"Yes, madame, you are waiting here for an august personage."At this last sentence, my lips laughed, while my heart trembled.
"I wish to caution you," continued he, "how you embark in plans of this sort.""Monsieur, I repeat, you have taken me for some other person. I will no longer listen to one who is either a maniac or an officious intruder."Upon this, the stranger bowed and left me; but I could perceive that he was not displeased with my answers, though I was not a little agitated, and longed to see Her Highness to relate to her this curious adventure.
In a few hours I did so. The Princess was perfectly satisfied with my manner of proceeding, only she thought it singular, she said, that the stranger should suspect I was there in attendance for some person of rank; and she repeated, three or four times, "I am heartily glad that you did not commit yourself by any decided answer. What sort of a man was he?""Very much of the gentleman; above the middle stature; and, from what Icould see of his countenance, rather handsome than otherwise.""Was he a Frenchman?"
"No. I think he spoke good French and English, with an Irish accent.""Then I know who it is," exclaimed she. "It is Dillon: I know it from some doubts which arose between Her Majesty, Dillon, and myself, respecting sending you upon a confidential mission. Oh, come hither! come hither!" continued Her Highness, overwhelming me with kisses. "How glad, how very glad I am, that the Queen will be convinced I was not deceived in what I told Her Majesty respecting you. Take no notice of what I am telling you; but he was sent from the Queen, to tempt you into some imprudence, or to be convinced, by your not falling into the snare, that she might rely on your fidelity.""What! doubt my fidelity?" said I.
"Oh, my dear, you must excuse Her Majesty. We live in critical times.
You will be the more rewarded, and much more esteemed, for this proof of your firmness. Do you think you should know him, if you were to see him again?""Certainly, I should, if he were in the same disguise.
"That, I fear, will be rather difficult to accomplish. However, you shall go in your carriage and wait at the door of his sister, the Marquise of Desmond; where I will send for him to come to me at four o'clock to-morrow. In this way, you will have an opportunity of seeing him on horseback, as he always pays his morning visits riding."I would willingly have taken a sleeping draught, and never did I wait more anxiously than for the hour of four.
I left the Princess, and, in crossing from the Carrousel to go to the Place Vendome, it rained very fast, and there glanced by me, on horseback, the same military cloak in which the stranger had been wrapped. My carriage was driving so fast that I still remained in doubt as to the wearer's person.
Next day, however, as appointed, I repaired to the place of rendezvous;and I could almost have sworn, from the height of the person who alighted from his horse, that he was my mysterious questioner.
Still, I was not thoroughly certain. I watched the Princess coming out, and followed her carriage to the Champs Elysees and told her what Ithought.
"Well," replied she, "we must think no more about it; nor must it ever be mentioned to him, should you by any chance meet him."I said I should certainly obey Her Highness.
A guilty conscience needs no accuser. A few days after I was riding on horseback in the Bois de Boulogne, when Lord Edward Fitzgerald came up to speak to me. Dillon was passing at the time, and, seeing Lord Edward, stopped, took off his hat, and observed, "A very pleasant day for riding, madame!" Then, looking me full in the face, he added, "I beg your pardon, madame, I mistook you for another lady with whom Lord Edward is often in company."I said there was no offence; but the moment I heard him speak I was no longer in doubt of his being the identical person.
When I had learnt the ciphering and deciphering, and was to be sent to Italy, the Queen acknowledged to the Princesse de Lamballe that she was fully persuaded I might be trusted, as she had good reason to know that my fidelity was not to be doubted or shaken.
Dear, hapless Princess! She said to me, in one of her confidential conversations on these matters, "The Queen has been so cruelly deceived and so much watched that she almost fears her own shadow; but it gives me great pleasure that Her Majesty had been herself confirmed by one of her own emissaries in what I never for a moment doubted.
"But do not fancy," continued the Princess, laughing, "that you have had only this spy to encounter. Many others have watched your motions and your conversations, and all concur in saying you are the devil, and they could make nothing of you. But that, 'mia cara piccola diavolina', is just what we want!"
