joy to which their lovers very little contribute. He argues further, that if one is not beloved, it is a yet greater torment to see one's mistress at an assembly; that the more she is admired by the public, the more unhappy one is not to be beloved, and that the lover is in continual fear lest her beauty should raise a more successful passion than his own; lastly he finds, there is no torment equal to that of seeing one's mistress at a ball, unless it be to know that she is there, and not to be there one's self.
Madam de Cleves pretended not to hear what the prince of Conde said, though she listened very attentively; she easily saw what part she had in the duke of Nemours's opinion, and particularly as to what he said of the uneasiness of not being at a ball where his mistress was, because he was not to be at that of the mareschal de St. Andre, the king having sent him to meet the duke of Ferrara.
The queen-dauphin, and the prince of Conde, not going into the duke's opinion, were very merry upon the subject. There is but one occasion, Madam, said the Prince to her, in which the duke will consent his mistress should go to a ball, and that is when he himself gives it. He says, that when he gave your majesty one last year, his mistress was so kind as to come to it, though seemingly only to attend you; that it is always a favour done to a lover, to partake of an entertainment which he gives; that it is an agreeable circumstance for him to have his mistress see him preside in a place where the whole court is, and see him acquit himself well in doing the honours of it. The duke de Nemours was in the right, said the Queen-Dauphin, smiling, to approve of his mistress's being at his own ball; there was then so great a number of ladies, whom he honoured with the distinction of that name, that if they had not come, the assembly would have been very thin.
The prince of Conde had no sooner begun to relate the duke de Nemours's sentiments concerning assemblies, but madam de Cleves felt in herself a strong aversion
