hen into her web of intrigue blundered the Cardinal de Rohan, who,
as he confessed, "was completely blinded by his immense desire to regain
the good graces of the Queen." She aroused fresh hope in his despairing
heart by protesting that, as some return for all the favours she had
received from him, she would not rest until she had disposed the Queen
more favourably towards him.

Later came assurances that the Queen's hostility was melting under her
persuasions, and at last she announced that she was authorized by Her
Majesty to invite him to submit the justification which so long and so
vainly he had sought permission to present.

Rohan, in a vertigo of satisfaction, indited his justification,
forwarded it to the Queen by the hand of the Countess, and some days
later received a note in the Queen's hand upon blue-edged paper adorned
by the lilies of France.

"I rejoice," wrote Marie Antoinette, "to find at last that you were not
in fault. I cannot yet grant you the audience you desire, but as soon as
the circumstances allow of it I shall let you know. Be discreet."

Upon the advice of the Countess of Valois, His Eminence sent a reply
expressive of his deep gratitude and joy.

Thus began a correspondence between Queen and Cardinal which continued
regularly for a space of three months, growing gradually more
confidential and intimate. As time passed his solicitations of an
audience became more pressing, until at last the Queen wrote announcing
that, actuated by esteem and affection for him who had so long been kept
in banishment, she herself desired the meeting. But it must be secret.
An open audience would still be premature; he had numerous enemies at
Court, who, thus forewarned, might so exert themselves against him as
yet to ruin all.

To receive such a letter from a beautiful woman, and that woman a queen
whose glories her inaccessibility had magnified a thousandfold in his
imagination, must have all but turned the Cardinal's head. The secrecy
of the correspondence, culminating in a clandestine meeting, seemed to
establish between them an intimacy impossible under other circumstances.

Into the warp of his ambition was now woven another, tenderly romantic,
though infinitely respectful, feeling.

You realize, I hope, the frame of mind in which the Cardinal-Prince took
his way through that luminous, fragrant summer night towards the Grove
of Venus. He went to lay the cornerstone of the proud edifice of
his am