Cosel made no reply. She shook hands with Augustus silently, and he departed.
Soon after this scene they began to prepare for the journey to Poland. As she was enceinte, the Countess was unable to accompany the King on this expedition.
Cosel well knew the danger that threatened her. At Warsaw the King would meet Princess Teschen, and although in the whole of Augustus's life there had never occurred a reconciliation between him and a former favourite, Anna felt uneasy. Still she was more afraid of the other women whom her enemies put in the King's way, in the hope of inducing him to abandon her for a new favourite.
To save the Countess the unpleasantness of quarrels with Flemming, the King had determined to take him with him, and although Anna would rather have suffered his persecutions at Dresden, than have had him close to Augustus intriguing against her, she was powerless to prevent it.
The King was very kind towards her up to the last moment, and he assured her that he had strictly forbidden Fürstenberg to annoy her.
Having learned that Flemming was going with the King, and that the Countess would remain at home, Cosel's enemies grew hopeful that things would change, and that the combined influence of Flemming and Przebendowska would ultimately prevail, and a new favourite be substituted for Cosel.
Her downfall seemed to them certain.
The day of his departure, Augustus was as tender as possible. He spent the whole day with Cosel, whose state of pregnancy having made her weak, tried to arouse the King's pity by recalling old memories.
But this was the worst possible way she could have acted. Augustus was charmed by vivacity, gaiety, boldness, jealousy, daring--everything that acted on the senses; but sentiment was unknown to him; he played at it from time to time, but he never felt it.
To attempt to arouse in him tender feelings was the surest way to bore him. Cosel was greatly alarmed; she kissed the King; she wept; she entreated him not to leave her, not to forget her. Augustus replied in his choicest words, but his studied declarations were chilling.