but that they must mutually receive the greatest pleasure from such a commerce.
The duchess of Valentinois made one in all parties of pleasure; and the king was still as passionately fond of her as in the beginning of his love. The princess of Cleves being at those years, wherein people think a woman is incapable of inciting love after the age of twenty-five, beheld with the utmost astonishment the king's passion for the duchess, who was a grandmother, and had lately married her granddaughter: she often spoke on this subject to madam de Chartres. Is it possible, madam, said she, that the king should still continue to love? How could he take a fancy to one, who was so much older than himself, who had been his father's mistress, and who, as I have heard, is still such to many others?—'Tis certain, answered madam de Chartres, it was neither the merit nor the fidelity of the duchess of Valentinois, which gave birth to the king's passion, or preserved it; and this is what he cannot be justified in; for if this lady had had beauty and youth suitable to her birth, and the merit of having had no other lover; if she had been exactly true and faithful to the king; if she had loved him with respect only to his person, without the interested views of greatness and fortune, and without using her power but for honourable purposes and for his majesty's interest; in this case it must be confessed, one could have hardly forbore praising his passion for her. If I was not afraid, continued madam de Chartres, that you would say the same thing of me which is said of most women of my years, that they love to recount the history of their own times, I would inform you how the king's passion for this duchess began, and of several particulars of the court of the late king, which have a great relation to things that are acted at present.—Far from blaming you, replied the princess of Cleves, for repeating the histories of past times, I lament, madam, that you have not instructed me in those of the present, nor informed me
