He thought nevertheless that, if he made his wife die and if her pregnancy was perceived, one would easily suspect the truth. As he was one of the proudest men of the world, he took the line which would best accord with his greatest prestige, and he resolved to let the public see nothing. Keeping this in mind, he sent a gentleman to the Countess of Tende, with this note:

"The desire to prevent the revelation of my shame is more important to me now than my vengeance; I will see, eventually, that which I will ordain for your unworthy destiny. Conduct yourself as if you had always been that which you ought to be."

The Countess received this note with joy; she believed it her death sentence and, when she saw that her husband consented to letting her pregnancy show, she felt sure that shame was the most violent of all passions. She found in herself a sort of calm to think of herself assured of death and of seeing her reputation safe; she dreamed only of preparing herself for death; and, as she was a person in which all sentiments were lively, she embraced virtue and penitence with the same ardor that she had followed her passion.

Her soul was, moreover dissolved and drowning in affliction; she could set her eyes on nothing of this life that wasn't harder to her than death itself; so that she couldn't see any remedy to her unhappiness other than by ending her miserable life. She passed some time in this state, appearing rather more a person dead than a person living.