"Madame, pray believe," exclaimed M. de Dampierre, "that I have only raised these objections in your own interest; but if you do me the honour of insisting ..."
"I do insist."
M. de Dampierre hastened to open the wicket. Madame jumped out of the carriage, put her arm within that of the master of the house, and made her way to the salon. It was empty. During the absence of M. de Dampierre, every one had retired to his own room.
When the Duchesse de Berry entered the salon, followed by M. de Ménars, M. de Villeneuve and M. de Lorge, who had divested himself of his suit of livery and resumed that of a gentleman once more, she found no one there but the mistress of the house, and two or three persons to whom the Duchesse and M. de Lorge were presented under the name of M. and Madame de la Myre.
Next evening, M. de Villeneuve, knowing Madame was in safety, again departed for Provence. The following day also, Madame underwent the second introduction at breakfast. No sort of doubt arose as to the identity of the counterfeit Madame de la Myre. On the following Sunday, the curé of the parish to which the château belonged, came, as usual, to dine with M. le Marquis de Dampierre, who presented Madame under his cousin's name, as he had done to his other guests. The curé came towards the duchesse with the intention of bowing; but, when half-way across the intervening interval, he fixed his eyes on her, stopped, and his face assumed so comic an air of stupefaction, that the duchesse could not refrain from bursting out laughing. When Madame had visited Rochefort, in 1828, the good man had been presented to her, and he recognised her.
"My dear curé," M. de Dampierre said to him, "excuse me, but I really cannot refrain from asking you what there is in my cousin's face which attracts your gaze to it."
"Because, Monsieur le Marquis," said the curé, "because Madame, your cousin ... Oh! but it is amazing! Yet it is impossible! for, in fact ..."
The rest of the good curé's sentence was lost in a confused and unintelligible murmur.
"Monsieur," Madame said in her turn, addressing the worthy curé, "allow me to associate myself with my cousin in asking what is the matter."
"It is like," replied the curé, "like a leaf out of a vaudeville of Scribe, or one of Alexandre Duval's comedies; your Royal Highness resembles the cousin of M. le Marquis like ... No, I am wrong; M. le Marquis's cousin resembles Your Royal Highness. That is not what I mean—Oh! but I could swear...."