Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 336: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

328 HER ROYAL LOVER. law is nota protection for me as it is for others! Wherefore two weights, two measures? My rights as a wife are there; they must be maintained, re- spected! Whether my husband be a king or a simple mortal, no one will admit that, without any motive, unless that of pusillanimity, he may drive me from his residence, on the very night of our union. If he could do so with impunity what differ- ence would there be between the guilty woman and she who has remained pure and innocent? Oh! all that there is in me of pride and of dignity revolts at this remembrance; the hearts of honest people will be stirred with indignation at the recital of so many unmerited misfortunes, they will be moved at the spectacle of so much hate, and my cause will be gained. Besides, I have faith in the merits,in the talents of my defenders. M. Klug has told me: “If there is justice in Thessaly,” that justice will be for me! “My marriage is a fact as legal as loyal; the truth will easily come to light. Back of this demand for a divorce, the plot of the frightful snare extended to the weakness of the king will suddenly pierce through all, and my triumph will be more the brilliant for having been deferred.” Poor, poor creature! All this reasoning is only too true; but against whom is she struggling? Who are her adversaries? <A king! sovereign of the court where the contest was to be un- folded, sovereign of the country where her cause was to be judged! But the unhappy creature was then ignorant in the sincerity of her soul that if justice has something of the holy of the sublime, nothing is more common or more terrible than the ambitions, the vanities, the platitudes of those men who, often, possess nothing of justice but their Eomichbooks. co