a faint hope that Valmont’s silence may be broken, that yours shall be
changed to inquietude. Ten leagues alone divide us, and that distance,
so easy to traverse, becomes to me alone an insurmountable obstacle!
And when I implore my friend, my mistress, to help me to overcome it,
both remain cold and unmoved! Far from aiding me, they do not even
reply.
What has become then of the active friendship of Valmont? What, above
all, has become of your tender sentiments, which made you so ingenious
in discovering the means of our daily meetings? Sometimes, I remember,
without ceasing to desire them, I found myself compelled to forego them
for considerations, duties; what did you not say to me then? With how
many pretexts did you not combat my reasons? And let me remind you,
my Cécile, my reasons always gave way to your wishes. I do not make a
merit of it; it has not even that of sacrifice. What you desired to
obtain I was burning to bestow. But now I ask in my turn; and what is
the request? To see you for a moment, to renew to you and to receive
a vow of eternal love. Does that no longer make your happiness as it
makes mine? I thrust aside that despairing idea, which would set the
crown upon my ills. You love me, you will always love me, I believe it,
I am sure of it, I will never doubt it: but my situation is frightful,
and I can not endure it much longer. Adieu, Cécile.
Paris, 18th September, 17**.
LETTER THE EIGHTY-FIRST
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
HOW your fears excite my pity! How they prove to me my superiority over
you! And you want to teach me, to be my guide? Ah, my poor Valmont,
what a distance there is between you and me! No, all the pride of your
sex would not suffice to bridge over the gulf which separates us.
Because you could not execute my projects, you judge them impossible!
Proud and weak being, it well becomes you to seek to weigh my means and
judge of my resources! In truth, Vicomte, your counsels have put me in
an ill-humour, and I will not conceal it from you.
That, to mask your incredible stupidity with your Présidente, you
should blazon out to me, as a triumph, the fact of your having for a
moment put out of countenance this woman who is timid and who loves
you: I agree to that; of having obtained a look, a single look: I
smile, and grant it you. That, feeling, in spite of yourself, the poor
value of your conduct, you should hope to distract my attention from
it by gratifying me with the story of your sublime effort to bring
together two children who are both burning to see one another, and who,
I may mention by the way, owe to me alone the ardour of their desire:
I grant you that also. That, finally, you should feel authorized by
these brilliant achievements to write to me, in doctorial tones, _that
it is better to employ one’s time in carrying out one’s projects than
in describing them_: such vanity does me no harm and I forgive it. But
that you could believe that I had need of your prudence, that I should
lose my way unless I deferred to your advice, that I ought to sacrifice
a pleasure or a whim: in truth, Vicomte, that is indeed to plume
yourself over much on the confidence which I am quite willing to place
in you!
And, pray, what have you done that I have not surpassed a thousand
times? You have seduced, ruined even, very many women: but what
difficulties have you had to overcome? What obstacles to surmount?
What merit lies therein that is really your own? A handsome face, the
pure result of chance; graces, which habit almost always brings; wit,
in truth: but jargon would supply its place at need; a praiseworthy
impudence, perhaps due solely to the ease of your first successes; if
I am not mistaken, these are your means, for, as for the celebrity
you have succeeded in acquiring, you will not ask me, I suppose, to
count for much the art of giving birth to a scandal or seizing the
opportunity of one.
As for prudence, _finesse_, I do not speak of myself: but where is the
woman who has not more than you? Why, your Présidente leads you like a
child!
Believe me, Vicomte, it is rarely one acquires qualities which cannot
be dispensed with. Fighting without risk, you are bound to act without
precaution. For you men, a defeat is but one success the less. In so
unequal a match, we are fortunate if we do not lose, as it is your
misfortune if you do not win. Even were I to grant you as many talents
as ourselves, by how many should we not still need to surpass you, from
the necessity we are under to make a perpetual use of them!
Supposing, I admit, that you brought as much skill to the task of
conquering us as we show in defending ourselves or in yielding, you
will at least agree that it becomes useless to you after your success.
Absorbed solely in your new fancy, you abandon yourself to it without
fear, without reserve: it is not to you that its duration is important.
In fact, those bonds reciprocally given and received, to talk love’s
jargon, you alone can tighten or break at your will: we are even lucky
if, in your wantonness, preferring mystery to noise, you are satisfied
with an humiliating desertion, without making the idol of yesterday the
victim of to-morrow.
But when an unfortunate woman has once felt the weight of her chain,
what risks she has to run, if she but endeavours to shake it off! It is
only with trembling that she can attempt to dismiss from her the man
whom her heart repulses with violence. Does he insist on remaining, she
must yield to fear what she had granted to love:
“_Ses bras s’ouvrent encor quand son cœur est ferme._”
Her prudence must skilfully unravel those same bonds which you would
have broken. At the mercy of her enemy, if he be without generosity,
she is without resources: and how can she hope generosity from him
when, although he is sometimes praised for having it, he is never
blamed for lacking it?
Doubtless, you will not deny these truths, which are so evident as
to have become trivial. If, however, you have seen me, disposing of
opinions and events, making these formidable men the toys of my fantasy
and my caprice, depriving some of the power, some of the will to hurt
me; if I have known, turn by turn, according to my fickle fancy, how to
attach to my service or drive far away from me
“_Ces tyrans détrônés devenus mes esclaves;_”[27]
if in the midst of these frequent revolutions my reputation has still
remained pure; ought you not to have concluded that, being born to
avenge my sex and to dominate yours, I had devised methods previously
unknown?
Oh! keep your advice and your fears for those delirious women who
call themselves _sentimental_; whose exalted imagination would make
one believe that nature has placed their senses in their heads; who,
having never reflected, persist in confounding love with the lover;
who, in their mad illusion, believe that he with whom they have pursued
pleasure is its sole depository; and, truly superstitious, show the
priest the respect and faith which is only due to the divinity. Be
still more afraid for those who, their vanity being larger than their
prudence, do not know, at need, how to consent to being abandoned.
Tremble, above all, for those women, active in their indolence, whom
you call _women of sensibility_, and over whom love takes hold so
easily and with such power; who feel the need of being occupied with
it, even when they are not enjoying it; and, giving themselves up
unreservedly to the fermentation of their ideas, bring forth from them
those letters so sweet, but so dangerous to write, and are not afraid
to confide these proofs of their weakness to the object which causes
it: imprudent ones, who do not know how to discern in their present
lover their enemy to be.
But what have I in common with these unreflecting women? When have you
ever seen me depart from the rules I have laid down, or be false to
my principles? I say my principles, and I say so designedly; for they
are not, like those of other women, the result of chance, received
without scrutiny, and followed out of habit; they are the fruit of my
profound reflexions; I have created them, and I may say that I am my
own handiwork.
Entering the world at a time when, still a girl, I was compelled by my
condition to be silent and inert, I knew how to profit by observing
and reflecting. Whilst I was thought heedless or inattentive, and, in
truth, listened little to the remarks that they were careful to make to
me, I carefully gathered up those which they sought to hide from me.
This useful curiosity, while serving to instruct me, also taught me
dissimulation; often forced to conceal the objects of my attention from
the eyes of those who surrounded me, I sought to direct my own whither
I desired; I learned then how to assume at will that remote look which
you have so often praised. Encouraged by this first success, I tried
to govern equally the different movements of my face. Did I experience
some vexation, I studied to assume an air of serenity, even of joy;
I have carried my zeal so far as to inflict voluntary pain on myself,
in order to seek, at that time, an expression of pleasure. I laboured,
with the same care and greater difficulty, to repress the symptoms
of unexpected joy. It was thus that I gained that command over my
physiognomy at which I have sometimes seen you so astonished.
I was very young still, and almost without interest: my thoughts were
all that I had, and I was indignant that these should be stolen from
me or surprised against my will. Armed with these first weapons, I
amused myself by showing myself under different forms. Sure of my
gestures, I kept a watch upon my speech; I regulated both according to
circumstances, or even merely according to my whim; from that moment
the colour of my thought was my secret, and I never revealed more of it
than it was useful for me to show.
This labour spent upon myself had fixed my attention on the expression
of faces and the character of physiognomy; and I thus gained that
penetrating glance to which experience, indeed, has taught me not to
trust entirely, but which, on the whole, has rarely deceived me. I was
not fifteen years old, I possessed already the talents to which the
greater part of our politicians owe their reputation, and I was as yet
only at the rudiments of the science which I wished to acquire. You may
well imagine that, like all young girls, I sought to find out about
love and its pleasures; but having never been to the convent, having
no confidential friend, and being watched by a vigilant mother, I had
only vague notions, which I could not fix; even nature, which later, I
had, assuredly, no reason to do aught but praise, as yet afforded me
no hint. One might have said that it was working in silence at the
perfection of its handiwork. My head alone was in a ferment; I did
not desire enjoyment, I wanted to know: the desire for information
suggested to me the means.
I felt that the only man with whom I could speak on this matter without
compromising myself was my confessor. I took my course at once; I
surmounted my slight feeling of shame; and vaunting myself for a sin
which I had not committed, I accused myself of having done _all that
women do_. That was my expression; but, in speaking so, I did not
know, in truth, what idea I was expressing. My hope was not altogether
deceived, nor entirely fulfilled; the fear of betraying myself
prevented me from enlightening myself: but the good father represented
the ill as so great that I concluded the pleasure to be extreme; and to
the desire of knowing it the desire of tasting it succeeded.
I do not know whither this desire would have led me; and, devoid of
experience as I was at that time, perhaps a single opportunity would
have ruined me: luckily for me, my mother informed me, a few days
later, that I was to be married; the certainty of knowing extinguished
my curiosity at once, and I came a virgin to the arms of M. de Merteuil.
I waited with calmness for the moment which was to enlighten me, and
I had need of reflexion, in order to exhibit embarrassment and fear.
The first night, of which ordinarily one entertains an idea so painful
or so sweet, presented itself to me only as an occasion of experience:
pain and pleasure, I observed all carefully, and saw in these different
sensations only facts upon which to reflect and meditate. This form of
study soon succeeded in pleasing me: but, faithful to my principles,
and feeling by instinct perhaps that no one ought to be further from
my confidence than my husband, I resolved to appear the more impassive
in his eyes, the more sensible I really was. This apparent coldness
was subsequently the impregnable foundation of his blind confidence;
as a second reflexion, I joined to it the mischievous air which my age
justified; and he never thought me more of a child than when I was
tricking him most.
Meanwhile, I will admit, I, at first, let myself be dragged into
the vortex of society, and gave myself up completely to its futile
distractions. But, after some months, M. de Merteuil having taken me
to his dismal country estate, the dread of _ennui_ revived the taste
for study in me: and as I found myself there surrounded by people whose
distance from me put me out of the reach of all suspicion, I profited
by it to give a vaster field to my experience. It was there especially
that I assured myself that love, which they vaunt to us as the cause of
our pleasures, is, at the most, only the pretext for them.
The illness of M. de Merteuil came to interrupt these sweet
occupations; it was necessary to follow him to Town, where he went to
seek for aid. He died, as you know, shortly afterwards; and although,
considering all things, I had no complaint to make against him, I had,
none the less, a lively feeling of the value of the liberty which my
widowhood would give me, and I promised myself to take advantage of
it. My mother calculated on my entering a convent, or returning to
live with her. I refused to take either course, and all I granted to
decency, was to go back to the same country estate, where there were
still some observations left for me to make.
I supplemented these with the help of reading: but do not imagine it
was all of the kind you suppose. I studied our manners in novels, our
opinions in the philosophers; I even went to the most severe moralists
to see what they expected from us; and I thus made sure of what one
could do, of what one ought to think, and of how one must appear. My
mind once settled upon these three matters, the last alone presented
any difficulties in its execution; I hoped to overcome them, and I
meditated on the means.
I began to grow tired of my rustic pleasures, which were not varied
enough for my active brain; I felt the need of coquetry, which should
reunite me to love, not in order that I might really feel it, but to
feign and inspire it. In vain had I been told, and had I read, that
one could not feign this sentiment; I saw that, to succeed there,
it sufficed to join the talent of a comedian to an author’s wit. I
exercised myself in both kinds, and, perhaps, with some success: but,
instead of seeking the vain applause of the theatre, I resolved to
employ for my happiness that which so many others sacrificed to vanity.
A year passed in these different occupations. My mourning then allowing
me to reappear, I returned to Town with my great projects; I was not
prepared for the first obstacle which I encountered.
My long solitude and austere retreat had covered me with a veneer
of prudery which frightened our _beaux_; they kept their distance,
and left me at the mercy of a crowd of tedious fellows, who all were
aspirants for my hand. The embarrassment did not lie in refusing
them; but many of these refusals displeased my family, and in these
internal disputes I lost the time of which I had promised myself to
make such charming use. I was obliged, then, in order to recall some
and drive away the others, to display certain inconsistencies, and to
take as much pains in damaging my reputation as I had thought to take
in preserving it. I succeeded easily, as you may believe: but, being
carried away by no passion, I only did what I thought necessary, and
measured out my doses of indiscretion with caution.
As soon as I had touched the goal which I would attain, I retraced my
steps, and gave the honour of my amendment to some of those women who,
being impotent as far as any pretensions to charm are concerned, fall
back on those of merit and virtue. This was a move which was of more
value to me than I had hoped. These grateful duennas set themselves up
as my apologists; and their blind zeal for what they called their work
was carried to such an extent that, at the least reflexion which might
be made on me, the whole party of prudes cried scandal and outrage.
The same method procured me also the suffrages of the women with
pretensions, who, being persuaded that I had renounced the thought of
following the same career as theirs, selected me as a subject for their
praise, each time they wished to prove that they did not speak ill of
all the world.
Meanwhile, my previous conduct had brought back the lovers; and to
compromise between them and the unfaithful women who had become my
patronesses, I passed as a woman of sensibility, but rigour, whom the
excess of her delicacy furnished with arms against love.
I then began to display upon the great stage the talents which had
been given me. My first care was to acquire the reputation of being
invincible. To attain it, the men who did not please me were always the
only ones whose homage I had the air of accepting. I employed them
usefully to obtain for me the honours of resistance, whilst to the
preferred lover I abandoned myself without fear. But the latter, my
pretended shyness never permitted to follow me in the world; and the
gaze of society has thus been always fixed on the unhappy lover.
You know with what rapidity I choose: it is because I have observed
that it is nearly always the previous attentions which disclose a
woman’s secret. Whatever one may say, the tone is never the same before
and after success. This difference does not escape the attentive
observer; and I have found it less dangerous to be deceived in my
choice than to let that choice be penetrated. I gain here again by
removing probabilities, by which alone we can be judged.
These precautions and that of never writing, of never giving any proof
of my defeat, might appear excessive, and to me have ever appeared
insufficient. I have looked into my own heart, I have studied in it the
heart of others. I saw there that there is nobody who does not keep a
secret there which it is of importance to him should not be divulged:
a truth which antiquity seems to have known better than we, and of
which the history of Samson might be no more than an ingenious symbol.
Like a new Delilah, I have always employed my power in surprising
this important secret. Ah, of how many of our modern Samsons have not
the locks fallen beneath my shears? And these, I have ceased to fear
them; they are the only ones whom I have sometimes permitted myself
to humiliate. More supple with the others, the art of rendering them
unfaithful lest I should appear to them fickle, a feint of friendship,
an appearance of confidence, a few generous measures, the flattering
notion, which each one retains, of having been my only lover, have
secured me their discretion. Finally, when these methods failed me,
foreseeing the rupture, I knew how to crush in advance, beneath
ridicule or calumny, the credence which these dangerous men could have
obtained.
All this which I tell you you have seen me practise unceasingly; and
you doubt of my prudence! Ah, indeed! recall to mind the time when
you paid me your first attentions: no homage was ever more flattering
to me; I desired you before I had ever seen you. Seduced by your
reputation, it seemed to me that you were wanting to my glory; I burned
with a desire for a hand-to-hand combat with you. It is the only one of
my fancies which ever had a moment’s empire over me. However, if you
had wished to destroy me, what means would you have found? Empty talk
which leaves no trace behind it, which your very reputation would have
helped to render suspect, and a tissue of improbable facts, the sincere
relation of which would have had the air of a badly conceived novel. It
is true, since that time, I have handed you over all my secrets: but
you know what interests unite us, and that, if it be one of us, it is
not I who can be taxed with imprudence.[28]
Since I have started off to render account to you, I will do it
precisely. I hear you tell me now that I am at any rate at the mercy
of my chamber-maid; in fact, if she is not in the secret of my
sentiments, she is of my actions. When you spoke of it to me once
before, I answered that I was sure of her; and my proof that this
reply was sufficient then for your tranquillity is that you have since
confided to her mighty dangerous secrets of your own. But, now that you
have taken umbrage at Prévan, and that your head is turned, I doubt
whether you will believe me any more on my word. I must therefore edify
you.
In the first place, the girl is my foster-sister, and this bond, which
does not seem one to us, is not without force amongst people of her
condition: in addition, I have her secret and better still, the victim
of a love madness, she was ruined, if I had not saved her. Her parents,
bristling with honour, would be satisfied by nothing less than her
imprisonment. They applied to me. I saw at a glance how useful their
anger might be made to me. I seconded them and solicited the order,
which I obtained. Then, suddenly turning to the side of clemency, to
which I persuaded her parents, and profiting by my influence with the
old minister, I made them all consent to make me the depositary of
this order, free to stay it or demand its execution, according to the
judgment I should form of the girl’s future conduct. She knows, then,
that I have her lot within my hands; and if, to assume the impossible,
these potent reasons should not prevent her, is it not evident that
the revelation of her conduct and her authentic punishment would soon
deprive her language of all credit?
To these precautions, which I call fundamental, are joined a thousand
others, local or occasional, which habit and reflexion allow me to
find at need; of which the details would be tedious, although their
practice is important; and which you must take the trouble to pick out
from the general view of my conduct, if you would succeed in knowing
them.
But to pretend that I have been at so much pains, and am not to cull
the fruit of them; that, after having raised myself, by my arduous
labours, so high above other women, I am to consent to grope along,
like them, betwixt imprudence and timidity; that, above all, I should
fear any man to such an extent as to see no other salvation than in
flight? No, Vicomte, never! I must conquer or perish. As for Prévan, I
wish to have him, and I shall have him; he wishes to tell of it, and he
shall not tell of it: that, in two words, is our little romance. Adieu.
Paris, 20th September, 17**.
LETTER THE EIGHTY-SECOND
CÉCILE VOLANGES TO THE CHEVALIER DANCENY
AH, God, what pain your letter gave me! I need well have felt such
impatience to receive it! I hoped to find in it consolation, and here
am I more afflicted than I was ere I received it. I shed many tears
when I read it: it is not that with which I reproach you; I have
already wept many times because of you, without its being painful to
me. But this time, it is not the same thing.
What is it that you wish to say, pray? that your love is grown a
torment to you, that you cannot longer live thus, nor any more support
your situation? Do you mean that you are going to cease to love me,
because it is not so agreeable as it used to be? It seems to me that
I am no happier than you are, quite the contrary; and yet I only love
you the more for that. If M. de Valmont has not written to you, it is
not my fault; I could not beg him to, because I have not been alone
with him, and we have agreed that we would never speak before people:
and that again is for your sake, so that he can the better do what you
desire. I do not say that I do not desire it also, and you ought to be
assured of this: but what would you have me do? If you believe it to be
so easy, please find the means, I ask nothing better.