PARIS, May 2, 1696.
I am truly obliged to you, madame, for still thinking of me. I knew
all your excellences; but the affection of your heart, and the regard
you have felt for a person so worthy of being beloved as she whom
you regret, appear to me to be above all praise. Ah! madam, how much
reason have you to believe me to be deeply affected! I can think of
no other subject; I can talk of nothing else. I am ignorant of the
particulars of this fatal illness, and the eagerness with which I seek
for them shows that I have little power over myself. I spent the whole
of yesterday with the prior of St. Catharine’s. You may guess upon
what our conversation turned. I showed him the letter you have done me
the honor to write to me. It gave him real pleasure, for persons of
his turn of mind are so convinced that this life ought only to serve
as a passport to the other, that the dispositions in which we leave
the world are to them the only ones that are worthy of attention. But
we think of what we have lost, and we lament it. For myself, I have
no female friend left. My turn will soon come; it is reasonable to
expect it; but to hear a person of your age entertain such serious and
melancholy thoughts is rare indeed. Your understanding, madam, makes me
forget your youth; and this, added to the natural partiality I feel for
you, seems to authorize me to address you as I do.