Page:ThePrincessofCleves.djvu/34

 as to the different interests and parties of the Court. I am so entirely ignorant of them, that I thought a few days ago, the Constable was very well with the queen.—You was extremely mistaken," answered madam de Chartres; the queen hates the constable, and if ever she has power, he'll be but too sensible of it; she knows, he has often told the king, that of all his children none resembled him but his natural ones.—I should never have suspected this hatred, said the princess of Cleves, after having seen her assiduity in writing to the constable during his imprisonment, the joy she expressed at his return, and how she always calls him Compere, as well as the king.—If you judge from appearances in a court, replied madam de Chartres, you will often be deceived; truth and appearances seldom go together.

But to return to the duchess of Valentinois, you know her name is Diana de Poitiers, her family is very illustrious, she is descended from the ancient Dukes of Aquitaine, her grandmother was a natural daughter of Lewis the XIth, and in short she possesses everything that is great in respect of birth. St. Valier, her father, had the unhappiness to be involved in the affair of the constable of Bourbon, which you have heard of; he was condemned to lose his head, and accordingly was conducted to the scaffold: his daughter, who was extremely beautiful, and who had already charmed the late king, managed so well, I do not know by what means, that she obtained her father's life. The pardon was brought him at the moment he was expecting the fatal blow; but the pardon availed little, for fear had seized him so deeply, that it bereft him of his senses, and he died a few days after. His daughter appeared at court as the king's mistress; but the Italian expedition, and the imprisonment of the present prince, were interruptions to his love affair. When the late king returned from Spain, and Madame the regent went to meet him at Bayonne, she brought all her maids of honour her,