r, and that
she had not too much time to prepare matters so as to appear there as
magnificently as other ladies. What her husband said did not make her
change her resolution, and she begged he would agree, that while he was
at Compiegne with the King, she might go to Colomiers, a pretty house
then building, within a day's journey of Paris. Monsieur de Cleves
consented to it; she went thither with a design of not returning so
soon, and the King set out for Compiegne, where he was to stay but few
days.

The Duke de Nemours was mightily concerned he had not seen Madam de
Cleves since that afternoon which he had spent so agreeably with her,
and which had increased his hopes; he was so impatient to see her again
that he could not rest; so that when the King returned to Paris, the
Duke resolved to go to see his sister the Duchess de Mercoeur, who was
at a country seat of hers very near Colomiers; he asked the Viscount to
go with him, who readily consented to it. The Duke de Nemours did this
in hopes of visiting Madam de Cleves, in company of the Viscount.

Madam de Mercoeur received them with a great deal of joy, and thought
of nothing but giving them all the pleasures and diversions of the
country; one day, as they were hunting a stag, the Duke de Nemours lost
himself in the forest, and upon enquiring his way was told he was near
Colomiers; at that word, Colomiers, without further reflection, or so
much as knowing what design he was upon, he galloped on full speed the
way that had been showed him; as he rode along he came by chance to the
made-ways and walks, which he judged led to the castle: at the end of
these walks he found a pavilion, at the lower end of which was a large
room with two closets, the one opening into a flower-garden, and the
other looking into a spacious walk in the park; he entered the
pavilion, and would have stopped to observe the beauty of it, if he had
not seen in the walk the Prince and Princess of Cleves, attended with a
numerous train of their domestics. As he did not expect to meet
Monsieur de Cleves there, whom he had left with the King, he thought at
first of hiding himself; he entered the closet which looked into the
flower-garden, with design to go out that way by a door which opened to
the forest; but observing Madam de Cleves and her husband were sat down
under the pavilion, and that their attendants stayed in the park, and
could not come to him without passing by the place where Monsi