My injustice
drove him nearly to despair, and he used every kind and sensible
argument to convince me of my error, as though it had been possible
for one so headstrong and misguided as myself to listen to or
comprehend the language of reason. I replied to his tender and
beseeching epistles by every cutting and mortifying remark; in a
word, all common sense appeared to have forsaken me. Our quarrel
was strongly suspected by part of the court; but the extreme
prudence and forbearance of M. de Cosse prevented their suppositions
from ever obtaining any confirmation. But this was not the only
subject I had for annoyance. On the one hand, my emissaries
informed me that the king still continued to visit the baroness de
New---k, although with every appearance of caution and mystery,
by the assistance and connivance of the duc de Duras, who had
given me his solemn promise never again to meddle with the
affair. The
of the furnished me
likewise with a long account of the many visits paid by his
majesty to her establishment. The fact was, the king could not
be satisfied without a continual variety, and his passion, which
ultimately destroyed him, appeared to have come on only as he
advanced in years.
All these things created in my mind an extreme agitation and an
alarm, and, improbable as the thing appeared even to myself, there
were moments when I trembled lest I should be supplanted either
by the baroness or some -fresh object of the king's caprice; and
again a cold dread stole over me as I anticipated the probability
of the health of Louis XV falling a sacrifice to the irregularity
of his life.
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