PARIS, Wednesday, June 30, 1677.
At length you inform me that you are arrived at Grignan. The pains you
have taken to keep our correspondence uninterrupted, is a continual
mark of your affection. I can assure you that you are not mistaken in
the opinion that I stand in need of this support; indeed no one can
be more in want of it. It is true, however, and I too often think so,
that your presence would have been of much greater service to me; but
your situation was so extraordinary, that the same considerations that
determined you to go, made me consent to your departure, without doing
any thing more than stifle my sentiments. It was considered a crime in
me to discover any uneasiness with regard to your health. I saw you
perishing before my eyes, and was not permitted to shed a tear. It was
killing you, it was assassinating you; I was compelled to suppress
my grief. I never knew a more cruel or more unprecedented species
of torture. If, instead of that restraint, which only increased my
affliction, you had owned that you were ill; and if your love for me
had been productive of complaisance, and made you evince a real desire
to follow the advice of physicians, to take nourishment, to observe a
regimen, and to own that repose and the air of Livri would have done
you good, this would indeed have comforted me, but your opposition to
our sentiments aggravated my grief and anxiety. In the end, my child,
we were so circumstanced, that we could not possibly avoid acting as
we did. God explained to us his will by that conduct; but we should
endeavor to see whether he will not permit us mutually to reform, and
whether, instead of that despair to which you condemned me from a
motive of affection, it would not be more natural and more beneficial
to give our hearts the liberty they require, and without which it is
impossible for us to lead a life of tranquillity. Thus I have declared
my mind to you freely once for all. I shall mention the subject no
more, but let us each reflect upon the past, that, whenever it pleases
God to bring us together again, we may carefully avoid falling into the
same errors. The relief which you have found in the fatigues of so long
a journey, sufficiently proves the necessity you are under of laying
aside restraint. Extraordinary remedies are necessary for persons of
an extraordinary character; physicians would never have dreamed of
such a one as that I have just mentioned. God grant it may continue to
produce the same good effect, and that the air of Grignan may not prove
injurious to you! I could not avoid writing to you in this manner, in
order to relieve my heart, and intimate to you that we must endeavor,
when next we meet, not to give any one an opportunity of paying us the
wretched compliment of saying very civilly, that to keep quite well,
we should never see one another again. I am astonished at the patience
that can bear so cruel a thought.
You brought the tears into my eyes in speaking of your little boy.
Alas, poor child; who can bear to see him in such a situation! I do not
retract what I always thought of him; but am of opinion that, even from
affection, we ought to wish him already in a happier world. Paulina
appears to me worthy of being made your play-thing; her resemblance
even will not displease you, at least, I hope it will not. That
little quadrangular nose is a feature you can not possibly dislike
to find at Grignan.[146] It seems to me somewhat odd that the noses
of the Grignan family should admit no shape but this, and should be
altogether averse to a nose like yours, which might have been sooner
formed; but they dreaded extremes, though they did not care about a
trifling modification. The little marquis is a very pretty fellow; you
should not be at all uneasy at his not being altered for the better.
Talk to me a great deal about the persons you associate with, and the
amusements they afford you.
[146] This alludes to Madame de Sévigné’s nose, which inclined to
the square.