so far removed from me, and so alien to my age. Since yesterday,
nevertheless, I have truly been much occupied with them, through the
desire which I felt to find in them something which might be useful to
you. But what can I do, except admire and pity you? I praise the wise
course you have taken: but it alarms me, because I conclude from it
that you judged it necessary; and, when one has gone so far, it is very
difficult to remain always at a distance from him to whom our heart is
incessantly attracting us. However, do not lose courage. Nothing should
be impossible to your noble soul; and, even if you should some day have
the misfortune to succumb (which God forbid!), believe me, my fairest
dear, reserve for yourself at least the consolation of having struggled
with all your power. And then, what human prudence cannot effect,
divine grace will, if it be so pleased. Perhaps you are on the eve of
its succour; and your virtue, proved by these grievous struggles, will
issue from them purer and more lustrous. Hope that you may receive
to-morrow the strength which you lack to-day. Do not count upon this in
order to repose upon it, but to encourage you to use all your own.
Whilst leaving to Providence the care of succouring you in a danger
against which I can do nothing, I reserve to myself that of sustaining
and consoling you, as far as within me lies. I shall not assuage your
pains, but I will share them. It is by virtue of this that I will
gladly receive your confidences. I feel that your heart must have need
of unburdening itself. I open mine to you; age has not yet so chilled
it that it is insensible to friendship. You will always find it ready
to receive you. It will be a poor solace to your sorrow; but at least
you will not weep alone: and when this unhappy love, obtaining too much
power over you, compels you to speak of it, it is better that it should
be with me than with _him_. Here am I talking like you; and I think
that, between us, we shall succeed in avoiding his name: for the rest,
we understand one another.
I know not whether I am doing right in telling you that he seemed
keenly grieved at your departure; it would be wiser, perhaps, not to
speak of it: but I have no love for the prudence which grieves its
friends. Yet I am forced to speak about it at no greater length. My
weak sight and tremulous hands do not admit of long letters, when I
have to write them myself.
Adieu then, my fairest dear; adieu, my amiable child: yes, I gladly
adopt you for my daughter, and you have, indeed, all that is needed to
make the pride and pleasure of a mother.
At the Château de ..., 3rd October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND FOURTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO MADAME DE VOLANGES
IN truth, my good and dear friend, I could hardly refrain from a
movement of pride when I read your letter. What! you honour me with
your entire confidence! You even deign to ask for my advice! Ah, I am
happy indeed, if I deserve this favourable opinion on your part: if I
do not owe it only to the prepossession of friendship. For the rest,
whatever the motive may be, it is none the less precious to my heart;
and to have obtained it is only one reason the more in my eyes why
I should labour harder to deserve it. I am going then (but without
pretending to give you a counsel) to tell you freely my fashion of
thinking. I distrust myself, because it is different from yours: but
when I have exposed my reasons to you, you will judge them; and if you
condemn them, I subscribe to your judgment in advance. I shall at least
show thus much wisdom, that I do not think myself wiser than you.
If, however, and in this single instance, my opinion should seem
preferable, you must seek for the cause of this in the illusions of
maternal love. Since this sentiment is a laudable one, it needs must
have a place in you. Indeed, how very recognizable it is in the course
which you are tempted to take! It is thus that, if it sometimes
happens to you to make a mistake, it never arises except through a
choice of virtues.
Prudence, it seems to me, is the quality to be preferred, when one is
disposing of another’s fate; and, above all, where it is a question of
fixing it by an indissoluble and sacred bond, such as that of marriage.
’Tis then that a mother, equally wise and tender, ought, as you say so
well, _to aid her daughter with her experience_. Now, I ask you, what
is she to do in order to succeed in this, if it be not to distinguish
for her between what is pleasant and what is suitable?
Would it not, then, be to degrade the maternal authority, would it
not be to annul it, if you were to subordinate it to a frivolous
inclination, the illusory power of which is only felt by those who
dread it, and disappears as soon as it is despised? For myself, I
confess, I have never believed in these irresistible and engrossing
passions, through which, it seems, we are agreed to pay general
excuses for our disorders. I cannot conceive how a fancy which is born
in a moment, and in a moment dies, can have more strength than the
unalterable principles of honour, modesty and virtue; and I can no more
understand why a woman who is false to them can be held justified by
her pretended passion, than a thief would be by his passion for money,
or an assassin by that for revenge.
Ah, who is there that can say that she has never had to struggle? But
I have ever sought to persuade myself that, in order to resist, it
sufficed to have the will; and thus far, at least, my experience has
confirmed my opinion. What would virtue be without the duties which
it imposes? Its worship lies in our sacrifices, its recompense in our
hearts. These truths cannot be denied except by those who have an
interest in disregarding them, and who, already depraved, hope to have
a moment’s illusion by endeavouring to justify their bad conduct by bad
reasons. But could one fear it from a shy and simple child; a child
whom you have borne, and whose pure and modest education can but have
fortified her happy nature? Yet it is to this fear, which I venture
to call humiliating to your daughter, that you are ready to sacrifice
the advantageous marriage which your prudence had contrived for her!
I like Danceny greatly; and for a long time past, as you know, I have
seen little of M. de Gercourt: but my friendship with the one and my
indifference towards the other do not prevent me from feeling the
enormous difference which exists between the two matches.
Their birth is equal, I admit; but one is without fortune, whilst
that of the other is so great that, even without birth, it would have
sufficed to obtain him everything. I quite agree that money does
not make happiness, but it must be admitted, also, that it greatly
facilitates it. Mademoiselle de Volanges is rich enough for two, as
you say: however, an income of sixty thousand livres, which she will
enjoy, is not over much when one bears the name of Danceny; when
one must furnish and maintain a house which corresponds with it. We
no longer live in the days of Madame de Sévigné. Luxury swallows up
everything; we blame it, but we needs must imitate it, and in the end
the superfluous stints us of the necessary.
As to the personal qualities which you count for much, and with good
reason, M. de Gercourt is, assuredly, irreproachable on that score;
and, as for him, his proof is over. I like to think, and, in fact, I
do think, that Danceny is no whit his inferior: but are we as sure of
that? It is true that thus far he has seemed exempt from the faults of
his age, and that, in spite of the tone of the day, he shows a taste
for good company which makes one augur favourably for him: but who
knows whether this apparent virtue be not due to the mediocrity of his
fortune? Putting aside the fear of being a cheat or a drunkard, one
needs money to be a gambler or a libertine, and one may yet love the
faults the excesses of which one dreads. In short, he would not be the
first in a thousand to frequent good company solely because he lacked
the means of doing otherwise.
I do not say (God forbid!) that I believe all this of him; but it would
be always a risk to run; and what reproaches would you not have to
make yourself, if the event were not happy! How would you answer your
daughter, if she were to say to you, “Mother, I was young and without
experience; I was seduced even by an error pardonable at my age: but
Heaven, which had foreseen my weakness, had granted me a wise mother,
to remedy it and protect me from it. Why, then, forgetful of your
prudence, did you consent to my unhappiness? Was it for me to choose
a husband, when I knew nothing of the marriage-state? If I had wished
to do so, was it not your duty to oppose me? But I never had this mad
desire. Determined to obey you, I awaited your choice with respectful
resignation; I never failed in the submission which I owed to you, and
yet I bear to-day the penalty which is only the rebellious children’s
due. Ah! your weakness has been my ruin!...”
Perhaps, her respect would stifle these complaints: but maternal love
would divine them; and the tears of your daughter, though hidden,
would none the less drip upon your heart. Where then will you look for
consolation? Will it be to that mad love against which you should have
armed her, and by which, on the contrary, you would have yourself to be
seduced?
I know not, my dear friend, whether I have too strong a prejudice
against this passion: but I deem it redoubtable even in marriage. It is
not that I disapprove of the growth of a soft and virtuous sentiment to
embellish the marriage bond, and to sweeten, in some sort, the duties
which it imposes: but it is not to that passion, that it belongs to
form it; it is not for the illusion of a moment to settle the choice of
our life. In fact, in order to choose, one must compare; and how can
that be done, when one is occupied by a single object, when even that
object one cannot know, plunged as one is in intoxication and blindness?
I have, as you may well believe, come across many women afflicted with
this dangerous ill; of some of them I have received the confidences. To
hear them, there is not one of them whose lover is not a perfect being:
but these chimerical perfections exist only in their imaginations.
Their feverish heads dream only of virtues and accomplishments; they
adorn with them, at their pleasure, the object whom they prefer: it
is the drapery of a god, often worn by an abject model; but whatever
it may be, hardly have they clothed it than, the dupes of their own
handiwork, they prostrate themselves to adore it.
Either your daughter does not love Danceny, or else she is under this
same illusion; if their love is reciprocal, it is common to both.
Thus your reason for uniting them for ever resolves itself into the
certainty that they do not, and cannot, know each other. But, you will
ask, do M. de Gercourt and my daughter know each other any better? No,
doubtless; but at least they are simply ignorant, they are under no
delusion. What happens in such a case between two married persons whom
I assume to be virtuous? Each of them studies the other, looks face
to face at the other, seeks and soon discovers what tastes and wishes
he must give up for the common tranquillity. These slight sacrifices
are not irksome, because they are reciprocal, and have been foreseen:
soon they give birth to mutual kindness; and habit, which fortifies all
inclinations which it does not destroy, brings about, little by little,
that sweet friendship, that tender confidence, which, joined to esteem,
form, so it seems to me, the true and solid happiness of marriage.
The illusions of love may be sweeter; but who does not know that they
are less durable? And what dangers are not brought about by the moment
which destroys them? It is then that the least faults appear shocking
and unendurable, by the contrast which they form with the idea of
perfection which had seduced us. Each one of the couple believes,
however, that only the other has changed, and that he has always the
same value as that which, in a mistaken moment, had been attributed to
him. The charm which he no longer experiences he is astonished at no
longer producing; he is humiliated at this: wounded vanity embitters
the mind, augments injuries, causes ill-humour, begets hate; and
frivolous pleasures are paid for finally by long misery.
Such, my dear friend, is my manner of thinking upon the subject which
occupies us; I do not defend it, I simply expound it; ’tis for you
to decide. But if you persist in your opinion, I beg you to make me
acquainted with the reasons which have outweighed my own: I shall be
glad indeed to gather light from you, and, above all, to be reassured
as to the fate of your amiable child, whose happiness I ardently
desire, both through my friendship for her and through that which
unites me to you for life.
Paris, 4th October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND FIFTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO CÉCILE VOLANGES
WELL, well, little one! So here you are quite vexed, quite ashamed.
And that M. de Valmont is a wicked man, is he not? How now! He dares
to treat you as the woman he would love the best! He teaches you what
you are dying with desire to know! In truth, these proceedings are
unpardonable. And you, on your side, you wished to keep your virtue for
your lover (who does not abuse it): you cherish only the pains of love
and not its pleasures! Nothing could be better, and you will figure
marvellous well in a romance. Passion, misfortune, above all, virtue:
what a heap of fine things! In the midst of this brilliant pageant, one
feels _ennui_ sometimes, it is true, but one pays it back.
See the poor child, then, how much she is to be pitied! Her eyes looked
worn, the day after? What will you say, pray, when it is your lover’s
that look thus? Nay, my sweet angel, you will not always have them so;
all men are not Valmonts. And then, not to dare to raise those eyes!
Oh, in truth, you were right there; everybody would have read in them
your adventure. Believe me, however, if it were so, our women and even
our damsels would have a far more modest gaze.
In spite of the praise I am forced to give you, as you see, I must,
however, admit that you failed in your _chef-d’œuvre_; which was to
have told everything to your Mamma. You had started so well! You had,
already, thrown yourself into her arms, you sobbed, she also wept:
what a pathetic scene! And what a pity not to have completed it! Your
tender mother, quite ravished with delight, and to assist your virtue,
would have shut you up in a convent for the rest of your life; and
there you could have loved Danceny as much as you wished, without
rivals and without sin: you could have broken your heart at your ease;
and Valmont, assuredly, would not have come to trouble your grief with
vexatious pleasures.
Seriously, at past fifteen can one be so utterly a child as you are?
You are right, indeed, to say that you do not deserve my kindness. Yet
I would be your friend: you have need of one, perhaps, with the mother
you possess and the husband whom she would give you! But if you do
not form yourself more, what would you have one do with you? What can
one hope for, when that which generally excites intelligence in girls
seems, on the contrary, to deprive you of it?
If you could bring yourself to reason for a moment, you would soon find
that you ought to congratulate yourself, instead of complaining. But
you are shamefaced, and that disturbs you! Well, calm yourself; the
shame caused by love is like its pain; it is only experienced once.
Indeed one can feign it afterwards, but one no longer feels it. The
pleasure, however, remains, and that is surely something. I think even
that I gathered the fact, from your little chattering letter, that you
were inclined to count it for much. Come now, a little honesty. That
trouble which prevented you _from acting as you spoke_, which made you
find it _so difficult to resist_, which made you feel _as though you
were sorry_ when Valmont went away, was it really shame which caused
it, or was it pleasure? and _his way of saying things to which one does
not know how to answer_, may that not have arisen from his _way of
acting_? Ah, little girl, you are fibbing, and you are fibbing to your
friend. That is not right. But let us leave that.
What would be a pleasure to anybody, and could be nothing else, becomes
in your position a veritable happiness. In fact, placed as you are
between a mother whose love is necessary to you, and a lover by whom
you desire to be loved always, do you not see that the only means of
obtaining these opposite ends is to occupy yourself with a third party?
Distracted by this new adventure, whilst, in your Mamma’s eyes, you
will have the air of sacrificing to your submission an inclination
which displeases her, in the eyes of your lover you will acquire the
honour of a fine defence. Whilst assuring him incessantly of your love,
you will not grant him the last proofs of it. Such refusals, so little
painful to you in the case in which you will be, he will not fail to
attribute to your virtue; he will complain of them, perhaps, but he
will love you more for them; and to obtain the double merit of having
sacrificed love in the eyes of one, of resisting it in those of the
other, will cost you nothing more than to taste its pleasures. Oh, how
many women have lost their reputation which they would have carefully
preserved, had they been able to retain it by similar means!
Does not the course which I propose to you seem to you the most
reasonable, as it is the most pleasant? Do you know what you have
gained from that which you have adopted? Only that your Mamma has
attributed your increased melancholy to an increase of love, that
she is incensed at it, and that, to punish you, she only waits for
additional proof. She has just written to me; she will make every
attempt to extract the admission from you. She will go so far, she
told me, as to propose Danceny to you, as a husband, and that, in
order to induce you to speak. And if, letting yourself be beguiled by
this deceitful tenderness, you answered as your heart bade you, soon,
confined for a long time, perhaps for ever, you would weep for your
blind credulity at your leisure.
This ruse which she wishes to employ against you you must combat
with another. Begin then, by seeming less melancholy, to lead her to
believe that you think less of Danceny. She will allow herself to
be the more easily persuaded in that this is the ordinary effect of
absence; and she will be the better disposed to you for it, since she
will find in it an opportunity for applauding her own prudence which
suggested this means to her. But if, some doubt still remaining, she
were, nevertheless, to persist in proving you, and were to speak to
you of marriage, fall back, as a well-bred daughter, upon perfect
submission. As a matter of fact, what do you risk? As far as husbands
are concerned, one is worth no more than another; and the most
uncompromising is always less troublesome than a mother.
Once more satisfied with you, your mother will at last marry you;
and then, less hampered in your movements, you will be able, at your
choice, to quit Valmont and take Danceny, or even to keep them both.
For, mark this, your Danceny is charming; but he is one of those men
whom one has when one wills and as long as one wills: one can be at
one’s ease, then, with him. It is not the same with Valmont: it is
difficult to keep him, and dangerous to leave him. One must employ with
him much tact, or, if one has not that, much docility. On the other
hand, if you could succeed in attaching him to you as a friend, what
a piece of fortune that would be! He would set you, at once, in the
first rank of our women of fashion. It is in this way that one acquires
consideration in the world, and not by dint of tears and blushes, as
when your nuns made you take your dinner on your knees.
If you are wise then, you will endeavour to be reconciled with Valmont,
who must be mighty wroth with you; and, as one should know how to
repair one’s follies, do not fear to make a few advances to him;
besides, you will soon learn that, if men make us the first ones, we
are almost always obliged to make the second. You have a pretext for
them: for you must not keep this letter; and I require you to hand it
to Valmont as soon as you have read it. Do not forget, however, to seal
it beforehand. First, in order to secure for yourself the merit of the
step you are taking with regard to him, and to prevent your having the
air of being advised to it; and, secondly, because there is no one in
the world, save yourself, of whom I am sufficiently the friend to speak
to as I do to you.
Adieu, sweet angel; follow my advice, and you shall tell me if you feel
the better for it.
P.S. By the way, I was forgetting ... one word more. Look to it that
you cultivate your style more. You write always like a child. I quite
see whence it arises; it is because you say all that you think, and no
whit of what you do not think. That may pass between you and me, who
have nothing to hide from one another: but with everybody! With your
lover above all! You would always have the air of a little fool. You
must remember that, when you write to anyone, it is for him and not for
yourself: you must, therefore, think less of telling him what you think
than what will give him most pleasure.
Adieu, sweetheart: I kiss you instead of scolding you, in the hope that
you will become more reasonable.
Paris, 4th October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SIXTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
AMAZING, Vicomte, and this time I love you furiously! For the rest,
after the first of your two letters, I could expect the second: thus it
did not astonish me; and whilst, proud already of your success to come,
you were soliciting its reward, and asking me if I were ready, I saw
clearly that I had no such need for haste. Yes, upon my honour; reading
the beautiful account of that tender scene, which had _moved you so
deeply_, observing your restraint, worthy of the fairest days of our
chivalry, I said to myself a score of times: The affair has failed!
But that is because it could not befall otherwise. What do you expect
a poor woman to do who surrenders, and is not taken? My faith, in such
a case one must at least save one’s honour; and that is what your
Présidente does. I know well that, for myself, who can perceive that
the step she has taken is really not without some effect, I propose
to make use of it myself on the first rather serious occasion which
presents itself: but I promise you that, if he for whom I go to that
trouble profits no better than you from it, he may assuredly renounce
me for ever.
Here you are then, reduced, brought to impotence! And that between two
women, one of whom had already crossed the Rubicon, and the other was
asking nothing better than to do so. Well, well, you will think that
I am boasting, and say that it is easy to prophesy after the event;
but I can swear to you that I expected as much. It is because you have
not really the genius of your estate; you know nothing except what you
have learned, and you invent nothing. Thus, as soon as circumstances
no longer lend themselves to your accustomed formulas, and you
are compelled to leave the beaten road, you pull up short like a
school-boy. In short, a piece of childishness on the one side, a return
of prudery on the other, are enough to disconcert you, because you do
not meet with them every day; and you know not how either to prevent
or remedy them. Ah, Vicomte, Vicomte, you teach me not to judge men by
their successes; and soon we shall have to say of you: On such and such
a day, he was brave! And when you have committed follies after follies,
you come running to me! It seems that I have nothing else to do but to
repair them. It is true, that there would be work enough there.
Whatever may be the state of these two adventures, one was undertaken
against my will, and I will not meddle in it; for the other, as you
have brought some complaisance for me to bear upon it, I make it my
business. The letter which I enclose, which you will read first and
then give to the little Volanges, is more than sufficient to bring her
back to you: but, I beg you, give some attention to this child, and let
us make her, in concert, the despair of her mother and of Gercourt.
You need not fear to increase the doses. I see clearly that the little
person will not take alarm; and, our views upon her once fulfilled, she
may become what she will.