PARIS, Ash-Wednesday, February 23, 1689.
My dear child, the life you lead at Marseilles delights me. I love that
city, which resembles no other in the world. Ah! how well I understand
Paulina’s admiration! How natural, how just, how novel all her surprise
must be! How pretty I think her! how pleasing to me is the mind which
my fancy gives her! It seems to me that I love her, and that you do not
love her enough. You want her to be all perfection. Did she engage for
this when she left her convent? You are not just. Who is there without
faults? Do you, in conscience, expect her to be free from them? Whence
can this hope arise? It is not in nature. You wish her then to be a
_prodigious_ prodigy, such as was never before seen. If I were with
you, I think I should do her some good offices, merely by correcting
your imagination a little, and by asking you, if a young girl, who
thinks of nothing but pleasing you and improving herself, who loves and
fears you, and who has a great share of understanding, is not in the
first rank of excellence? These are the dictates of my heart in favor
of my dear Paulina, whom I love, and whom I entreat you immediately
to embrace for my sake. Add to this her good conscience, which makes
her renounce the compact, when she sees the jugglers perform their
necromancies. This life, though agreeable, must have fatigued you; it
is too much for you, my dear child; you go to bed late, and you rise
early, I have had apprehensions for your health. The reason I do not
talk to you of mine is, that it is as I wish yours to be, and that I
have nothing to say upon the subject.