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Updated: May 12, 2025
At all events, news reached Paris that Madame Riano had fallen out violently with the Holy Father, as she had done with the Kings of France, of Spain and of England, and was breathing out fire and slaughter against the Holy See.
Old Cardinal Fleury's fall from power was much to Jacques Haret's relief, and the cardinal's successor, Jacques thought, would make no trouble about his coming to Paris, and if he were clapped in prison, there would be at least a lettre de cachet and the Bastille, as became a gentleman and a remote connection of the Kirkpatricks, and not the common prison of Paris; at which Madame Riano desired Peter to see that Monsieur Haret's glass was kept filled.
There was here a commingling of tragedy and comedy such as I had seldom seen. I took it that poor old Peter had not seen Jacques Haret during the time he had spent in Gaston's rooms. Madame Riano opened the action by saying sternly: "What are you doing here, Jacques Haret?" "Come to pay my respects to your ladyship," was Jacques Haret's undaunted reply.
Madame Riano, talking once with Count Saxe and me in the garden of an inn, on a pleasant morning, before it was time to start, told us some particulars of these matters. "My niece and all her estates were left in my charge by my brother God rest his soul. And I think neither has been mismanaged.
Madame Riano upbraided the duke for his treachery to his lawful sovereign, King James the Third, called King George a Hanoverian rat, and then triumphantly demanded in the face of a great crowd which collected around the combatants: "And now, will your Grace have me arrested?"
We knew scarce anything that was happening outside, except that Monsieur Voltaire was in England, and Count Saxe hoped he would remain there. There was one person of whom I thought daily and hourly, but could hear no word of Mademoiselle Francezka Capello. All I knew was that she and Madame Riano had set forth from Paris, in great state, on their travels.
Nor was the Bishop of Louvain present. I fancy he was afraid to face Madame Riano, after having persistently declared his conviction that Gaston Cheverny would never be again heard of, and having pooh-poohed Madame Riano's signs, dreams and presentiments that Gaston would return.
She also told us that Madame Riano was absent upon her tour of visits, but would return within a fortnight. That night, before we slept, Count Saxe told me he did not propose to remain long enough to encounter Peggy Kirkpatrick. Next morning, as usual, I was up early, and walked down to the village. There I found Father Benart, the good little man, just coming out of the church.
"Great God!" cried Madame Riano, "you have no reputation to lose, and as for myself, mine is far too robust to be hurt by a little thing like this. Not that I ever wanted for lovers when I was young, from the time I was thirteen years old, when that foolish Bishop of Louvain wanted to marry me; I had a plenty as long as I wanted them."
Then, meaning to give the ladies time to rest, Count Saxe and myself accepted Gaston's invitation to accompany him to his own house. This we did, walking across the park in the bright autumn morning. Jacques Haret diverted us on the way by his history of the bloody warfare which had raged for thirty years between the Bishop of Louvain and Madame Riano.
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