PARIS, Wednesday, December 10, 1670.
Madame de Coulanges has told me several times that you love me
sincerely, that you talk of me, that you wish me with you. As I made
the first advances toward this friendship, and loved first, you may
judge how happy I am to find that you return the partiality I have so
long had for you. All that you write of your daughter is admirable,
and I had no doubt that the good health of the mother would comfort
you for your disappointment. The joy I should have had in acquainting
you with the birth of a son would have been too great--it would have
been showering too many blessings at once; and the pleasure I naturally
take in being the messenger of good news, would have been carried to
excess. I shall soon be in the same condition you saw me in last year.
I must love you extremely to send my daughter to you at this inclement
season of the year. How foolish it is to leave a good mother, with
whom you assure me she is very well satisfied, to run after a man at
the furthest end of France! I give you my word, nothing can be more
indecorous than such behavior. I do believe you were greatly concerned
at the death of the amiable duchess. I was so afflicted myself that I
stood in need of comfort while I was writing to you about it.
My daughter desires me to acquaint you with the marriage of Monsieur
de Nevers;[296] that Monsieur de Nevers who was so difficult to be
caught, who used to slip so unexpectedly through the hands of the
fair, is at length going to wed. And whom think you? Not Mademoiselle
de Houdancourt, nor yet Mademoiselle de Grancei, but the young, the
handsome, the modest Mademoiselle de Thianges,[297] who was brought
up at the Abbaye aux Bois. Madame de Montespan[298] has the wedding
solemnized at her house next Sunday; she acts as mother on the
occasion, and receives the honors as such. The king restored Monsieur
de Nevers to all his posts, so that this _belle_, though she does
not bring him a penny of fortune, will be worth more to him than the
richest heiress in France. Madame de Montespan does wonders in every
thing.
[296] Philip Julian Mazarini Mancini, Duke of Nevers.
[297] Diana Gabriel de Damas, daughter of Claud Leonor, Marquis
de Thianges, and Gabriel de Rochechouart Mortemar, sister to
Madame de Montespan.
[298] Then mistress to Louis XIV.
I forbid you to write to me. Write to my daughter, and leave me to the
freedom of writing to you, without embarking you in a train of answers
which would rob me of the pleasure I have in acquainting you with every
little trifle. Continue to love me, my dear count. I dispense with your
honoring my motherly dignity, but you must love me, and assure yourself
that there is not a place in the world where you are so dearly beloved
as you are here.