The queen started.
"Your majesty will be sure to learn, in a particular manner, the day of my death."
"In what way?"
"Because your majesty will receive the next day, under several coverings, everything connected with our mysterious correspondence of former times."
"Did you not burn them?" cried Anne, in alarm.
"Traitors only," replied the duchesse, "destroy a royal correspondence."
"Traitors, do you say?"
"Yes, certainly, or rather they pretend to destroy, instead of which they keep or sell it. Faithful friends, on the contrary, most carefully secrete such treasures, for it may happen that some day or other they would wish to seek out their queen in order to say to her: Madame, I am getting old; my health is fast failing me; in the presence of the danger of death, for there is the danger for your majesty that this secret may be revealed, take, therefore, this paper, so fraught with danger for yourself, and trust not to another to burn it for you."
"What paper do you refer to?"
"As far as I am concerned, I have but one, it is true, but that is indeed most dangerous in its nature."