friends, have decided my absence from Paris for some time: but the
place of my retreat, which is kept a secret for everybody, will not be
one for you. If you honour me with a reply, I beg you to address it to
the Commanderie de .... by P..., under cover to M. le Commandeur de
***. It is from his house that I have the honour to write to you.
Paris, 12th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTIETH
MADAME DE VOLANGES TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE
I MOVE, my dear friend, from surprise to surprise and from sorrow
to sorrow. One must be a mother to form an idea of what I suffered
yesterday all the morning: and, if my most cruel anxiety has been
calmed since, there still remains to me a keen affliction, the end of
which I cannot foresee.
Yesterday, about ten o’clock in the morning, astonished that I had not
yet seen my daughter, I sent my waiting-maid to know what could have
occasioned her delay. She returned a moment later, highly alarmed,
and alarmed me even more by informing me that my daughter was not in
her apartment, and that, since the morning, her maid had not seen her
there. Judge of my situation! I summoned all my people, and the porter
in especial: all swore to me they knew nothing, and could give me no
information upon this event. I went at once to my daughter’s room. The
disorder which obtained there assured me that she had apparently only
gone that morning: but I found no further clue. I searched her presses,
her writing-desk; I found everything in its place and all her wardrobe,
with the exception of the dress in which she had left. She had not even
taken the small stock of money which she possessed.
As she had only heard yesterday of all that is said of Madame de
Merteuil; as she is greatly attached to her, to such a degree, indeed,
that she did naught but weep all the evening; as I remembered also,
that she did not know Madame de Merteuil was in the country, my first
idea was that she had wished to see her friend, and had been so
imprudent as to go alone. But the time which elapsed before her return
brought back all my uneasiness. Each moment augmented my trouble, and,
burning as I was for information, I dared take no steps to obtain it,
for fear of giving publicity to a proceeding which, afterwards, I might
wish, perhaps, to be able to hide from everybody. Never in my life have
I so suffered.
Finally, it was not until past two o’clock, I received at the same time
a letter from my daughter and one from the Superior of the Convent
of.... My daughter’s letter only said that she had feared lest I should
oppose the vocation, which she felt, to become a nun, and that she had
not dared speak to me of it: the rest only consisted of excuses for the
course she had adopted without my permission, which I would assuredly
not disapprove of, she added, if I knew her motives, into which she
begged me, however, not to enquire.
The Superior wrote to me that, seeing a young person arrive alone, she
had at first refused to receive her; but that, having questioned her
and learned who she was, she had thought to do me a service by giving
my daughter shelter, in order not to expose her to further journeys,
upon which she seemed resolved. The Superior, while offering, as a
matter of course, to restore my daughter to me, if I were to demand
her, urges me, obeying her condition, not to oppose a vocation which
she declares to be firm; she told me also that she could not inform
me earlier of this event, owing to the difficulty she had in making my
daughter write to me, as her plan was to leave everyone in ignorance of
the place of her retreat. It is a cruel thing when our children argue
so ill!
I went immediately to the convent; and, after seeing the Superior,
asked to see my daughter; she only came reluctantly, and in a very
tremulous state. I spoke to her before the nuns, and I spoke to her
alone: all that I could extract from her, amid many tears, was that
she could only be happy in the convent; I decided to let her remain
there, but without entering the rank of postulants, as she desired. I
fear that the deaths of Madame de Tourvel and M. de Valmont have unduly
affected her young head. Whatever my respect for a religious vocation,
I could not see my daughter embrace that career without sorrow, and
even without alarm. Methinks we have already duties enough to perform,
without creating fresh ones; and, again, it is hardly at her age that
we best know what befits us.
What enhances my embarrassment is the nearness of M. de Gercourt’s
return; must this most advantageous marriage be broken off? How, then,
are we to make our children’s happiness, if it is not sufficient to
desire it and devote all our cares to it? You will greatly oblige me by
telling me what you would do in my place; I cannot fix upon any course:
I find nothing more terrible than to have to decide another’s lot, and
I am equally afraid of bringing to this occasion the severity of a
judge or the weakness of a mother.
I reproach myself unceasingly for augmenting your sorrows by speaking
to you of my own; but I know your heart: the consolation which you
could give to others would become to you the greatest you could
yourself receive.
Adieu, my dear and revered friend; I await your two replies with much
impatience.
Paris, 13th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIRST
MADAME DE ROSEMONDE TO THE CHEVALIER DANCENY
AFTER what you have brought to my knowledge, Monsieur, nothing is left
for me but to be silent and to weep. One regrets that one still lives,
after learning such horrors; one blushes to be a woman, when one finds
one capable of such excesses.
I will willingly concur with you, Monsieur, so far as I am concerned,
in leaving in silence and oblivion all that may have brought about
these sad events. I even hope that they may never cause you any other
grief than that inseparable from the unhappy advantage which you
obtained over my nephew. In spite of his errors, I feel that I shall
never console myself for his loss: but my eternal affliction will be
the sole vengeance I shall permit myself to obtain from you; I leave it
to your heart to appreciate its extent.
If you will permit to my age a reflexion which is rarely made at yours,
it is that, were one enlightened as to one’s true happiness, one would
never seek it outside the bounds prescribed by religion and the laws.
You may rest assured that I will keep faithfully and willingly the
deposit you have confided to me, but I ask you to authorize me to give
it up to no one, not even to you, Monsieur, unless it should become
necessary for your justification. I venture to believe that you will
not refuse me this request, and that you have already realized how
often one laments for having indulged in even the most just revenge.
I do not pause here in my requests: convinced as I am of your
generosity and delicacy, it would be very worthy of both of these if
you were also to place in my hands the letters of Mademoiselle de
Volanges, which, apparently, you have retained, and which, doubtless,
are of no further interest to you. I know that that young person has
wronged you greatly; but I do not think that you have thought of
punishing her; and, were it only out of respect for yourself, you will
not degrade the object you have so greatly loved. I have no need to
add, then, that the consideration which the daughter does not deserve
is due at any rate to the mother, to that meritorious woman, in regard
to whom you are not without having much to repair: for, after all,
whatever illusion one may seek to impose on one’s self by a pretended
delicacy of sentiment, he who first attempts to seduce a heart still
virtuous and simple makes himself, from that fact alone, the first
abettor of its corruption, and must be, for ever, responsible for the
excesses and errors which ensue.
Do not be surprised, Monsieur, at so much severity on my part: it
is the greatest proof I can give you of my complete esteem. You
will acquire fresh rights to it still, by lending yourself, as I
desire, to the security of a secret the publication of which would do
yourself a wrong and deal death to a mother’s heart which you have
already wounded. In a word, Monsieur, I desire to do this service to
my friend; and, if I could be afraid that you would refuse me this
consolation, I would ask you to reflect beforehand that it is the only
one you have left me.
I have the honour to be, etc.
At the Château de ..., 15th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SECOND
MADAME DE ROSEMONDE TO MADAME DE VOLANGES
HAD I been obliged, my dear friend, to await and receive from Paris the
enlightenment which you ask me for concerning Madame de Merteuil, it
would have been impossible for me to give it you as yet; and doubtless
that which I received would have been vague and uncertain: but there
has reached me information which I neither expected nor had reason to
expect; and this is only too certain. O my friend, how that woman has
deceived you!
I shrink from entering into any details of this mass of horrors; but,
whatever may be reported, rest assured that it still falls short of the
truth. I hope, my dear friend, that you know me well enough to believe
my word for it, and that you will require no proofs from me. Let the
knowledge suffice you that there exists a mass of them, and that, at
this very moment, they are in my hands.
It is not without extreme pain that I beseech you also not to compel me
to give a reason for the advice you ask of me, respecting Mademoiselle
de Volanges. I recommend you not to oppose the vocation she displays.
Assuredly, no reason can justify one in forcing such a condition of
life upon one who is not called to it: but sometimes it is a great
happiness that it should be so; and you see that your daughter tells
you herself that you would not disapprove, if you knew her motives. He
who inspires our sentiments knows better than our vain wisdom what is
right for each one of us, and, often, what seems an act of His severity
is, on the contrary, one of His clemency.
In short, my advice, which I am quite sensible will afflict you, and
which, from that fact alone, you must believe I would not give you
unless I had greatly reflected upon it, is that you should leave
Mademoiselle de Volanges at the convent, since this step is of her own
choice; that you should encourage, instead of thwarting the project she
seems to have formed; and that, in awaiting its execution, you should
not hesitate to break off the marriage you had arranged.
After fulfilling these painful duties of friendship, and in the
impotence in which I am to add any consolation, the one favour it
remains for me to beg of you, my dear friend, is to ask me no further
questions bearing in any way upon these sad events: let us leave them
in the oblivion which befits them; and, without seeking to throw
useless and painful lights upon them, submit ourselves to the decrees
of Providence, and believe in the wisdom of its views, even where we
are not permitted to understand them. Adieu, my dear friend.
At the Château de ..., 15th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THIRD
MADAME DE VOLANGES TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE
O MY friend, in what a fearful veil do you envelop my daughter’s lot!
And you seemed to dread lest I seek to raise it! What, pray, can it
conceal which can affect a mother’s heart more than the dire suspicions
to which you abandon me? The more I think of your friendship, of your
indulgence, the more are my torments redoubled: twenty times, since
yesterday, have I tried to escape from this cruel uncertainty, and to
beg you to let me know all, without considering my feelings and without
reserve; and each time I shuddered with dread, when I remembered the
prayer you made me not to question you. Finally, I decide upon a course
which still leaves me some hope; and I depend upon your friendship
not to refuse me what I ask: it is to answer me whether I have, to a
certain extent, understood what you might have to tell me; not to be
afraid to let me know all that maternal indulgence can forgive, and
which it may not be impossible to repair. If my misfortunes exceed
this measure, then, indeed, I consent to leave you to explain yourself
by silence alone; here then is what I know already, and the point to
which my fears extend. My daughter has shewn that she had a certain
inclination for the Chevalier Danceny, and I have been informed that
she has gone so far as to receive letters from him, and even to reply
to them; but I believed I had succeeded in preventing this error
of a child from having any dangerous consequences: to-day, when I
dread everything, I can conceive that it may have been possible for
my surveillance to have been deceived; and I fear that my misguided
daughter may have set a seal upon her wrong doing.
I recall to mind, again, several circumstances which lend weight to
this fear. I told you that my daughter was taken ill at the news of M.
de Valmont’s misfortune; perhaps this sensitiveness was merely due to
her thought of the risks M. Danceny had run in this combat. Afterwards,
when she shed so many tears on learning all that was said of Madame
de Merteuil, perhaps what I thought to be the grief of friendship was
but the effect of jealousy, or of regret at finding her lover to be
unfaithful. Her latest course may again, it seems to me, be explained
by the same motive. It often happens that one believes one’s self
called to God, only because one has revolted against men. Finally,
supposing these facts to be true, and that you have been informed
of them, you may have found them sufficient to justify the rigorous
counsel you gave me.
However, if this be so, whilst blaming my daughter, I should still
believe it my duty to try every means to save her from the torments and
dangers of an illusory and transient vocation. If M. Danceny is not
lost to every sentiment of honour, he will not refuse to repair a wrong
of which he is the sole author, and I am entitled to believe that a
marriage with my daughter is sufficiently advantageous to gratify him,
as well as his family.
This, my dear and revered friend, is the one hope remaining to me;
hasten to confirm it, if you can. You may judge how desirous I am that
you should reply to me, and what a terrible blow your silence would
inflict.[19]
I was about to close my letter, when a gentleman of my acquaintance
came to see me, and related the cruel scene which Madame de Merteuil
underwent the day before yesterday. As I have seen nobody for the last
few days, I knew nothing of this adventure; here is the relation of it,
as I have it from an eye-witness:
Madame de Merteuil, on her return from the country on Thursday,
alighted at the Italian Comedy, where she had her box; she was alone in
it, and, what must have seemed most extraordinary to her, no gentleman
of her acquaintance presented himself during the performance. At the
close, she entered the withdrawing-room, as was her custom; it was
already crowded; a hum was raised immediately, but apparently she was
not aware that she was the object of it. She saw a vacant place on one
of the benches, and went and sat there; but at once all the women who
were there before her rose, as if in concert, and left her absolutely
alone. This marked sign of general indignation was applauded by all the
men, and the murmurs, which even amounted, it is said, to hooting, were
redoubled.
That nothing might be lacking to her humiliation, her ill-luck had it
that M. de Prévan, who had shown himself nowhere since his adventure,
should enter the withdrawing-room that same moment. As soon as he was
recognized, everybody, men and women, surrounded and applauded him;
and he was carried, so to speak, in face of Madame de Merteuil by
the crowd, which made a circle round them. I was assured that Madame
de Merteuil preserved an appearance of seeing and hearing nothing,
and that she did not change her expression! But I think this fact
exaggerated. Be that as it may, this truly ignominious situation lasted
until her carriage was announced; and, at her departure, the scandalous
hooting was redoubled. It is fearful to be related to such a woman.
M. de Prévan met with a great reception the same evening from all the
officers of his regiment who were present, and there is no doubt but
that he will shortly regain his rank and employment.
The same person who gave me these details told me that Madame de
Merteuil was seized the following night with a violent fever, which
was at first thought to be the effect of the terrible situation in
which she had been placed; but it became known yesterday that confluent
small-pox had declared itself, of a very dangerous kind. Truly, it
would be a piece of good-fortune for her if she were to die of it. They
say, further, that all this adventure will damage her case, which is on
the point of being tried, and in which they assert that she had need of
much favour.
Adieu, my dear and revered friend. I see the wicked punished in all
this; but I find no consolation in it for their unfortunate victims.
Paris, 18th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOURTH
THE CHEVALIER DANCENY TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE
YOU are right, Madame, and certainly I will refuse you nothing within
my power to which you attach any value. The packet which I have the
honour to forward you contains all Mademoiselle de Volanges’ letters.
If you read them, you will see, not without astonishment perhaps, what
a wealth of perfidy and ingenuousness can be united. That is, at least,
what struck me most, on my last perusal of them.
Above all, can one refrain from the liveliest indignation against
Madame de Merteuil, when one reflects with what a hideous pleasure she
brought all her pains to bear on the corruption of so much innocence
and candour?
No, my love is dead. I retain nothing of a sentiment so basely
betrayed; and it is not that which makes me seek to justify
Mademoiselle de Volanges. Nevertheless, would not that simple heart,
that gentle and pliable character, have been influenced for good more
easily even than they were seduced to evil? What young person, issuing
similarly from a convent, without experience and almost without ideas,
and bringing into the world, as almost always happens then, an equal
ignorance of good and evil; what young person, I say, would have been
able to offer more resistance to such culpable artifices? Ah, to be
indulgent it suffices to reflect upon how many circumstances beyond
our own control the terrible alternative between the delicacy and the
depravation of our sentiments depends. You rendered justice to me,
then, Madame, in deeming that the wrongs of Mademoiselle de Volanges,
which I felt most keenly, did not, however, inspire me with any ideas
of vengeance. ’Tis quite enough to be obliged to renounce my love of
her! It would cost me too much to hate her.
I needed no reflexion to desire that all which concerns and could harm
her should remain for ever unknown to the world. If I have seemed to
delay the fulfilment of your desires in this matter, I think I need
not conceal my motive from you; I wished to be sure, beforehand, that
I was not to be troubled with the consequences of my unfortunate
duel. At a time when I was craving your indulgence, when I even dared
believe I had some right to it, I should have feared to have too
much the appearance of buying it by this condescension on my part;
and, convinced of the purity of my motives, I was proud enough, I
will confess, to wish you to be left in no doubt of them. I hope you
will pardon this delicacy, perhaps too susceptible, in view of the
veneration which you inspire in me, and the value which I attach to
your esteem.
It is the same sentiment which bids me ask of you, as a last favour, to
be so good as to let me know if, in your judgment, I have fulfilled all
the duties which have been imposed upon me by the unhappy circumstances
in which I was placed. Once at ease in this respect, my intention is
fixed; I leave for Malta; I will go there to make gladly, and keep
religiously, the vows which will separate me from a world of which,
whilst still so young, I have had such good reason to complain; I shall
go, in short, to seek to lose, beneath an alien sky, the thought of so
many accumulated horrors, whose memory could only sadden and wither my
soul.
I am with respect, Madame, your most humble, etc.
Paris, 26th December, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIFTH
MADAME DE VOLANGES TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE
THE fate of Madame de Merteuil, my dear and revered friend, seems to
be at length complete; and it is such that her greatest enemies are
divided between the indignation she merits and the pity she inspires.
I was right, indeed, in saying that it would be a happiness for her to
die of her small-pox. She has recovered, it is true, but she has been
fearfully disfigured; and, in particular, she has lost an eye. You will
imagine that I have not seen her; but I am told that she is really
hideous.
The Marquis de ***, who never misses an occasion for saying something
malicious, said yesterday, in speaking of her, that the disease had
transformed her, and that now her soul was to be seen in her face.
Unhappily, everyone found the expression just.
A further event has just come to add to her disgrace and to her
prejudice. Her case was tried yesterday, and the verdict was given
against her unanimously. Costs, damages, restitution of the funds
received, all was adjudged to the minors: so that the small remnant of
her fortune which was not compromised in this case is absorbed, and
more than absorbed, by the costs.
Immediately she received this intelligence, although still sick, she
made her arrangements, and started off at night, alone and posting. Her
servants say to-day that none of them would follow her. It is believed
she has taken the road to Holland.
This departure makes more noise than all the rest, from the fact that
she has carried off her diamonds, a possession of great value, which
should have returned to her husband’s succesion; her plate, jewels; in
short, everything that she could; and that she leaves behind her nearly
fifty thousand livres of debts. It is a real bankruptcy.
The family is to assemble to-morrow to make arrangements with the
creditors. Although only a distant relation, I have offered to
contribute, but I shall not be present at this assembly, having to
assist at an even sadder ceremony. To-morrow, my daughter takes the
habit of a postulant. I hope that you will not forget, my dear friend,
that, in making this great sacrifice, I have no other motive for being
compelled to it than the silence which you have maintained towards me.
M. Danceny left Paris nearly a fortnight ago. It is said that he is on
his way to Malta where it is his intention to remain. There would be
still time, perhaps, to recall him!.... My friend!.... My daughter is
guilty indeed, then!.... You will forgive a mother, no doubt, for only
yielding to this awful certainty with difficulty.
What a fatality has fallen upon me of late, and stricken me in the
objects dearest to me! My daughter and my friend!
Who is there who would not shudder, if he were to reflect upon the
misfortunes that may be caused by even one dangerous association! And
what troubles would one not avert by reflecting on this more often!
What woman would not fly before the first proposal of a seducer! What
mother could see another person than herself speak to her daughter,
and tremble not! But these tardy reflexions never come until after the
event; and one of the most important of truths, as it is, perhaps, one
of the most generally recognized, lies stifled and void of use in the
whirlpool of our inconsequent manners.
Adieu, my dear and revered friend; I feel at this moment that our
reason, which is already so insufficient to avert our misfortunes, is
even more inadequate to console us for them.[20]
Paris, 14th January, 17**.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Danceny is ignorant of what this means was; he merely repeats
Valmont’s expression.
[2] Voltaire: _Nanine_.
[3] A village half-way between Paris and the _château_ of Madame de
Rosemonde.
[4] The afore-mentioned village, half-way on the road.
[5] _La Nouvelle Héloïse._
[6] _La Nouvelle Héloïse._
[7] “_L’amour y pourvoira._” Regnard: _Les Folies amoureuses_.
[8] This letter has not been recovered.
[9] From the comedy, “_On ne s’avise jamais de tout!_”
[10] See letter the hundred and ninth.
[11] Letters the hundred and twentieth and hundred and twenty-second.
[12] “_Plus je vis d’étrangers, plus j’aimai ma patrie_”. Du Belloi’s
tragedy of _Le Siège de Calais_.
[13] Letters the forty-sixth and forty-seventh.
[14] Marmontel: _Conte moral d’Alcibiade_.