That during this long separation Maurice remained faithful to his absent mistress is very improbable. From the diplomatic correspondence of the time, it would appear that the handsome adventurer had aroused among the fair sex of Saxony, Poland, and Courland a veritable enthusiasm. All the great ladies of Dresden, Warsaw, Mitau, and Riga had espoused his cause, and compelled their husbands to do likewise. "Count Poicey (Grand Marshal of Lithuania)," wrote one of the ministers of Augustus II., "has gone into this affair, like Adam into sin, seduced by his wife." When the Diet of Mitau elected Maurice duke, the delight of his fair partisans knew no bounds. "The women cannot sleep for joy," wrote the Saxon ambassador at St. Petersburg. "As many thousand crowns as our hero has just made Actaeons would be very welcome to me."
Nevertheless, in spite of his military and political occupations and his presumed _bonnes fortunes_, Maurice found time to think of Adrienne, to write to her "twice a week regularly," and to "testify towards her more affection and confidence than ever." Adrienne, in her turn, passes on the news to one of her friends in an interesting letter, in which she shows herself thoroughly conversant with the somewhat complicated state of affairs in Poland. She deplores the "disgraceful weakness" of Augustus II., who "allowed himself to be governed by the most cruel enemy of his glory (his Minister Flemming), and the most bitter enemy of the son of whom he was unworthy"; severely censures the conduct of the English Government, "which had promised assistance which it had now no intention of rendering," and declares that she was "dying of fear" and "tormented to an extent which she could not describe."
On October 23, 1728, Maurice returned to Paris, and the lovers were united once more. "A person expected for a very long time arrives this evening," writes Adrienne to a friend, "apparently in moderately good health. A courier has come on in advance, because the berlin in which they were travelling broke down thirty leagues from here. They have started in a post-chaise, and this evening they will be here." The _liaison_ was resumed, but it seems to have been troubled by frequent storms. Maurice returned a disappointed man; the future seemed dark, his star was temporarily hidden; a life of inaction, always trying to one of his restless, ambitious temperament, was well-nigh intolerable after the adventurous years he had spent in Courland. He sought relief in pleasure--the chase, high play, and gallantry; wearied of that, and endeavoured to kill time by the study of mathematics and the art of war and the composition of his curious _Rêveries_. Wearied of that also, turned to Adrienne for consolation, and vented his ill-humour upon her. Claiming the utmost liberty for himself, he was, nevertheless, indisposed to concede even a small measure of it to his mistress. He grew jealous and suspicious of her friends, and even believed, or professed to believe, that her relations with one of them were exceeding the limits of friendship; for we find Adrienne writing to a confidant as follows:--