she thought only of another life, and had no sentiment remaining
as to this, but the desire of seeing him in the same dispositions
she was in.

Monsieur de Nemours was like to have expired in the presence of
the lady who told him this; he begged her a thousand times to
return to Madam de Cleves, and to get leave for him to see her;
but she told him the Princess had not only forbidden her to come
back with any message from him, but even to report the
conversation that should pass between them. At length Monsieur
de Nemours was obliged to go back, oppressed with the heaviest
grief a man is capable of, who has lost all hopes of ever seeing
again a person, whom he loved not only with the most violent,
but most natural and sincere passion that ever was; yet still he
was not utterly discouraged, but used all imaginable methods to
make her alter her resolution; at last, after several years, time
and absence abated his grief, and extinguished his passion.
Madam de Cleves lived in a manner that left no probability of her
ever returning to Court; she spent one part of the year in that
religious house, and the other at her own, but still continued
the austerity of retirement, and constantly employed herself in
exercises more holy than the severest convents can pretend to;
and her life, though it was short, left examples of inimitable virtues.