This Prince having died of consumption at the age of thirty-two, the unfortunate Comte de Beaujolais, already attacked by the same disease, was taken by his elder brother to a milder climate, and died at Malta during his twenty-eighth year.
On his return to England, the present Duke applied once more to Mr. C. and the Marquess of B. and obtained fresh favours and assistance, to supply, as he said, the needs of his mother and sister.
A short time after the Restoration, the Marchioness being in Paris, he went to see her, thanked her for all her good offices, vowed eternal gratitude to her and pressed her to go to spend a few days at Neuilly. Her health prevented her from yielding to his gracious entreaties or those of the Duchess, who also showed her great kindness; but from that time there began a very friendly and almost fraternal correspondence between the Duke and my friend, which was interrupted only by the sending of the letter concerning me.
I could easily explain to my friend the cause of this silence, by telling her of all that had happened since I had had the happiness of seeing her.
The enormous expenses I had incurred had exhausted my funds, and I asked her to be so good as to advance me something.
At first she refused, pleading that her intimacy with the Duke would not allow her to provide weapons against him; but my arguments, and still more her own love for me, little by little convinced her, and she ended by lending me the sum I needed.
With scrupulous delicacy she informed my adversary of this, assuring him that it was solely to give me the power of paying off my old debts and not with the intention of helping me to make war on him.
Instead of a direct answer to so expansive a confidence, a thousand tortuous ways were taken to convince my friend that my claims were nothing but a tissue of lies, and everything possible was done to deprive me of her affection.
But her never-failing answer was: “Let her ideas be true or false, my heart will always be with one whom I love like another self.”