He then parted from her somewhat relieved in mind, but still anxious and doubtful as to the result of his precaution. On his arrival in Paris he was questioned about his wife by the king, who complained of her absence from court. The count, to excuse himself, offered to summon her at once from Brittany, and even to write to her in the name of Francis I., begging her to come immediately to join her husband. But the letter, unaccompanied by the ring, produced no effect. At length a servant of the count, yielding to the seductions of a bribe, betrayed his master’s secret. A duplicate ring was made, and in the next letter addressed by the count to his wife it was fraudulently inserted. The young countess hastened to her husband’s side, and the count’s stupefaction may be imagined on the sudden appearance of one he so little expected to see. She showed him the second ring; he at once perceived that he had been betrayed, and feeling sure of the inevitable consequences under the influence of such a monarch as Francis I., he took a hasty departure for Brittany in order to avoid being a witness to his wife’s shame and his own dishonour. The countess, after some little resistance, verified all his apprehensions, and yielded to the importunities of her royal lover. For some time she ruled the king absolutely, and provided handsomely for her three brothers. Her husband would also have been raised to some important office in the state, had he not indignantly refused any such preferment. He would not even allow his wife’s name, under any pretext, to be mentioned in his presence. On the fall of Francis I., and his imprisonment after the battle of Pavia, the Countess of Chateaubriand was thrown upon the mercy of her husband, who only awaited his opportunity to revenge himself upon his wife. On her return to the castle in Brittany, he refused to see her, and shut her up in apartments entirely draped in black. He allowed their little daughter, then seven years of age, to take her meals with her mother and to remain with her a part of each day; but after six months the countess was deprived of this consolation by the death of her child, and the count, having no longer this endearing object before his eyes, to plead for the mother, gave himself up entirely to the gratification of his vengeance. One day he entered the gloomy prison of his wife accompanied by six men in masks and by two surgeons. The latter bled the countess in the arms and feet and then left her gradually to die. The count took refuge in a foreign land to escape the pursuit of justice.