Was it really such a breach of respect?'
'You are a child yourself, my sister,' he said, much injuring my
dignity. 'What have you not been doing here?'
Then it came on me. The intendant of the King had actually written
complaints of me to the Government. I was sewing disaffection among
the peasants by the favours I granted my own, teaching them for
rebellion like that which raged in England, and bringing up my son in
the same sentiments. Nay, I was called the Firebrand of the Bocage!
If these had been the days of the great Cardinal de Richelieu, my
brother assured me, I should probably have been by this time in the
Bastille, and my son would have been taken from me for ever!'
However, my half-brother heard of it in time, and my mother had flown
to Queen Henrietta, who took her to the Queen-Regent, and together
they had made such representations of my youth, folly, and
inexperience that the Queen-Mother, who had a fellow-feeling for a
young widow and her son, and at last consented to do nothing worse
than summon me and my child to Paris, where my mother and her Queen
answered for me that I should live quietly, and give no more umbrage
to the authorities; and my brother De Solivet had been sent off to
fetch me!
I am afraid I was much more angry than grateful, and I said such hot
things about tyranny, cruelty, and oppression that Solivet looked
about in alarm, lest walls should have ears, and told me he feared he
had done wrong in answering for me.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110