The rings belonging to the Crown were then removed from the fingers of the Marquise; and upon her refusal to reveal where the remainder of the jewels were secreted, her apartments were strictly searched; and not only were the royal ornaments carried off by De Vitry and his companions, but also every other article of value which fell into their hands. While this unmanly outrage was going on around her, the Maréchale d'Ancre passively permitted her women to fasten her mantle, and to adjust her mask and hood; her thoughts were evidently elsewhere. Within a few yards of where she was then seated, and within hearing of the tumult occasioned by the reckless insolence of the men-at-arms by whom she was surrounded, her foster-sister, the playmate of her girlhood, the friend of her youth, and the protectress of her latter years--whose tears she had so often wiped away, whose sorrows she had so often soothed, and whose hopes and fears she had equally shared throughout so long a period--remained cold and unmoved by her misery. It was a bitter pang: and drops of anguish, wrung from the deepest recesses of a bursting heart, fell large and heavy upon the cheek of the new-made widow and the abandoned favourite, and moistened her clasped hands. None, however, heeded her agony; each of her attendants, whatever might have been the previous attachment of all to her person, was absorbed by her own terrors; while the strangers who had invaded her privacy were eager, under the specious pretext of performing their duty to the King, to avail themselves to the uttermost of so favourable an opportunity of furthering their individual interests.