“Sire, you embarrass me. The queen has not, then, told you?”
“Oh, the other boastings of M. de Rohan? The pretended correspondence and interviews he speaks of? All that I know is, that I have the most absolute confidence in the queen, which she merits by the nobleness of her character. It was easy for her to have told me nothing of all this; but she always makes an immediate appeal to me in all difficulties, and confides to me the care of her honor. I am her confessor and her judge.”
“Sire, you make me afraid to speak, lest I should be again accused of want of friendship for the queen. But it is right that all should be spoken, that she may justify herself from the other accusations.”
“Well, what have you to say?”
“Let me first hear what she told you?”
“She said she had not the necklace; that she never signed the receipt for the jewels; that she never authorized M. de Rohan to buy them; that she had never given him the right to think himself more to her than any other of her subjects; and that she was perfectly indifferent to him.”
“Ah! she said that——?”
“Most decidedly.”
“Then these rumors about other people——”
“What others?”