my apartments.

Meanwhile, the King my husband reached the States under his
government. Being joined there by his friends and dependents,
they all represented to him the indignity offered to me by his
quitting the Court without taking leave of me. They observed
to him that I was a princess of good understanding, and that
it would be for his interest to regain my esteem; that, when
matters were put on their former footing, he might derive to
himself great advantage from my presence at Court. Now that he
was at a distance from his Circe, Madame de Sauves, he could
listen to good advice. Absence having abated the force of her
charms, his eyes were opened; he discovered the plots and
machinations of our enemies, and clearly perceived that a rupture
could not but tend to the ruin of us both.

Accordingly, he wrote me a very affectionate letter, wherein he
entreated me to forget all that had passed betwixt us, assuring
me that from thenceforth he would ever love me, and would give
me every demonstration that he did so, desiring me to inform
him of what was going on at Court, and how it fared with me and
my brother. My brother was in Champagne and the King my husband
in Gascony, and there had been no communication betwixt them,
though they were on terms of friendship.

I received this letter during my imprisonment, and it gave me
great comfort under that situation. Although my guards had strict
orders not to permit me to set pen to paper, yet, as necessity
is said to be the mother of invention, I found means to write
many letters to him.

Some few days after I had been put under arrest, my brother had
intelligence of it, which chagrined him so much that, had not
the love of his country prevailed with him, the effects of his
resentment would have been shown in a cruel civil war, to which
purpose he had a sufficient force entirely at his devotion. He
was, however, withheld by his patriotism, and contented himself
with writing to the Queen my mother, informing her that, if I was
thus treated, he should be driven upon some desperate measure.
She, fearing the consequence of an open rupture, and dreading
lest, if blows were once struck, she should be deprived of the
power of bringing about a reconciliation betwixt the brothers,
represented the consequences to the King, and found him well
disposed to lend an ear to her reasons, as his anger was now
cooled by the apprehensions of being attacked in Gascony, Dauphiny,
Languedoc