Poor Clemence de Maille! how, at that first testimony of an affection which she had despaired of ever gaining, did her heart, so long pent up, burst forth with ecstatic delight! And how must Lenet, on witnessing that touching effusion of irrepressible rapture, have congratulated himself at not having persevered in his diplomatic prudence! She took the letter, shed tears over it, kissed it, read it over and over again, and tried to get it by heart--for she might lose it. Then she selected from her toilette her finest ribbon (a bright _flame-coloured_ one), and sewed that precious missive to it, in order to carry it always upon her person, beneath her dress--upon her chemise, Lenet bluntly tells us, and who adds that that gush of delirious delight lasted until the morrow. Alas! that warm ray was the only one that Conde, in his glory, let fall upon her, and it was but evanescent. The danger over, the prison opened, Conde restored to his honours and his power, she became once more the despised, alienated, humiliated wife. Mademoiselle, on meeting her again, asked whether it were true that she had taken part _in that which was done in her name?_ On her return from Montrond (after the letter), she found her, it is true, _plus habile_; but she was shocked at the delight manifested by the Princess on seeing all the great world flock to visit her, so wholly forsaken as she had previously been, and she concluded that, being carried out of her normal condition, she thought too much of herself. Then came humiliations the most cutting, and the deepest grief. Twice was she attacked by dangerous illness, from which it was asserted she could not recover. And each time that report was welcomed at Court as the joyous announcement of a marriage or a succession. Everybody busied themselves with finding another wife for the Prince; and some thought once more of Mademoiselle: "that rumour reached my ears," says she, "and I mused upon it." Unfortunately for her, the poor Princess recovered, and Mademoiselle had to wait for Lauzun. In another place she remarks somewhat spitefully, "Madame la Princesse arrived in better health than _could have been anticipated; no one could have imagined that she would so soon recover_." At length a tragic event, the consequences of which exhibit in a sinister light the perseverance of ill-feeling that had always been shown towards her in the family of which she had become a member, came to add itself to that almost unbroken chain of tribulations, outrages, and troubles amid which no sort of calamity seemed wanting. Two officers of her household took it into their heads to quarrel and draw swords upon each other. The Princess (she was then in her forty-third year--1671) placed herself between the angry combatants with the intention of separating them, and by so doing received a stab in her side. The individual who inflicted the wound was brought to trial. As for her,