The struggle which you are being urged to maintain is henceforth too unequal. Its prolongation can henceforth have fatal consequences for you alone.' "While speaking, I saw the unhappy Princess turn red, then pale; tears poured down her cheeks, but she did not try to interrupt me. I was able to fulfil my sad duty to the end. She then looked at me with an indefinable expression of face: "'If all that you have just told me is true, they are deceiving me and I am very unhappy. What do you want me to do? Can I send that original document which, before the courts, would be my condemnation?' "'No, Madame, I am the first to tell Your Highness that you must in no case part with it. Only, the King's conscience desires to be reassured; there is no other motive in his demand. If the King could obtain the certainty of Your Highness' marriage, without your parting with the original, without your even giving a copy of it, should you see any danger, for yourself or your interests, in satisfying Charles X.?' "The Princess tried to guess my thought. "'But what means can you contrive that would satisfy the King, since he refuses to believe my word?' "'The King does not believe it, because you have not given it him.' "'But I tell you again that I am married. The deed is in Rome, in the Pope's hands.' "'Well then, Madame, if a man honoured by your confidence and the King's, if M. de Montbel were to go to Rome, would you refuse to allow the holder of your marriage-deed to give him cognizance of it, or at least to certify its existence to him? I am certain that M. de Montbel's declaration would be immediately followed by the dispatch of the passports which Your Highness so impatiently desires.' "Madame la Duchesse de Berry, at last conquered, came up to me and said, with a sad smile: "'I see no harm in trying the method which you propose, but you understand that I cannot decide alone. Count Lucchesi's consent is as necessary as my own.' "M. le Comte Lucchesi was in a neighbouring room, with Messieurs de Montbel and de Saint-Priest; I called him in. Madame herself repeated to him the proposal which I had just made. He did not hesitate to accept. "I then asked that the two other gentlemen might be brought in. We all sat round a little table before which Madame la Duchesse de Berry was herself seated and, at her bidding, I gave an account of the explanation which I had just had with her. As I was finishing, I addressed the Comte de Montbel: "'And now, monsieur, it is for you alone, who know the King's mind and who, so to speak, represent him here, to judge and declare if the method which I propose will be able to satisfy His Majesty and put an end to his opposition to Madame's journey to Prague.'