The young duchess grew hopeless of peace. All day her ears were
beset by harangues setting forth her wickedness, by exortations
calling her to repentance, and by descriptions of visions
vouchsafed him. By night her condition was rendered scarcely
less miserable. "No sooner," says St. Evremond, "were her eyes
closed, than Monsieur Mazarine (who had the devil always present
in his black imagination) wakes his best beloved, to make her
partaker--you will never be able to guess of what--to make her
partaker of his nocturnal visions. Flambeaux are lighted, and
search is made everywhere; but no spectre does Madame Mazarine
find, except that which lay by her in the bed."
The distresses to which she was subjected were increased by the
knowledge that her husband was squandering her vast fortune. In
what manner the money was spent she does not state. "If" she
writes, "Monsieur Mazarine had only taken delight in overwhelming
me with sadness and grief, and in exposing my health and my life
to his most unreasonable caprice, and in making me pass the best
of my days in an unparalleled slavery, since heaven had been
pleased to make him my master, I should have endeavoured to allay
and qualify my misfortunes by my sighs and tears. But when I saw
that by his incredible dilapidations and profuseness, my son, who
might have been the richest gentleman in France, was in danger of
being the poorest, there was no resisting the force of nature;
and motherly love carried it over all other considerations of
duty, or the moderation I proposed to myself.
Pages:
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317