SECOND PART FROM THE DEATH OF HIM I HAD BELIEVED MY FATHER UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME (continued 3)
M. Harriet M. (Magdalen Harriet Mary) Capes translation
No one can be more anxious than I to give the homage of my respect to the memory of the Duchess; and my dearest wish would undoubtedly be to believe a life made illustrious by its many virtues, without a stain. Indeed, I had at first tried to persuade myself that, having been once before the victim of deception, she had again fallen into the snare woven for her at the time of her first confinement.[74]
A consoling illusion, which the stories of witnesses and many other indications did but too quickly banish from my mind![75]
It is a well-known fact that the finest characters are not without defects, and no one who knew her could deny that the Princess was in truth very ambitious.
Moreover, the fact of her being her parents’ only child and sole object of their deepest love, was an incentive for this loving daughter to turn her fondest hopes to the birth of an august scion who should be the glory of her maternity.[76]
Over this she ponders and frets incessantly, and, in the midst of her magnificent surroundings, she carefully conceals the grief she feels at finding herself deprived of this blessing.[77]
In consequence, she was naturally inclined to lend a favourable ear to the temptation offered her by a husband whom, besides, she would not for all the world displease,[78] and for whom her complaisance went so far as to help in the concealment of his vices,[79] even to the extent of uncomplainingly sacrificing not only her tastes and her health, but also her warmest and most legitimate affections.[80]
The crime once committed, she soon looked upon the wrong as irreparable, and from that time a false sense of honour, a deadened conscience, made it appear a duty to abstain from a revelation as degrading as it was unavailing.