I had guessed that there was a secret, what it was remained unknown to me and, as I soon suspected, to people more important.

The interval before the arrival of the Duchess of Orleans was occupied in many councils and conferences; at most of them the Duke of Monmouth was present, and he told me no more than all the Court conjectured when he said that Madame d'Orleans came with a project for a new French Alliance and a fresh war with the Dutch.

But there were conferences at which he was not present, nor the Duke of Buckingham, but only the King, his brother (so soon as his Royal Highness joined us from London), the French Envoy, and Clifford and Arlington.

Of what passed at these my master knew nothing, though he feigned knowledge; he would be restless when I, having used my eyes, told him that the King had been with M.Colbert de Croissy for two hours, and that the Duke of York had walked on the wall above an hour in earnest conversation with the Treasurer.

He felt himself ignored, and poured out his indignation unreservedly to Carford.