_The_ Marchioness de Merteuil _to the_ Viscount Valmont, _at the_
_Castle of ——._
Return, my dear Viscount, return! How can you think of idling your days
with an old aunt, whose fortune is already settled on you! Set out the
moment you receive this letter, for I want you much. A most enchanting
idea has just struck me, and I wish to confide the execution of it to
you.
This hint should be sufficient, and you should think yourself so highly
honoured by my choice, as to fly to receive my orders on your knees:
but my favours are thrown away on one who no longer sets a value on
them; and you presume upon my kindness, where the alternative must
be eternal hatred, or excessive indulgence. I will acquaint you with
my scheme; but you, like a true knight errant, must first swear to
undertake no other adventure until this is achieved. It is worthy
a hero. You will at once satiate love and revenge. It will be an
additional exploit to your memoirs; yes, your memoirs, for I will have
them published, and I will undertake the task. But to return to what
more immediately concerns us. Madame de Volanges intends to marry her
daughter: it is yet a secret; but she yesterday informed me of it. And
whom do you think she has chosen for her son-in-law? Count Gercourt.
Who could have thought I should have been allied to Gercourt? I am
provoked beyond expression at your stupidity! Well, don’t you guess
yet? Oh, thou essence of dulness! What, have you then pardoned him the
affair of Madame the Intendante? And I, monster![1] have I not more
reason for revenge? But I shall resume my temper; the prospect of
retaliation, recalls my serenity.
You and I have been often tormented with the important idea framed
by Gercourt, of the lady he intended honour with his hand, and his
ridiculous presumption of being exempt from the unavoidable fate
of married men. You know his foolish prepossessions in favour of
conventual education, and his still more weak prejudices for women of a
fair complexion: and I really believe, notwithstanding Volanges’ sixty
thousand livres a year, he never would have thought of this girl, had
she not been black eyed, or not educated in a convent.
Let us convince him, he is a most egregious fool, as one day or other
he must be: but that’s not the business; the jest will be, should he
act upon so absurd an opinion. How we should be diverted the next day
with his boasts! for boast he will: and if once you properly form
this little girl, it will be astonishing if Gercourt does not become,
like so many others, the standing ridicule of Paris. The heroine of
this new romance merits all your attention; she is really handsome,
just turn’d of fifteen, and a perfect rose-bud; awkward as you could
wish, and totally unpolished: but you men don’t mind such trifles;
a certain languishing air, which promises a great deal, added to
my recommendation of her, leaves only to you to thank me and obey.
You will receive this letter to-morrow morning: I require to see
you at seven in the evening. I shall not be visible to any one else
till eight, not even to my chevalier, who happens to be my reigning
favourite for the present; he has not a head for such great affairs.
You see I am not blinded by love. I shall set you at liberty at eight,
and you’ll return to sup with the charming girl at ten, for the mother
and daughter sup with me. Farewell! it is past noon. Now for other
objects.
_Paris, Aug._ 4, 17—.
[1] To understand this passage, it must be remarked, that the Count de
Gercourt had quitted the Marchioness de Merteuil for the Intendante de
——, who had on his account abandoned the Viscount de Valmont, and
that then the attachment of the Marchioness to the Viscount commenced.
As that adventure was long antecedent to the events which are the
subject of these letters, it has been thought better to suppress the
whole of that correspondence.