“that you have never loved me; admit that my humility and my repentance are flattering to your pride, but that my distress affects you not; that the king of this wide realm is no longer regarded as a lover whose tenderness of devotion is capable of working out your happiness, but as a despot whose caprice has crushed your very heart beneath his iron heel.

Do not say you are seeking Heaven, say rather you are fleeing from the king.”

Louise’s heart was wrung within her, as she listened to his passionate utterance, which made the fever of hope course once more through her every vein.

“But did you not hear me say that I have been driven away, scorned, despised?”

“I will make you the most respected, and most adored, and the most envied of my whole court.”