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Thence up and down the house, and to the Duke of York's side, and there in the Duchesse's presence: and was mightily complimented by my Lady Peterborough in my Lord Sandwich's presence, whom she engaged to thank me for my kindness to her and her Lord.
"Burton, you dear old brick! well supposing we don't try to pry, but just try how we can possibly help her You could certainly be sympathetic about the brother since she has spoken to you and surely something can be done ? I saw her at the Duchesse's you know do you suppose she knows her ?"
The Queen gradually withdrew herself from the Duchesse's salon, where she was sure to meet the insolent Vaudreuil; and thus the gulf gradually widened until the severance was complete. Evil days were now coming for Marie Antoinette.
A page of high birth, but well schooled in steadiness of demeanour, went at once to announce the arrival; and Gardon and his companion had not been many moments in conversation with their acquaintance among the ministers, before the grave gentleman returned, apparently from his audience and the page, coming to Eustacie, intimated that she was to follow him to Madame le Duchesse's presence.
The entail had been cut in the generation before and the title became extinct at his death. I did not tell Burton then of my discovery, and lay long hours in the dark, thinking and thinking. What did the Duchesse's attitude mean? In the eyes of the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine, neé Adelaide de Mont Orgeuil to cheat at cards would be the worst of all the cardinal sins.
Then as Crystal once more relapsed into silence and two hot tears dropped on the Duchesse's wrinkled hands, the old woman added softly: "St. Genis, who hasn't a sou, was out of the question, I suppose." Crystal shook her head in silence. "And that young de Marmont is very rich?" "He is his uncle's heir," murmured Crystal.
Diane de Polignac, the Duchesse's sister-in-law, had long been made a Countess and placed in charge of a Royal household; and the grateful shower fell on all who had any connection with the favourite. Her father-in-law, Cardinal de Polignac's nephew, was rescued from his rustic poverty to play the exalted rôle of ambassador; an uncle was raised per saltum from curé to bishop.
To make matters the worse the Duchesse had taken upon herself an attack of the gout which made her insupportable, and Pierre de Folligny, Olga's usual refuse in hours like these, had gone off for a week of shooting at the Chteau of a cousin of the Duchesse's, the Comte de Cahors.
Of course, if the Queen would be so foolishly generous, it was not the Duchesse's fault, and when Marie Antoinette next proposed to give a dowry of eight hundred thousand livres to the Duchesse's daughter on her marriage to the Comte de Guiche, and to raise the bridegroom to a dukedom well, it was "very sweet of Her Majesty," and it was not for her to oppose such a lavish autocrat.
Valerie took her father's arm with a brightening smile and a heightened colour. Alain de Rochebriant might probably be at the Duchesse's. "Are you not going also to the Hotel de Tarascon, M. de Mauleon?" asked Duplessis. "No; I was never there but once. The Duchesse is an Imperialist, at once devoted and acute, and no doubt very soon divined my lack of faith in her idols."
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