believe he has some mistress that gives him uneasiness by going
to balls, so well satisfied he is that it is a vexatious thing to
a lover to see the person he loves in those places."

"How," replied the Queen-Dauphin, "would not the Duke de
Nemours have his mistress go to a ball? I thought that husbands
might wish their wives would not go there; but as for lovers, I
never imagined they were of that opinion." "The Duke de
Nemours finds," answered the Prince of Conde, "that nothing is
so insupportable to lovers as balls, whether they are beloved
again, or whether they are not. He says, if they are beloved
they have the chagrin to be loved the less on this account for
several days; that there is no woman, whom her anxiety for dress
does not divert from thinking on her lover; that they are
entirely taken up with that one circumstance, that this care to
adorn themselves is for the whole world, as well as for the man
they favour; that when they are at a ball, they are desirous to
please all who look at them; and that when they triumph in their
beauty, they experience a joy to which their lovers very little
contribute. He argues further, that if one is not beloved, it is
a yet greater torment to see one's mistress at an assembly; that
the more she is admired by the public, the more unhappy one is
not to be beloved, and that the lover is in continual fear lest
her beauty should raise a more successful passion than his own;
lastly he finds, there is no torment equal to that of seeing
one's mistress at a ball, unless it be to know that she is there,
and not to be there one's self."

Madam de Cleves pretended not to hear what the Prince of Conde
said, though she listened very attentively; she easily saw what