I am coming to the close of my seventieth year, and I feel that if I
have another shock like that which struck me so severely last year I
shall soon know how things go on in the other world. My constitution
continues sound, as may be seen by the fact that I have resisted all
attacks, but, as the French proverb says, "the pitcher may go once too
often to the well;" and that is what will happen to me in the end. But
these thoughts do not trouble me, for we know that we come into this
world only to die. I do not think that extreme old age is a pleasant
thing; there is too much to suffer; and with regard to physical
suffering I am a great coward.
Saint François de Sales, who founded the Order of the Filles de
Sainte-Marie, was in his youth a friend of the Maréchal de Villeroy,
father of the present marshal. The marshal never could bring himself
to give him his name as a saint, and when they spoke to him of his
friend he used to say: "I was delighted when I heard that M. de Sales
was a saint; he liked smutty stories and cheated at cards; the best
man in the world in other respects, but a fool."
I follow the fashions at a distance, and some of them I put aside
entirely, such as paniers, which I do not wear, and loose gowns,
which I cannot abide and will not permit in my presence. I think them
indecent; women look as if they had just got out of their beds. There
is no rule here now about the fashions. Tailors, dressmakers, and
hairdressers invent what they please. I have never followed to excess
the fashion of tall head-dresses.
I do not know what you mean about your neighbours the storks never
failing to come back every year. We have none in France, and I wish
you would tell me if you see them in England; for it is said they
never stay in any kingdom.