“Learn,” said the latter, “to know and value the fidelity, the honor, and secrecy of the friends you have abandoned.” And, then, suddenly she threw aside her mask.
“Madame de Chevreuse!” exclaimed the queen.
“With your majesty, the sole living confidante of the secret.”
“Ah!” murmured Anne of Austria; “come and embrace me, duchesse. Alas! you kill your friend in thus trifling with her terrible distress.”
And the queen, leaning her head upon the shoulder of the old duchesse, burst into a flood of bitter tears. “How young you are—still!” said the latter, in a hollow voice; “you can weep!”
Chapter XLIV. Two Friends.
The queen looked steadily at Madame de Chevreuse, and said: “I believe you just now made use of the word ‘happy’ in speaking of me. Hitherto, duchesse, I had thought it impossible that a human creature could anywhere be found more miserable than the queen of France.”
“Your afflictions, madame, have indeed been terrible enough. But by the side of those great and grand misfortunes to which we, two old friends, separated by men’s malice, were just now alluding, you possess sources of pleasure, slight enough in themselves it may be, but greatly envied by the world.”
“What are they?” said Anne of Austria, bitterly. “What can induce you to pronounce the word ‘pleasure,’ duchesse—you who, just now, admitted that my body and my mind both stood in need of remedies?”
Madame de Chevreuse collected herself for a moment, and then murmured, “How far removed kings are from other people!”