to be miserable so that you be the happier." The lady consoled him, taxed him with injustice in thus suspecting her after ten years' fidelity, dismissed him only half persuaded, and wrote to him that same evening to beg him to return her letters. Fayet saw that he was sacrificed. He sent back the letters, retaining only a few of the best, especially the one written in blood. To add to his annoyance, his false friend the Intendant had the hypocritical assurance to protest that he had done all in his power for him, but that, finding all in vain, he at last, subjugated by the lady's charms, had pleaded his own cause. He then told him in confidence that he was to be married in a few days, and, with more anxiety than delicacy, entreated him to say how far his familiarity with Mademoiselle de Combes had been carried during the ten years' courtship. Gentle creature as the jilted suitor evidently was, he could not resist the temptation thus indiscreetly held out, and, without compromising to the last point the lady's reputation, he contrived, by his ambiguous replies, greatly to perplex and torment his rival. The latter, in his uneasiness, consulted other persons; the report of his indiscretion got wind, and was made the subject of songs and pasquinades, rather witty than decent. The marriage, which was to have taken place in a few days, had been several months pending when Fléchier heard the story, and the general opinion was, that the Intendant was only amusing himself, and that it would never occur. Meanwhile poor feeble Fayet could not get cured of his love; he thought continually of his lost mistress, took pleasure in praising and talking of her, sought excuses for her conduct, and only spoke of her as his "adorable deceiver." "The incidents of your narrative," says Fléchier, when thanking the obliging gentleman for the pleasure he had procured him, "are very pleasant, and you have told them so agreeably, that I find them marvellously so. If you ask my opinion, I take part with Fayet against his false mistress, and I wish that, for her punishment, the Intendant may amuse her for a while and then leave her; that she may then seek to return to Fayet, and that Fayet may have nothing to say to her. Heaven often punishes one infidelity by another." The _adorable trompeuse_, as we are informed by a note, ultimately married neither Fortia nor Fayet, but became the wife of a M. de la Barge.