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Updated: July 14, 2025
As I advanced he drew back a pace, and signed to me to stand before him. I had scarcely done so when the door opened and Mademoiselle Paleotti, pale, and supported on one side by her rival, appeared at it; but so wondrously transformed by a wig, hat, and redingote that I scarcely knew her.
I propose, madame, that, for punishment, you order her to dress in them, that we may see what her taste is." "I do not understand?" the Queen said. "Your Majesty will, if Mademoiselle Paleotti will consent to humour us." At that the girl uttered a cry, and looked round the circle as if for a way of escape; but a Court is a cruel place, in which the ugly or helpless find scant pity.
Knowing what I did, I had by this time a fair idea of the discovery which Bassompierre had made; but the mass of courtiers and ladies round me, who had not this advantage, knew not what to expect nor, especially, what part M. Bassompierre had in the business but made most diverting suggestions, the majority favouring the opinion that Mademoiselle Paleotti had repulsed him, and that this was his way of avenging himself.
"Madame," he said, "this, I find, is the lady whom I saw on the Terrace when Madame Paleotti was so good as to invite me to walk on the Bois-le-Roi road. For the rest, your Majesty may draw your conclusions." It was easy to see that the Queen had already drawn them; but, for the moment, the unfortunate girl was saved from her wrath.
"Madame Paleotti, who was with the gentleman, saw her also, and knew her." "At a distance of fifty paces?" the King said drily. "I don't attach much weight to that." And then, rising, with a slight yawn. "Madame," he continued, with the air of command which he knew so well how to assume, "for the present, I am tired!
With a low cry, Mademoiselle Paleotti did that which she would have done a little before, had she been wise, and swooned on the floor. I turned to look at the King, and found him gone.
"Where is the child?" Someone pushed forward Mademoiselle Paleotti, sister-in-law to Madame Paleotti, the Queen's first chamberwoman.
A few of the ladies even taxed him with this, and tried, by random reproaches, to put him at least on his defence; but, merrily refusing to be inveigled, he made to all the same answer that when Mademoiselle Paleotti returned they would see.
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