Having said this, he would have taken out
the letter, but could not find it; he searched for it to no purpose.
The company rallied him about it; but he seemed so disturbed, that they
forbore to speak further of it; he withdrew sooner than the others, and
went home with great impatience, to see if he had not left the letter
there. While he was looking for it, one of the Queen's pages came to
tell him, that the Viscountess d'Usez had thought it necessary to give
him speedy advice, that it was said at the Queen's Court, that he had
dropped a letter of gallantry out of his pocket while he was playing at
tennis; that great part of what the letter contained had been related,
that the Queen had expressed a great curiosity to see it, and had sent
to one of her gentlemen for it, but that he answered, he had given it
to Chatelart.
The page added many other particulars which heightened the Viscount's
concern; he went out that minute to go to a gentleman who was an
intimate friend of Chatelart's; and though it was a very unseasonable
hour, made him get out of bed to go and fetch the letter, without
letting him know who it was had sent for it, or who had lost it.
Chatelart, who was prepossessed with an opinion that it belonged to the
Duke of Nemours, and that the Duke was in love with the Queen-Dauphin,
did not doubt but it was he who had sent to redemand it, and so
answered with a malicious sort of joy, that he had put the letter into
the Queen-Dauphin's hands. The gentleman brought this answer back to
the Viscount de Chartres, which increased the uneasiness he was under
already, and added new vexations to it: after having continued some
time in an irresolution what to do, he found that the Duke de Nemours
was the only person whose assistance could draw him out of this
intricate affair.
Accordingly he went to the Duke's house, and entered his room about
break of day. What the Duke had discovered the day before with respect
to the Princess of Cleves had given him such agreeable ideas, that he
slept very sweetly; he was very much surprised to find himself waked by
the Viscount de Chartres, and asked him if he came to disturb his rest
so early, to be revenged of him for what he had said last night at
supper. The Viscount's looks soon convinced him, that he came upon a
serious business; "I am come," said he, "to entrust you with the most
important affair of my life; I know very well, you are not obliged to
me for the confidence I place in you, because I do it at a time when I
stand in need of your assistance; but I know likewise, that I should
have lost your esteem, if I had acquainted you with all I am now going
to tell you, without having been forced to it by absolute necessity: I
have dropped the letter I spoke of last night; it is of the greatest
consequence to me, that nobody should know it is addressed to me; it
has been seen by abundance of people, who were at the tennis court
yesterday when I dropped it; you was there too, and the favour I have
to ask you, is, to say it was you who lost it."