On the Palm Sunday of the year 1703, the mareschale, who had recently returned from Montpellier, invited me to a banquet in his castle, and though not feeling quite well I determined on going.
In the morning I said smiling to Clementine, “To-morrow I shall ask for my discharge, and whatever your mother may say, it must be done to-morrow, and then, Clementine!——”
“And then?”—— she asked.
“We will no longer delay our union. We may now rejoice with propriety since you have this day left off your black dress. Therefore in a week you will be my wife. And then,” I continued, “we will leave this melancholy Nismes, and go to our new estate near Montpellier. Spring is coming with its beauty; we must live amid rural nature.”
And this was resolved on, and sealed by a kiss.
At this moment I was called out. I quitted the room; I found that my uncle had come, and requested a private interview in my own apartment.
“Colas,” said he, “this is Palm Sunday, and you must come with me.”
“I cannot,” was my reply, “for I am invited to dine with the mareschale.”
“And I,” said he, with solemn voice. “I invite you to the holy supper. No grandee of this earth will there sit at table with us, but we shall be assembled in Jesus’ name, and he will be in the midst of us. All of us, some hundreds in number, with our wives and children, celebrate this morning the holy sacrament in my mill near the Carmelite gate.”
I was terrified, and exclaimed: “What presumption! Do you not know that the mareschale is in Nismes?”