People do get accustomed to everything, and
she had somehow come to believe that it was the proper and
fashionable arrangement, and made her husband more distinguished,
that he should imitate his Prince by living apart from her, and only
occasionally issuing his commands to her. He had not treated her of
late with open contempt, and he had once or twice take a little
notice of his son, and all this encouraged her in her firm and quiet
trust that in process of time, trouble, age, or illness would bring
him back to her. Her eyes began to brighten as she wondered whether
she could not obtain his liberty by falling at the Queen's feet with
a petition, leading her children in her hands. 'They were so
beautiful. The Queen must grant anything on the sight of her little
chevalier!'
And then she had a thousand motherly anecdotes of the children's
sweetness and cleverness to regale me with till she had talked
herself tolerably happily to sleep.
We kept her with us, as there were reports the next day of arrests
among the ladies of the Princes' party. The two Princesses of Conde
were permitted to retire to Chantilly, but then the Dowager-Princess
was known to be loyal, and the younger one was supposed to be a
nonentity. Madame de Longueville was summoned to the Palace, but she
chose instead to hide herself in a little house in the Faubourg St.
Germain, whence she escaped to Normandy, her husband's Government,
hoping to raise the people there to demand his release and that of
her brothers.
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