inevitable indiscretions, and all these ladies found their names public
property. Several of them, who were either widows or young ladies,
retired into convents, not daring to show their faces in the light of
day.

The Queen of Portugal, before this scandal, had passionately loved the
Marquis de Lauzun. She was then called Mademoiselle d'Aumale, and her
sister who was soon afterwards Duchess of Savoy was called at Paris
Mademoiselle de Nemours. These two princesses, after having exchanged
confidences and confessions, were astonished and grieved to find
themselves antagonists and rivals. Happily they had a saving wit, both
of them, and made a treaty of peace, by which it was recognised and
agreed that, since their patrimony was small, it should be neither
divided nor drawn upon, in order that it might make of M. de Lauzun, when
he came to marry, a rich man and a great lord. The two rivals, in the
excess of their love, stipulated that this indivisible inheritance should
be drawn for by lot, that the victorious number should have M. de Lauzun
thrown in, and that the losing number should go and bury herself in a
convent.

Mademoiselle d'Aumale--that is to say, the pretty blonde--won M. de
Lauzun; but he, being bizarre in his tastes, and who only had a fancy for
the brunette (the less charming of the two), went and besought the King
to refuse his consent.

Mademoiselle d'Aumale thought of dying of grief and pique, and, as a
consequence of her despair, listened to the proposals of the King of
Portugal, and consented to take a crown.

The disgrace and imprisonment of her old friend having reached her ear,