' Even
then I did not take alarm, till I found myself in a little bare
dilapidated chapel, but with the altar hastily decked, a priest
before it in his stole, whom I knew for the Abbe de St. Leu, one of
the dissipated young clergy about Court, a familiar of the Conde
clique, and, prepared to receive me, Monsieur de Lamont, in a satin
suit, lace collar and cuffs, and deep lace round his boots.
I wrenched my hand from M. d'Aubepine, and would have gone back, but
three or four of the soldiers came between me and the door. They
were dragoons of the Conde regiment; I knew their uniform. Then I
turned round and reproached d'Aubepine with his wicked treachery to
the memory of the man he had once loved.
Alas! this moved him no longer. He swore fiercely that this should
not be hurled at his head again, and throughout the scene, he was
worse to me than even M. de Lamont, working himself into a rage in
order to prevent himself from being either shamed or touched.
They acted by the will and consent of the Prince, they told me, and
it was of no use to resist it. The Abbe, whom I hated most of all,
for he had a loathsome face, took out a billet, and showed it to me.
I clearly read in the large straggling characters--'You are welcome
to a corporal's party, if you can by no other means reduce the pride
of the little droll.---L. DE B.'
'Your Prince should be ashamed of himself,' I said. 'I shall take
care to publish his infamy as well as yours.
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