Narcissus would not be likely to leave him
long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes,
Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The
information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it
had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the
enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could
not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably
saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty
conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for
having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not
to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which
she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that
Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to
effect her purpose.
Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable
obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout.
Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of
Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure.
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