at first, thanks to the easy
disposition of M. le Duc d'Orleans, whose firmness yielded even more
rapidly than beauty to the effects of time. The consequence of his
indulgence towards the two conspirators was, that at about the
commencement of the following year, 1720, they began to play a very
ridiculous comedy, of which not a soul was the dupe; not even the public,
nor the principal actors, nor the Regent.

The Duc and Duchesse du Maine, thanks to the perfidy of the Abbe Dubois,
had had time to hide away all their papers, and to arrange together the
different parts they should play. Madame du Maine, supported by her sex
and birth, muffled herself up in her dignity, when replying to the
questions addressed to her, of which just as many, and no more, were read
to the replying counsel as pleased the Abbe Dubois; and strongly accusing
Cellamare and others; protected as much as possible her friends, her
husband above all, by charging herself with all; by declaring that what
she had done M. du Maine had no knowledge of; and that its object went no
farther than to obtain from the Regent such reforms in his administration
as were wanted.

The Duc du Maine, shorn of his rank and of his title of prince of the
blood, trembled for his life. His crimes against the state, against the
blood royal, against the person of the Regent, so long, so artfully, and
so cruelly offended, troubled him all the more because he felt they
deserved severe punishment. He soon, therefore, conceived the idea of
screening himself beneath his wife's petticoats. His replies, and all
his observations were to the same tune; perfect ignorance of everything.
Therefore when the Duchess had made her confessions, and they were
communicated to him, he cried out against his wife,--her madness, her
felony,--his misfortune in having a wife capable of conspiring, and
daring enough to implicate him in everything without having spoken to
him; making him thus a criminal without being so the least in the world;
and keeping him so ignorant of her doings, that it was out of his power
to stop them, to chide her, or inform M. le Duc d'Orleans if things had
been pushed so far that he ought to have done so!

From that time the Duc du Maine would no longer hear talk of a woman who,
without his knowledge, had cast him and his children into this abyss; and
when at their release from prison, they were permitted to write and send
messages to each other, he would receive not