said to her, for a death that you
cause, and which cannot give you the pain that you make appear. I am in no
position to reproach you, he continued with a voice weakened by illness and
pain, but I am dying from the cruel displeasure you have given me. Was it
necessary that an action as extraordinary as that which you had done in
speaking to me at Coulommiers had so little consequence?
Why enlighten me about the passion you had for M. de Nemours,
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if your virtue had no more scope to resist it? I loved you to the point of being very
happy to be deceived, I admit it to my shame; I regretted this false rest from which
you took me away. Why don't you leave me in this quiet blindness that so many
husbands enjoy! I would perhaps have been unaware all my life that you loved
Monsieur de Nemours. I will die, he added, but know that you make death pleasant
for me, and that after having taken away the esteem and tenderness that I had for
you, life would horrify me.
What would I do with life, he continued, to spend it with a person whom I loved so
much, and by whom I was so cruelly deceived, or to live separated from this same
person, and come to a and to violence so opposed to my mood and the passion I
had for you? It went beyond what you saw, madam: I hid most of it from you for fear
of bothering you, or of losing something of your esteem through manners that were
not suitable for a husband. ; finally I deserved your heart: once again, I die without
regret, since I could not have it, and I can no longer desire it. Farewell, madame, one
day you will miss a man who loved you with a true and legitimate passion. You will
feel the sorrow that reasonable people find in these commitments, and you will know
the difference between being loved as I loved you, and being loved by people who,
in showing love, only seek the honor of seduce you. But my death will leave you at
liberty, he added, and you will be able to make M. de Nemours happy without it
costing you crimes.
What does it matter, he continued, what will happen when I am no more, and must I
have the weakness to cast my eyes on it!
Madame de Clèves was so far from imagining that her husband could have any
suspicions against her, that she listened to all these words without understanding
them and without having any other idea, other than that he reproached her for her
inclination towards M. de Clèves. Nemours; finally, suddenly emerging from his
blindness: Me, crimes! she cried; the very thought of it is unknown to me: the most
austere virtue cannot inspire any other conduct than that which I had; and I have
never done an action that I would not have wished you to have witnessed. “Would
you have wished,” replied M. de Cleves, looking at her with disdain, “that I had been
one of the nights you spent with M. de Nemours?
Ah! Madam, is it you I'm talking about when I talk about a woman who spent nights
with a man? “No, sir,” she replied; no, it's not me you're talking about: I never spent
nights or moments with M. de Nemours. He has never seen me in particular, I have
never suffered or listened to him, and I would take every oath... - Say no more,
interrupted M. de Cleves: false oaths or a confession would make me would perhaps
do equal punishment.
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Madame de Clèves could not answer; her tears and her pain finally deprived
her of speech, making an effort: “At least look at me, listen to me,” she said to
him; If it was only my interest that was at stake, I would suffer this reproach; but
your life is at stake; listen to me, for your own sake: it is impossible that with so
much truth I cannot persuade you of my innocence. – Would to God that you
could persuade me! he cried; but what can you tell me? Wasn't M. de Nemours
at Coulommiers with his sister? And hadn't he spent the previous two nights with
you in the forest garden? – If this is my crime, she replied, it is easy for me to
justify myself.
I am not asking you to believe me, but believe all your servants, and know if I
went into the forest garden the day before M. de Nemours came to Coulommiers,
and if I did not come out the evening of previously, two hours earlier than I was
accustomed to. She then told him how she thought she saw someone in this
garden; she admitted to him that she had thought it was M. de Nemours. She
spoke to him with so much assurance, and the truth is so easily convinced, even
when it is not probable, that M. de Cleves was almost convinced of her innocence.
I don't know, he said to him, if I should let myself believe you, I feel so close to
death that I don't want to see anything that could make me regret life. You
enlightened me too late; but it will always be a relief for me to take away the
thought that you are worthy of the esteem I had for you. I pray that I may still have
the consolation of believing that my memory will be dear to you, and that, if it had
depended on you, you would have had feelings for me that you have for another.
He wanted to continue, but a weakness prevented him from speaking. Madame

de Clèves called for the doctors: they found him almost lifeless. He nevertheless
languished for a few more days, and finally died with admirable constancy.
Madame de Cleves remained in such violent affliction that she almost lost the
use of reason.
The queen came to see her carefully, and took her to a convent, without her
knowing where she was being taken. Her sisters-in-law took her back to Paris,
when she was not yet in a state to distinctly feel her pain.
When she began to have the strength to consider it, and when she saw what
husband she had lost, when she considered that she was the cause of his death,
that it was through the passion she had had for another that she was the cause,
the horror she had for herself and for M. de Nemours cannot be imagined.
This prince did not dare, in these beginnings, to pay him any other attention
than that which decorum ordered. He knew Madame de Clèves well enough to
believe that greater haste would be disagreeable to her; but
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which he subsequently learned made him see clearly that he would have to follow the same behavior
for a long time.
A squire he had told him that the gentleman of M. de Clèves, who was his
close friend, had told him, in his grief at the loss of his master, that the trip of
M. de Nemours to Coulommiers was the cause of his death.
M. de Nemours was extremely surprised by this speech; but, after thinking
about it, he guessed part of the truth, and he judged well what Madame de
Clèves' feelings would be at first, and what distance she would have from him
if she believed that her husband's illness had been caused by jealousy. He
believed that it was not necessary to even make her remember his name so
soon, and he followed this course, however painful it seemed to him.
He made a trip to Paris, and nevertheless could not refrain from going to her
door to hear her news. She was told that no one saw her, and that she had
even forbidden anyone to report to her about those who came looking for her.
Perhaps these exact orders were given with this prince in mind and so as not
to hear about him.
M. de Nemours was too much in love to be able to live so absolutely deprived
of the sight of Madame de Clèves. He resolved to find ways, however difficult
they might be, to escape from a state which seemed so unbearable to him.
The pain of this princess went beyond the limits of reason. This husband
dying, and dying because of her and with so much tenderness for her, did not
escape her mind. She constantly went over everything she owed him, and she
made a crime of not having had a passion for him, as if it were something that
was in her power. She only found consolation in thinking that she regretted him
as much as he deserved to be regretted, and that she would only do in the rest
of her life what she would have been glad she had done. if he had lived.
She had thought several times how he had known that M. de Nemours had
come to Coulommiers: she did not suspect this prince of having told it, and it
even seemed indifferent to her that he had told it again, as she believed herself
to be cured. and far from the passion she had had for him! She nevertheless
felt a sharp pain at imagining that he was the cause of her husband's death,
and she remembered with difficulty the fear that M. de Cleves had shown her,
when he was dying, that she would marry him. ; but all these pains were
confused with that of the loss of her husband, and she believed she had no other.
After several months had passed, she emerged from this violent affliction in
which she was, and passed into a state of sadness and languor. Madame de
Martigues made a trip to Paris, and saw it carefully during her stay there.
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She talked to him about the court and everything that happened there; and, although
Madame de Clèves did not seem to take any interest in it, Madame de Martigues never
stopped talking to her about it to entertain her.
She told him news of the vidame, of M. de Guise and of all the
others who were distinguished by their person or by their merit.
As for Mr. de Nemours, she said, I don't know if business has taken the place of gallantry
in his heart, but he has much less joy than he was accustomed to having, he seems very
withdrawn. of the trade in women: he often makes trips to Paris, and I even believe that he
is there currently.
The name of M. de Nemours surprised Madame de Clèves and made her blush: she
changed the speech and Madame de Martigues did not notice her confusion.
The next day, this princess, who was looking for occupations consistent with the state in
which she was, went, close to her home, to see a man who made silk works in a particular
way, and she went there with the intention of have similar ones made. After they had been
shown to her, she saw the door of a room where she thought there were still some: she said
they opened it for her. The master replied that he did not have the key and that it was
occupied by a man who came there sometimes during the day, to draw beautiful houses and
gardens that could be seen from his windows. He is the best man in the world, he added: he
hardly looks like he is reduced to earning his living. Whenever he comes here, I always see
him looking at the houses and gardens, but I never see him working.
Madame de Clèves listened to this speech with great attention. What Madame de
Martigues had told her, that M. de Nemours was sometimes in Paris, joined her imagination
with this well-made man who came near her home, and gave her an idea of M. Nemours,
and of M. de Nemours applied to see her, which gave her a confused disturbance of which
she did not even know the cause.
She went to the windows to see where they looked; she found that they could see her entire
garden and the front of her apartment: and, when she was in her room, she easily noticed
this same window where she had been told that this man was coming.
The thought that it was M. de Nemours entirely changed the situation of his mind; she
no longer found herself in a certain sad rest that she was beginning to enjoy; she felt worried
and agitated: finally, not being able to stay with herself, she went out and went to get some
fresh air in a garden outside the suburbs, where she thought she would be alone.
She believed, when she got there, that she had not been mistaken; she doesn't see any
There seemed to be someone there, and she walked around for quite a long time.
After crossing a small wood, she saw, at the end of an alley, in the most remote part of
the garden, a sort of study open on all sides, where she directed her steps.
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As she got closer, she saw a man lying on benches, who seemed buried in a deep
reverie, and she recognized that it was M. de Nemours.
This sight stopped him short; but her people, who followed her, made some noise
which drew M. de Nemours out of his reverie. Without looking at who had caused the
noise he had heard, he got up from his place to avoid the company coming towards
him, and turned into another avenue making a very low bow, which even prevented him
from seeing those whom he had heard. 'he greeted.
If he had known what he was avoiding, with what ardor would he have retraced his
steps! But he continued to follow the path, and Madame de Clèves saw him exit through
a back door, where his carriage was waiting for him.
What effect did this sight of a moment produce in the heart of Madame de Clèves!
What dormant passion was rekindled in his heart, and with what violence! She went
and sat down in the same place from which M. de Nemours had just left; she remained
there as if overwhelmed.
This prince presented himself to her mind, lovable above all that was in the world,
loving her for a long time with a passion full of respect and fidelity, despising everything
for her, respecting even her pain, thinking of the to see without being seen, leaving the
courtyard, which he delighted in, to look at the walls which enclosed it to come and
dream in places where he could not claim to encounter it; finally a man worthy of being
loved by his attachment alone, and for whom she had such a violent inclination that she
would have loved him even if he had not loved her; but moreover, a man of a high
quality and suitable to his own. No more duty, no more virtue which opposed her
feelings: all the obstacles were removed, and all that remained of their past state was
the passion of M. de Nemours for her, and that which she had for him.
All these ideas were new to this princess. The affliction of the death of M. de Cleves
had occupied her enough to have prevented her from casting her eyes there. The
presence of M. de Nemours brought them in crowds to his mind; but, when he had been
fully filled with it, and she also remembered that this same man whom she considered
as being able to marry her, was the one whom she had loved during her husband's
lifetime, and who was the cause of his death ; that even, when dying, he had shown her
the fear that she would marry him, her austere virtue was so wounded by this
imagination, that she found hardly less a crime in marrying M. de Nemours than she did
in had found love for her during her husband's life.
She abandoned herself to these reflections so contrary to her happiness; she further
strengthened them with several reasons which concerned her rest and the evils which
she foresaw in marrying this prince. Finally, after having remained for two
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hours in the place where she was, she returned home, convinced that she must flee
the sight of him as something entirely opposed to her duty.
But this persuasion, which was an effect of his reason and his virtue, did not
excite his heart. He remained attached to M. de Nemours with a violence which put
her in a state worthy of compassion, and which left her no rest. She spent one of the
cruelest nights she had ever spent. In the morning, her first impulse was to go and
see if there would be anyone at the window which overlooked her house: she went
there, she saw M. de Nemours there. This sight surprised her, and she withdrew with
a promptitude which made this prince judge that he had been recognized. He had
often desired to be one, since his passion had made him find these means of seeing
Madame de Cleves; and, when he did not hope to have this pleasure, he went to
dream in the same garden where she had found him.
Finally tired of such an unhappy and uncertain state, he resolved to try some way
to clarify his destiny. What do I want to wait for? he said ; I have been loved by him
for a long time; she is free, she no longer has a duty to oppose me: why reduce
myself to seeing her without being seen and without speaking to her? Is it possible
that love has so cruelly taken away my reason and boldness, and that it has made
me so different from what I have been in the other passions of my life? I had to
respect the pain of Madame de Clèves; but I respect for too long and I give her the
opportunity to extinguish the inclination she has for me.
After these reflections, he thought of the means he should use to see her. He
believed that there was no longer anything that would oblige him to hide his passion
from the Vidame de Chartres: he resolved to speak to him about it and to tell him the
plan he had for his niece.
The vidame was then in Paris; everyone had come there to order their crew and
their clothes to follow the king, who was to lead the queen of Spain. M. de Nemours
therefore went to the vidame, made a sincere confession of everything he had hidden
from him until then, with the reservation of the feelings of Madame de Clèves, of
which he did not want to appear informed.
The vidame received everything he said to him with great joy, and assured him
that, without knowing his feelings, he had often thought, since Madame de Cleves
was a widow, that she was the only person worthy of him. M. de Nemours begged
him to give him the means to speak to him, and to know what his dispositions were.
The vidame offered to take him to her house; but M. de Nemours thought that
she would be shocked, because she did not yet see anyone. They found that it was
necessary for M. le Vidame to ask her to come to his house on some pretext, and for
M. de Nemours to come there by a hidden staircase, so as not to be seen by anyone.
This was carried out as they had decided: Madame de Clèves came, the vidame
went to receive her and took her to a large cabinet at the end
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from his apartment. Some time later M. de Nemours entered as if chance had
led him. Madame de Clèves was extremely surprised to see him; she blushed,
and tried to hide her blush. The vidame spoke at first of indifferent matters, and
went out, supposing that he had some order to give.
He told Madame de Clèves that he asked her to do the honors at home, and
that he would return in a moment.
We cannot explain what M. de Nemours and Madame de Clèves felt at
finding themselves alone and able to speak to each other for the first time. They
remained for some time without saying anything; finally Mr. de Nemours breaking
the silence: – Do you forgive Mr. de Chartres, madame, he said to her, for giving
me the opportunity to see you and talk to you that you have always so cruelly
taken away from me? ? – I must not forgive him, she replied, for having forgotten
the state in which I am, and to which he exposes my reputation. Pronouncing
these words, she wanted to leave, and M. de Nemours holding her back: – Fear
nothing, madame, he replied, no one knows that I am here, and no chance is to
be feared. Listen to me, Madam, listen to me, if not out of kindness, then at least
for the love of yourself, and to free yourself from the extravagances into which
a passion of which I am no longer would infallibly carry me away. the master.
Madame de Clèves gave in for the first time to the inclination she had for M.
de Nemours; and looking at him with eyes full of gentleness and charm: – But
what do you hope, she said to him, from the kindness you ask of me? You will
perhaps repent of having obtained it, and I will infallibly repent of having granted
it to you. You deserve a happier destiny than the one you have had so far, and
than the one you can find in the future, unless you look for it elsewhere. – Me,
madame, he said to her, looking for happiness elsewhere? and is there anything
other than being loved by you? Although I have never spoken to you, I cannot
believe, Madam, that you are unaware of my passion, and that you do not know
it to be the most true and the most violent that will ever be. How has she been
tested by things unknown to you? and what test have you put it to by your
rigors?
– Since you want me to speak to you, and I decide to do so, replied Madame
de Cleves, sitting down, I will do it with a sincerity that you will find difficult to
find in people of my sex. I will not tell you that I did not see the attachment you
had for me; maybe you wouldn't believe me when I told you; I therefore confess
to you not only that I saw it, but that I saw it as you could wish it to have
appeared to me.
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“And if you saw it, madame,” he interrupted, “is it possible that you were not
affected by it?” and dare I ask you if he has made no impression on your heart?
“You must have judged by my conduct,” she replied; but I

would like to know what you thought of it.
– I would have to be in a happier state to dare to tell you that, he replied, and
my destiny has too little relation to what I would tell you. All I can tell you,
madame, is that I ardently wished that you would not have confessed to M. de
Cleves what you were hiding from me, and that you would have hidden from him
what you had left me see.
“How were you able to discover,” she continued, blushing, “that I had
confessed something to M. de Cleves?”
“I knew it for yourself, madame,” he replied; but, to forgive me for the boldness
I had in listening to you, remember if I abused what I heard, if my hopes
increased and if I had more boldness in speaking to you .
He began to tell her how he had overheard her conversation with

M. de Cleves; but she interrupted him before he had finished.
– Don’t tell me any more, she said to him, I now see how you were so well
instructed; you already seemed to me only too well in the case of Madame la
dauphine, who had learned of this adventure from those to whom you had entrusted it.
M. de Nemours then told him how the thing had happened.
“Don’t apologize,” she replied, “I forgave you a long time ago without you
telling me the reason; but since you have learned for myself what I had intended
to hide from you all my life, I confess to you that you have inspired me with oaths
which were unknown to me before having seen you, and of which I I even had
so little idea that they first gave me a surprise which further increased the trouble
which always follows them.
I make this confession to you with less shame, because I do it at a time when I
can do it without crime, and because you have seen that my conduct has not
been regulated by my feelings.
“Do you believe, madame,” said M. de Nemours, throwing himself at her
knees, “that I do not expire at your feet with joy and transport!
– I only teach you, she replied, smiling, what you already knew only too well.
– Oh! Madam, he replied, what a difference to know it by chance or to learn it

for yourself, and to see that you really want me to know it!
– It is true, she said to him, that I would like you to know it, and that I find it
sweet in telling you; I don't even know if I'm not telling you this more for the love
of myself than for the love of you. Because finally this
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This confession will have no consequences, and I will follow the austere rules that my duty
imposes on me.
“You are not thinking of it, madame,” replied M. de Nemours; there is no
longer any duty that binds you, you are at liberty, and, if I dared, I would even
tell you that it depends on you to ensure that your duty one day obliges you to
preserve the feelings that you have for me.
– My duty, she replied, forbids me from ever thinking of anyone, and less of
you than of anyone in the world, for reasons unknown to you.
“They are perhaps not true for me, madame,” he continued; but these are
not real reasons. I believe I know that M. de Cleves believed me happier than
I was, and that he imagined that you had approved of the extravagances that
passion made me undertake without your consent.
– Let's not talk about this adventure, she said to him, I couldn't bear the
thought of it; she shames me and is also painful to me because of the
consequences she has had. It is only too true that you are the cause of the
death of M. de Clèves; the suspicions that your inconsiderate conduct gave
him cost him his life as if you had taken it from him with your own hands. See
what I should do if you had come to these extremes together, and the same
misfortune had happened; I know very well that it is not the same thing with
regard to the world, but in mine there is no difference, since I know that it is
through you that he died, and that it is because of me.
– Oh! Madam, said M. de Nemours to her, what phantom of duty do you
oppose to my happiness? What ! Madam, a vain and baseless thought will
prevent you from making happy a man you do not hate!
What ! I could have conceived the hope of spending my life with you; my
destiny would have led me to love the most estimable person in the world; I
would have seen in her everything that could make an adorable mistress; she
would not have hated me, and I would have found in her behavior everything
that could be desired in a woman! Because finally, Madam, you are perhaps
the only person in whom these two things have ever been found to the degree
that they are in you. All those who marry mistresses by whom they are loved
tremble when marrying them, and look with fear, in relation to others, at the
behavior they have had towards them; but in you, madame, there is nothing to
fear and we only find reasons for admiration. Would I not have envisaged, I
say, such great happiness only to see yourself bring obstacles to it? Ah!
madam, you forget that you distinguished me from the rest of men, or rather
you never distinguished me from them; you were mistaken and I flattered
myself.
– You have not flattered yourself, she replied, the reasons for my duty
would perhaps not seem so strong to me without this distinction which
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you doubt, and it is she who makes me envisage misfortunes in attaching myself
to you.
“I have nothing to answer, madame,” he continued, “when you show me that
you fear misfortunes; but I confess to you that after everything you were kind
enough to tell me, I did not expect to find such a cruel reason.
“It is so little offensive to you,” replied Madame de Clèves, “that I even have
great difficulty telling you about it.
– Alas! Madam, he replied, what can you fear that would flatter me too much,
after what you have just told me?
– I want to speak to you again with the same sincerity that I have already
begun, she continued, and I will go beyond all the restraint and all the delicacies
that I should have in a first conversation; but I implore you to listen to me without
interrupting me.
I believe I owe to your attachment the small reward of not hiding any of my
feelings from you, and of letting you see them as they are. This will apparently
be the only time in my life that I will give myself the freedom to make them
appear to you: nevertheless I cannot admit to you without shame that the
certainty of no longer being loved by you, as I am, seems to me to be so horrible
misfortune, that even if I had no insurmountable reasons for duty, I doubt if I
could bring myself to expose myself to this misfortune. I know that you are free,
that I am, and that things are of a sort that the public would perhaps have no
reason to blame you, nor me either, if we were committed together for ever; but
do men retain passion in these eternal commitments? should I hope for a miracle
in my favor? and can I put myself in a position to certainly see an end to this
passion on which I would make all my happiness?
M. de Cleves was perhaps the only man in the world capable of preserving
love in marriage. My destiny did not want me to be able to enjoy this happiness:
perhaps also his passion would only have existed because he would not have
found any in me; but I would not have the same means of preserving yours: I
even believe that the obstacles have made your constancy: you have found
some to motivate you to overcome; and my involuntary actions, or the things
that chance has taught you, have given you enough hope not to put you off.
– Ah, ma’am! replied M. de Nemours, “I cannot keep the silence you impose
on me; you do me too much injustice, and you show me too much how far you
are from being prejudiced in my favor.
– I admit, she replied, that passions can lead me; but they cannot blind me:
nothing can prevent me from knowing that you were born with all the dispositions
for gallantry, and all the
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qualities which are suitable for successful success: you have already had
several passions; you would still have it, I would no longer make you happy; I
would see you for another as you would have been for me; I would have
mortal pain, and I would not even be sure of not having the misfortune of
jealousy. I have told you too much to hide from you that you made it known to
me, and that I suffered such cruel pain that evening that the queen gave me
this letter from Madame de Thémines, which was said to be addressed to
you, that an idea has remained with me which makes me believe that it is the
greatest of all evils.
Out of vanity or taste, all women want to tie you up; there are few who do
not please you: my experience makes me believe that there are none who
cannot please you. I would believe you were in love and loved, and I would
not often be mistaken: in this state nevertheless, I would have no other choice
than that of suffering; I don't even know if I would dare to complain. We
reproach a lover, but do we reproach a husband when we only have to
reproach him for no longer having love?
When I could accustom myself to this sort of misfortune, could I accustom
myself to that of believing that I see M. de Clèves accusing you of his death,
reproaching me for having loved you for having married you, and making me
feel the difference of his attachment to yours? It is impossible, she continued,
to overcome such strong reasons: I must remain in the state I am in, and in
the resolutions I have made never to escape from it.
– Hey! do you believe in power, madame? cried M. de Nemours. Do you
think that your resolutions hold against a man who adores you, and who is
happy enough to please you? It is more difficult than you think, Madam, to
resist what pleases us and what loves us. You did it with an austere virtue
that has almost no example; but this virtue is no longer opposed to your
feelings, and I hope that you will follow them in spite of yourself.
– I know very well that there is nothing more difficult than what I am
undertaking, replied Madame de Clèves; I distrust my strength in the midst of
my reasons: what I believe I owe to the memory of M. de Cleves would be
weak, if it were not supported by the interest of my rest; and the reasons for
my rest need to be supported by those of my duty; but, although I distrust
myself, I believe that I will never overcome my scruples, and I also do not
hope to overcome the inclination that I have for you. It will make me unhappy,
and I will deprive myself of your sight, whatever violence it costs me. I beg
you, by all the power I have over you, not to seek any opportunity to see me.
I am in a state that makes me commit crimes of everything that could be
permitted in another time and decorum alone prohibits any commerce between
us.
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M. de Nemours threw himself at his feet, and gave way to all the various
movements with which he was agitated. He showed her, through his words and
through his tears, the most lively and tender passion with which a heart had ever
been touched. That of Madame de Clèves was not insensitive; and, looking at this
prince with eyes slightly swollen with tears: “Why must I,”
she exclaimed, “be able to accuse you of the death of M. de Cleves? Why have
I not begun to know you since I was free? or why didn't I know you before I was
engaged?
Why does destiny separate us by an invincible obstacle?
“There is no obstacle, madame,” replied M. de Nemours; you alone oppose my
happiness, you alone impose a law on yourself that virtue and reason cannot impose
on you.
It is true, she replied, that I sacrifice a lot to a duty which only exists in my
imagination: wait for what time can do.
M. de Cleves has only just expired, and this fatal object is too close to leave me with
clear and distinct views: however, have the pleasure of having made yourself loved
by a person who would not have loved anything if she did not had never seen you;
believe that the feelings I have for you will be eternal, and that they will also remain,
whatever I do. Farewell, she said to him; here is a conversation that shames me;
report it to Mr. Vidame, I agree and I beg you.
She left saying these words, without M. de Nemours being able to stop her; she
found the vidame in the nearest room: he saw her so disturbed that he did not dare
speak to her, and he put her back in his carriage without saying anything to her. He
returned to find M. de Nemours who was so full of joy, of sadness, of astonishment
and admiration, in short of all the feelings that a passion full of fear and hope can
give, that he had not the use of reason. It took a long time for the vidame to obtain
an account of his conversation. He finally did so, and M. de Chartres, without being
in love, had no less admiration for the virtue, the spirit and the merit of Madame de
Clèves, than M. de Nemours had himself. They examined what this prince had to
hope for from his destiny; and whatever fears his love might have given him, he
remained in agreement with M. le Vidame that it was impossible for Madame de
Clèves to remain in the resolutions in which she was. They agreed, however, that
her orders had to be followed, lest, if the public became aware of the attachment he
had for her, she would make declarations and commitments to the world, which she
would support. subsequently by the fear that people would believe that she had
loved him while her husband was alive.
M. de Nemours determined to follow the king. It was a trip from which he could
not easily escape, and he resolved to leave without even attempting to see Madame
de Cleves again from the place where he had sometimes seen her. He prayed to Mr.
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vidame to talk to him. What does he not say to him to tell him! What an infinite
number of reasons to persuade her to overcome her scruples! Finally part of the
night had passed before M. de Nemours thought of leaving him to rest.
Madame de Cleves was not in a position to find any: it was such a new thing
for her to have emerged from this constraint that she had imposed on herself, to
have suffered for the first time in her life that one told her that they were in love
with her, and for having said herself that she was in love, that she no longer knew herself.
She was amazed at what she had done; she repented of it; she had joy: all her
feelings were full of trouble and passion. She again examined the reasons for her
duty which were opposed to her happiness: she felt pain to find them so strong,
and she repented of having shown them so well to M. de Nemours. Although the
thought of marrying him had entered her mind as soon as she had seen him again
in this garden, it had not made the same impression on him as the conversation
she had had with him had just made, and there were times when she had difficulty
understanding that she could be unhappy by marrying him. She would have liked
to be able to tell herself that she was ill-founded both in her scruples of the past
and in her fears of the future. Reason and his duty showed him, at other times,
quite opposite things, which quickly led him to resolve not to remarry and never to
see M. de Nemours; but it was a very violent resolution to establish in a heart as
touched as his, and as newly abandoned to the charms of love.
Finally, to give herself some peace of mind, she thought that it was not yet
necessary for her to have the violence to make resolutions: decorum gave her
considerable time to make up her mind; but she resolved to remain firm in having
no commerce with M. de Nemours. The vidame came to see her, and served this
prince with all the spirit and diligence imaginable.
He could not make her change her conduct, nor that which she had imposed on
M. de Nemours. She told him that her intention was to remain in the state in which
she found herself; that she knew that this plan was difficult to carry out, but that
she hoped to have the strength to do so. She showed him so clearly to what extent
she was touched by the opinion that M. de Nemours had caused the death of her
husband, and how much she was convinced that she would be acting against her
duty by marrying him, that the the vidame feared that it would be difficult to remove
this impression from him. He did not tell this prince what he thought; and, in giving
him an account of his conversation, he left him with all the hope that reason should
give to a man who is loved.
They left the next day and went to join the king. M. le Vidame wrote to Madame
de Clèves, at the request of M. de Nemours, to tell her about this prince; and, in a
second letter, which soon followed the first, M. de Nemours included a few lines in
his own handwriting. But Madame de Clèves, who did not want
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departing from the rules that she had imposed on herself, and who feared the
accidents that can happen through letters, told the vidame that she would no longer
receive his letters if he continued to speak to her about M. de Nemours, and she told
him called so strongly that this prince even begged him not to name him again.
The court took the Queen of Spain to Poitou. During this absence, Madame de
Clèves remained to herself; and, as she was further away from Nemours and all that
she could remember of it, she recalled the memory of M. de Clèves, which she took
an honor to preserve.
The reasons she had for not marrying M. de Nemours seemed strong to her from
the side of her duty, and insurmountable from the side of her rest. The end of this
prince's love and the evils of jealousy, which she believed to be infallible in a marriage,
showed her a certain misfortune into which she was going to be thrown; but she also
saw that she was undertaking an impossible thing, to resist in the presence of the
most amiable man in the world, whom she loved, and by whom she was loved, and to
resist him on something which shocked neither virtue nor morality. propriety.
She judged that only absence and distance could give her some strength: she
found that she needed it not only to support the resolution not to commit herself, but
even to prevent herself from seeing M. de Nemours; and she resolved to make a fairly
long journey, to spend all the time that decorum required her to live in retirement.
Large lands that she had in the Pyrenees seemed to her the cleanest place she
could choose. She left a few days before the court returned, and on leaving she wrote
to M. le Vidame to beg him not to think of hearing from her or writing to him.
Madame de Cleves, whose mind had been so agitated, fell into a violent illness as
soon as she arrived home.
It was learned at court that she was out of this extreme danger in which she had
been; but she remained in a languid illness which left little hope of life.
This view of death, so long and so imminent, made Madame de Clèves see the
things of this life with that very different eye from which we see them in health. The
necessity of dying, to which she saw herself so close, accustomed her to detach
herself from all things, and the length of her illness made it a habit for her.
When she returned from this state, she nevertheless found that M. de Nemours
was not erased from her heart; but she called to his aid, to defend herself against him,
all the reasons she believed she had for never marrying him. There was a big fight
going on within herself. Finally she overcame the remains of this passion, which was
weakened by the feelings that her illness had given her: thoughts of death had
reproached her with the memory of M. de Cleves. This memory, which suited its duty,
made a strong impression
120
in his heart: the passions and commitments of the world appeared to him as
they appear to people who have larger and more distant views.
His health, which remained considerably weakened, helped him to preserve

his feelings; but as she knew what opportunities can affect the wisest resolutions,
she did not want to risk destroying her own, nor return to the places where what
she had loved was.
She retired, on the pretext of a change of scenery, to a religious house,
without showing any definite intention of renouncing the
court. When Mr. de Nemours first heard about it, he felt the weight of this
retreat and saw its importance. He believed at that moment that he had nothing
more to hope for. The loss of his hopes did not prevent him from doing everything
possible to bring back Madame de Clèves: he had the queen write, he had the
vidame write, he had her go there, but everything was in vain. The vidame saw
her: she did not tell him that she had made any resolutions; he nevertheless
judged that she would never return. Finally, M. de Nemours went there himself,
on the pretext of going to the baths.
She was extremely disturbed and surprised to learn of his arrival; she made
him say through a person of merit whom she loved, and whom she then had
near her, that she begged him not to find it strange if she did not expose herself
to the danger of seeing him, and of destroy, by her presence, feelings that she
was supposed to preserve; that she wanted him to know that having found that
her duty and her rest were opposed to the inclination she had to be his, the
other things of the world had seemed so indifferent to her that she had
renounced them forever ; that she only thought of those of the other life, and
that she had no feeling left except the desire to see him in the same state in
which she was.
Finally, whole years having passed, time and absence
slowed his pain and extinguished his passion.
Madame de Cleves lived in a way which left no appearance that she could
ever return. She spent part of the year in this religious house and the other at
home, but in retirement and in holier occupations than those of the most austere
convents; and his life, which was quite short, left inimitable examples of virtue.
121
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As he succeeded admirably in all physical exercises, he made it one of his

The presence of the queen authorized his.

Most mothers imagine that it is enough to never speak of chivalry in front of

As she was there, the Prince of Cleves arrived there.

Madame de Dampierre who was her lady-in-waiting and friend of Madame

She then went to Madame, sister of the king.

Hardly a day went by that he didn't complain to her about it.

greatness of this fortune; and, where he had initially rejected it as something he

“As for me, madame,” said M. de Nemours, “I have no uncertainty; but as

“I assure you, madame,” replied Madame de Clèves, who seemed a little

ardently for the elevation of M. the Duke of Orléans.

As soon as the Prince de Condé had begun to relate the feelings of M. de

Madame la dauphine believed what Madame de Chartres said. M. de Nemours

deputies returned there, and the absence of Marshal de Saint-André defeated

Madame de Chartres's antechamber, where there were always several people

Madame de Chartres worsened so considerably that people began to

As I was discussing it with Sancerre, M. d'Anville arrived in the room, and

This time was precisely that of the departure of Marshal de Brissac,

As soon as I approached my sister-in-law, she told Madame de Tournon that she

Sancerre spoke to Madame de Tournon, continued M. de Clèves, he told

– This name, Sancerre told me, surprised me so much that, although my

to want to clarify myself; I questioned him, I made him appear doubtful:

The dauphine then recounted everything that had happened in England.

“I would easily be of M. d’Anville’s opinion,” she replied; and it is very likely,

Finally M. de Nemours spoke, and complimented him on his affliction;

M. de Cleves, who naturally had a lot of gentleness and complacency

What M. de Cleves had said about sincerity, when speaking of Madame de

Madame de Clèves only responded with a few poorly arranged words, as if

because I want you to be entirely attached to me, and it would be impossible

The proposal you made to me is a little extraordinary, and my particular interest

M. de Nemours remained alone with Madame de Clèves, as he could have wished.

“I think I am wrong, madame,” replied Madame de Clèves; but think of repairing

M. de Nemours was very happy to prolong a time which was so pleasant to

– You would be pressing me unnecessarily, she replied, I have the strength to do

M. de Cleves nevertheless made every effort to find out; and after

“You are right, madame,” he replied, “I am unjust; refuse me every time I

this commission, and that no one would do so much honor to France as

– No, madame, he replied, we would soon discover that it was a supposed

The confusion and embarrassment of Madame de Clèves were beyond anything

M. de Nemours approached Madame de Clèves, as she wanted to follow.

– M. de Nemours! cried M. de Cleves with an action which marked transport and

– Do we have a friend in the world to whom we would like to make such a

A court so divided, and so full of opposing interests, was not in mediocre

Everyone was at the king's house. M. de Cleves came at certain times to

The King of Navarre arrived and was not better received.

Fortune favored his intention.

dearer to Madame de Martigues, and Madame de Clèves also loved him as a

Madame de Martigues came to Coulommiers, as she had promised to

The coronation had been performed in Reims by the Cardinal of Lorraine,

We cannot express what M. de Nemours felt at that moment. To see, in the

I know my happiness, let me enjoy it, and stop making me unhappy.

– I do not believe, however, replied Madame de Clèves, that M. de Nemours there

“That’s enough,” replied M. de Cleves, “that’s enough, still making him

However, Mr. de Cleves was almost abandoned by the doctors. One of

He wanted to continue, but a weakness prevented him from speaking. Madame

“You must have judged by my conduct,” she replied; but I