Although the Abbé de Richelieu had, as we have mentioned, departed for Hungary, the _Fameuse Comédienne_ retains him on the stage and makes him play a particularly odious rôle. He intercepts a very tender letter written by Armande to the Comte de Guiche, and, furious at the lady's duplicity, "does not amuse himself by uttering reproaches, which never serve any good purpose; but, congratulating himself on having engaged her only by the day, resolves to break with her from that moment, which he does, after calling Molière's attention to the fact that the great care he took to please the public left him no time for examining the conduct of his own wife, and that while he worked to divert every one, every one worked to divert her." A bitter matrimonial quarrel naturally follows this confidence. Armande sheds floods of tears, confesses her _tendresse_ for Guiche, but protests that she is guilty in intention only, carefully refrains from saying a word about Lauzun, entreats her deluded husband's pardon, which she obtains with very little difficulty, and profits by his credulity to continue her intrigues "with more _éclat_ than ever." Wearying of sentimental or quasi-sentimental attachments, she resolves to profit by her charms, at the same time making a great pretence of chastity and "causing to sigh for her an infinity of fools who imagine her to be of unexampled virtue." However, in due course, Molière is advised of her proceedings, and another painful scene takes place between husband and wife. Molière falls into a violent passion and threatens to have her shut up in a convent. Armande weeps, swoons away, and appears to be on the point of expiring; but eventually revives and, instead of entreating pardon, as on the previous occasion, takes a high tone, accuses her husband of keeping up his intimacy with Mlle. de Brie, who, by a singular arrangement, still continued to reside under the same roof as her former lover,[27] and also with Madeleine Béjart, declares that she "no longer has the courage to live with him, that she would rather die, and that everything between them must come to an end." In vain her family, that of Molière, and their common friends endeavour to appease her. "She conceives henceforth a terrible aversion for her husband, she treats him with the utmost contempt; finally, she carries matters to such an extremity that Molière, beginning to perceive her evil propensities, consents to the rupture which, since their quarrel, she has never ceased to demand; and, accordingly, without any decree of the Parliament, they agree that they will no longer live together."