“From the day when the friendship which had united us cooled and was dissipated, you have resumed with regard to me that distance which your rank authorises you, and on my side, I have submitted to see in you only my King.  This revolution has taken effect without any shock, or noise, or scandal.  It has continued for two years already; why should it not continue in the same manner until the moment when my last two children no longer require my eyes, and presence, and care?  What sudden cause, what urgent motive, can determine you to exclude me?  Does not, then, the humiliation which I have suffered for two years any longer satisfy your aversion?”

“What!” cried the prince, in consternation, “is your resolution no longer the same?  Do you go back upon what you promised to your brother?”

“I do not change my resolution,” I resumed at once; “the places which you inhabit have neither charm nor attraction for my heart, which has always detested treachery and falseness.  I consent to withdraw myself from your person, but on condition that the odious intriguer who has supplanted me shall follow the unhappy benefactress who once opened to her the doors of this palace.  I took her from a state of misery, and she plunges daggers into my breast.”

“The Kings of Europe,” said the prince, white with agitation and anger, “have not yet laid down the law to me in my palace; you shall not make me submit to yours, madame.  The person whom, for far too long, you have been offending and humiliating before my eyes, has ancestors who yield in nothing to your forefathers, and if you have introduced her to this palace, you have introduced here goodness, sweetness, talent, and virtue itself.  This enemy, whom you defame in every quarter, and who every day excuses and justifies you, will abide near this throne, which her fathers have defended and which her good counsel now defends.  In sending you today from a Court where your presence is without motive and pretext, I wished to keep from your knowledge, and in kindness withdraw from your eyes an event likely to irritate you, since everything irritates you.  Stay, madame, stay, since great catastrophes appeal to and amuse you; after to-morrow you will be more than ever a supernumerary in this chateau.”

At these words I realised that it was a question of the public triumph of my rival.  All my firmness vanished; my heart was, as it were, distorted with the most rapid palpitations.  I felt an icy coldness run through my veins, and I fell unconscious upon my carpet.

My woman cameo to bring me help, and when my senses returned, I heard the King saying to my intendant:  “All this wearies me beyond endurance; she must go this very day.”

“Yes, I will go,” I cried, seizing a dessert-knife which was on my bureau.  I rushed forward with a mechanical movement upon my little Comte de Toulouse, whom I snatched from the hands of his father, and I was on the verge of sacrificing this child.