“To dishonor.”
“Mon Dieu!”
“This odious woman, this Madame de la Motte, disappearing just when her testimony might have restored you to repose and honor—she is the evil genius, the curse, of your reign; she whom you have, unfortunately, admitted to partake of your intimacy and your secrets.”
“Oh, sir!”
“Yes, madame, it is clear that you combined with her and the cardinal to buy this necklace. Pardon if I offend you.”
“Stay, sir,” replied the queen, with a pride not unmixed with anger; “what the king believes, others might believe, and my friends not be harder than my husband. It seems to me that it can give no pleasure to any man to see a woman whom he does not esteem. I do not speak of you, sir; to you I am not a woman, but a queen; as you are to me, not a man, but a subject. I had advised you to remain in the country, and it was wise; far from the court, you might have judged me more truly. Too ready to condescend, I have neglected to keep up, with those whom I thought loved me, the prestige of royalty. I should have been a queen, and content to govern, and not have wished to be loved.”
“I cannot express,” replied Charny, “how much your severity wounds me. I may have forgotten that you were a queen, but never that you were the woman most in the world worthy of my respect and love.”
“Sir, I think your absence is necessary; something tells me that it will end by your name being mixed up in all this.”
“Impossible, madame!”
“You say ‘impossible’; reflect on the power of those who have for so long played with my reputation. You say that M. de Rohan is convinced of what he asserts; those who cause such convictions would not be long in proving you a disloyal subject to the king, and a disgraceful friend for me. Those who invent so easily what is false will not be long in discovering the truth. Lose no time, therefore; the peril is great. Retire, and fly from the scandal which will ensue from the approaching trial; I do not wish that my destiny should involve yours, or your future be ruined. I, who am, thank God, innocent, and without a stain on my life—I, who would lay bare my heart to my enemies, could they thus read its purity, will resist to the last. For you might come ruin, defamation, and perhaps imprisonment. Take away the money you so nobly offered me, and the assurance that not one movement of your generous heart has escaped me, and that your doubts, though they have wounded, have not estranged me. Go, I say, and seek elsewhere what the Queen of France can no longer give you—hope and happiness. From this time to the convocation of Parliament, and the production of witnesses must be a fortnight; your uncle has vessels ready to sail—go and leave me; I bring misfortunes on my friends.” Saying this, the queen rose, and seemed to give Charny his congé.