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"I should not have had for them the reverent love I cherish, had they been otherwise," I answered, and just then, Madame Riano taking snuff, she gave a stupendous sneeze that nearly shook the chaise to pieces and actually jarred the door open; so I slipped out, mounted my horse and was glad to lay my legs across his back once more.
But she said nothing, for, at bottom, there was in her, as in Madame Riano, as I have often said, a strong good sense that always had the last word. Nothing nothing could make her disbelieve in the true and hearty devotion I bore her so much was plain. Presently she spoke again. "It is hard is it not that I should see so much of Regnard, whom I ever hated, in Gaston whom I ever loved?
"What I always thought," I replied. "An admirable man." "Nevertheless," replied Madame Riano, "you loved him once. You love him no longer." That was the worst of this terrible old lady. She always found out the awkward truths and proclaimed them at inconvenient seasons. I made no reply to this, and she continued: "Men grow hard with time.
She confided to me with secret laughter that her one hope of keeping her aunt in Brabant was, that the war was still on with unabated fury between Madame Riano and the Bishop of Louvain, and Madame Riano had not yet scored a conclusive victory over her enemy.
One night, quite early in the autumn, when there was an army of six hundred workmen at Chambord, and Count Saxe himself was but indifferently lodged, a traveling chaise drove up, and out got Madame Riano, come to pay Count Saxe a visit before she departed for England on one of her expeditions to recover the crown for Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
It turned out to be truly nothing but the blazing soot in the chimney, accompanied by a great roaring, with flames coming out of the chimney's mouth and sparks flying. The roofs being tiled, there was no real danger, but as Madame Riano said truly, the people in the Low Countries, knowing nothing of open fireplaces with blazing fires, were in a state of wild alarm.
Jacques Haret then proceeded to give his account of the affair, including his preliminary interview with Madame Riano or Peggy Kirkpatrick, as he called her and he acted Peggy to the life so that even the frightened children laughed without understanding it; all laughed, in fact, except Mademoiselle Capello, who scowled tragically at the game made of her aunt.
My master told me that the king, in the private interview, asked concerning Madame Riano and Mademoiselle Capello, and was mightily diverted with the story of Madame Riano and the bishop. His Majesty was not well pleased that so great an heiress as Mademoiselle Capello should remain away from his court.
Yet there was a cheerfulness about Gaston Cheverny, which showed me that Francezka was not less kind than formerly. Madame Riano was talking with renewed earnestness of going to Scotland, and Gaston based great hopes on that. But the time of action had arrived, and soon we would all be on the march. In the first days of February, 1733, Count Saxe's father, the King of Poland and of Saxony, died.
I should come oftener to the château of Capello, but for the unpleasant chance of meeting Peggy Kirkpatrick." "You will not meet her this time, brother. She is in Luxembourg." At once the bishop's countenance fell, but he recovered himself sufficiently to express satisfaction that Madame Riano was in Luxembourg.
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