Many who read this paper did say she was a mad woman, and many did say she was a witch, and Gilbert Farry the Devil himself, while others swore she was crazed with love for John Bunyan and was innocent and the old man died naturally (for, indeed, the doctors afterwards fell out about his having been poisoned), and yet others held she had lost her wits through the terror she had been in through denying her faith–and who shall make truth out of all this tangle?
THE CUP OF CHICORY WATER
“Madame se Meurt! Madame est Morte!”
Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes,
Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
“O nuit desastreuse! O nuit effroyable, ou retentit tout a coup comme un eclat de tonnerre cette etonnante nouvelle: Madame se meurt! Madame est morte!”
Madame found herself at the pinnacle of her desires; she had returned to France with news of the treaty of Dover signed, with the friendship of her brother for Louis de Bourbon, with the prospect of yet another conquest to offer to the glorious nation that had adopted her; her triumphant charms had sealed the league between England and France; she had seen Arlington put his name to the paper that rendered void the Triple Alliance. Her influence, they said, and the languishing eyes of Louise de la Querowaille had done it. It was the coup de theatre, though a secret one, of a brilliant and unscrupulous policy; it was praised by M. de Louvois and by the King; it was the most dishonourable bargain a sovereign of England had ever set his hand to; it was false, lying, treacherous; it involved the ruin of two nations to satisfy the greed of one man and the ambition of another.