M. de Sully next proceeded to upbraid her with her unbecoming conduct towards the Queen; assuring her that every word or act of disrespect of which any were guilty towards the wife of the sovereign was an offence against his own person, and was likely to entail upon the culprit a very severe penalty. He then reproached her for her indecent expressions; and especially for her having more than once declared that had she not been treated with injustice, she should have been in the place occupied by "the fat banker's daughter;" [277] and finally, he reprimanded her very severely for the impertinent and absurd affectation with which she had presumed to place herself upon a level with her royal mistress, and her children upon a par with the Dauphin of France; reminding her, moreover, that the perpetual disunion of their Majesties was to be solely attributed to her malignant and malicious insinuations, and advising her to lose no time in requesting permission to throw herself at the feet of the Queen, to entreat her pardon for the past and her indulgence for the future. To this harangue, so different from the conciliatory and obsequious discourse of her partisans, Madame de Verneuil listened without any display of impatience, but with an ostentatious weariness which was intended to impress upon the minister the utter inutility of his interference; and when he paused to take breath, she assured him with a placid smile that she was obliged by his advice, but that she must have time to reflect before she could decide upon such a measure. M. de Sully, however, was not to be deceived by this well-acted composure; he had not carefully studied the character of the Marquise without perceiving how ill she brooked control or remonstrance; and, accordingly, she had no sooner ceased speaking than he resumed the conversation by expatiating upon the enormity of her conduct in affecting the sudden devotion behind which she had seen fit to entrench herself, while she was daily indulging alike her jealousy and her hatred by endeavouring not only to ruin the domestic happiness of the monarch, but even the interests of his kingdom; and when his offended listener remarked, with chilling haughtiness, that he was in no position to impugn her sincerity, he only answered the intended rebuke by persisting that her assumed piety was a mere grimace, which could not impose upon any man of sense; a fact which he forthwith proved by detailing all her past career, and thus convincing her that no one incident of her licentious life had remained a mystery to him.