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102 two hundred gentlemen, and the constable at their head, received the duke of Alva at the first gate of the Louvre; the duke would have kneeled down, but the king refused it, and made him walk by his side to the queen's apartment, and to Madame's, to whom the duke of Alva had brought a magnificent present from his master; he went thence to the apartment of madam Margaret, the king's sister, to compliment her on the part of the duke of Savoy, and to assure her he would arrive in a few days. There were great assemblies at the Louvre, the show the duke of Alva, and the prince of Orange who accompanied him, the beauties of the court.

Madam de Cleves could not dispense with going to these assemblies, however desirous she was to be absent, for fear of disobliging her husband, who absolutely commanded her to be there; and what yet more induced her to it, was the absence of the duke de Nemours; he was gone to meet the duke of Savoy; and after the arrival of that prince, he was obliged to be almost always with him, to assist him in everything relating to the ceremonies of the nuptials; for this reason madam de Cleves did not meet him so often as she used to do, which gave her some sort of ease.

The viscount de Chartres had not forgot the conversation he had had with the duke de Nemours: it still ran in his mind that the adventure the duke had related to him was his own; and he observed him so carefully, that it is probable he would have unravelled the business, if the arrival of the duke of Alva and of the duke of Savoy had not made such an alteration in the court, and filled it with so much business, as left no opportunities for a discovery of that nature; the desire he had to get some information about it, or rather the natural disposition one has to relate all one knows to those one loves, made him acquaint madam de Martigues with the extraordinary action of that person who had confessed to her husband the passion she had for another. He assured her, the duke de Nemours