To think that a man as shrewd, as subtle-minded, as quick-witted, and
adroit as himself--a man who had passed through so many troubled epochs,
who had served with the same obsequious countenance all the masters who
would accept his services--to think that such a man should have been
thus duped and betrayed!
"It must be that old imbecile, the Duc de Sairmeuse, who has manoeuvred
so skilfully, and with so much address," he said. "But who advised him?
I cannot imagine who it could have been."
Who it was Mme. Blanche knew only too well.
She recognized Martial's hand in all this, as Marie-Anne had done.
"Ah! I was not deceived in him," she thought; "he is the great
diplomatist I believed him to be. At his age to outwit my father, an old
politician of such experience and acknowledged astuteness! And he does
all this to please Marie-Anne," she continued, frantic with rage. "It
is the first step toward obtaining pardon for the friends of that vile
creature. She has unbounded influence over him, and so long as she lives
there is no hope for me.
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