THE ROCKS, November 6, 1675.
Count, I am delighted to hear that my daughter is satisfied with you.
Allow me to thank you by reason of the great interest I take in your
affairs, and which I entreat you to preserve. You can not fail of this
without ingratitude, and without doing injustice to the blood of the
Adhémars. I have read, in the Crusades, of one of these who was an
illustrious personage six hundred years ago. He was beloved as you are,
and would never have given a moment’s uneasiness to such a wife as
yours. His death was lamented by an army of three hundred thousand men,
and mourned by all the princes in Christendom. Not many pages after I
find a castellane, not altogether so ancient; he is, indeed, a mere
modern; it was but five hundred and twenty years since he made a great
figure. I conjure you, therefore, by these two noble ancestors, who are
my particular friends, to be guided by Madame de Grignan, and consider
how much you will consult your own interest in doing so.