_The_ Marchioness de Merteuil _to_ Madame de Volanges.
It was with some difficulty, my dear worthy friend, I could suppress
an impulse of pride on reading your letter. You honour me, then, with
your full confidence; you even condescend to ask my advice. I should
be completely happy if I merited this favourable opinion; or, that it
did not proceed from the prepossession of your friendship. Whatever
may be the motive, it is so flattering, that having obtained it, I
shall endeavour more ardently to deserve it. I shall then, but without
presuming to advise, tell you freely my thoughts. I own I am diffident
of them, as they differ from yours; yet, when you have my reasons, you
will then judge, and if they should not meet with your approbation,
I declare beforehand I submit. I shall, at least, be so prudent as
not to think myself wiser than you. However, for this once, if my
opinion should have the preference, you will find the cause in the
facility of maternal fondness. With you we must look for so laudable an
inclination, and readily recognize it in the measure you are inclined
to embrace. Thus if you sometimes err, it is always on the side of
virtue.
When we are to decide on the lot of others, but more especially, when
the question is to fix it by a sacred and indissoluble band, such
as marriage, prudence, I think, ought to take place of all other
considerations. It is then an equally wise and tender mother should, as
you well observe, _assist her daughter with her own experience._ I ask
then, how is she to attain it, but by making a distinction between what
is pleasing and what convenient.
Would it not be debasing maternal authority, nay even annihilating
it, to make it subservient to a frivolous inclination, whose illusive
power is felt only by those that dread it, and immediately vanishes
when contemptuously treated? For my part, I must own I never believed
in those irresistible, impetuous passions, which one would imagine the
world has adopted, as an universal excuse for their irregularities.
I cannot conceive how a passion, that one moment creates, and the
next destroys, can overpower the unalterable principles of chastity,
decency and modesty; nor how a woman, that has relinquished them,
can be justified by a pretended passion, no more than a robber for a
thirst for money, or a murderer for a desire of revenge. Where is the
person who has not had their struggles? I have been always persuaded,
inclination was sufficient for resistance, and experience has confirmed
my opinion. Of what estimation would virtue be, without the obligations
it imposes? Its worship are our sacrifices, its reward in our hearts.
Those incontestable truths can be denied only by those whose interest
it is to forget them; and who being already contaminated, hope to carry
on the illusion, and justify their bad conduct by worse reasoning.
But is this to be apprehended from an innocent timid child; from a
child of yours, whose pure and modest education is strengthened by
a happy disposition? Still it is to this apprehension, which I will
venture to call very humiliating for your daughter, you would give
up an advantageous match your prudence had provided. I have a great
friendship for Danceny; and you know for some time past I have seldom
seen M. de Gercourt: but my friendship for the one, nor my indifference
for the other, can prevent me from observing the immense difference
between the two matches.
As to birth, I agree with you, they are on an equality: but the one is
deficient in fortune, and the other’s is such as, exclusive of blood,
is sufficient to raise him to the highest employments. I acknowledge,
happiness may be independent of fortune; but we must also own it a very
necessary ingredient. You say, Mademoiselle de Volanges is rich enough
for both; yet sixty thousand livres per annum, which she is to possess,
will not be too much for one who bears the name of Danceny, to furnish
and keep up a house suitable to it. These are not Madame de Sévigné’s
days. Luxury absorbs every thing; we blame, yet imitate it; and our
superfluities end in depriving us of necessaries. As to personal
accomplishments, which you with great reason dwell much on, certainly
on that point M. de Gercourt is irreproachable, which he has already
proved. I am fond of thinking, and really believe Danceny is not his
inferior; but are we so certain of it? It is true, hitherto he appears
untainted with the follies of the age, and notwithstanding the ton of
the day, he shows a taste for good company, which inclines one to judge
favourably of him. Yet who knows whether this apparent discretion is
not the result of the mediocrity of his income? To be a gamester or
a libertine, money must be had; or if there should be a tincture of
knavery or epicurism, one may be fond of the defects, and still dread
their excess. There are thousands who are admitted into good company
because they have no other employment.
I do not say, God forbid I should! that I believe such things of him:
yet there is some danger; and if the event should not answer your
expectations, how you would reproach yourself! What reply could you
make to your daughter, who would probably say, “Mother, I was young
and unexperienced; I was even led astray by an error excusable at
my age: Providence, which had foreseen my incapacity, had given me
a prudent mother to preserve me. How is it then, that laying your
discretion aside, you have consented to make me unhappy? Was I to
choose a husband, I who knew nothing of a married state? If even I
was determined on it, should you not have opposed it? But I never
was possessed with that foolish self will. Determined to obey you,
I waited with respectful veneration your choice. Did I ever swerve
from my submission? Yet now I suffer the afflictions due to rebellious
children only. Your weakness has been my ruin.” Perhaps her respect
might stifle those complaints: but your maternal love would discover
them; and your daughter’s tears, though concealed, would still
overwhelm your heart.
Where then will you seek consolation? Will it be in this ridiculous
passion, against which you should have guarded her, by which you even
suffer yourself to be seduced?
Perhaps I may, my dear friend, conceive too strong a prejudice against
this attachment: I view it in a formidable light, even in case of a
marriage. Not that I disapprove a decent and pure intention should
embellish the matrimonial bands, to soften in some measure the
obligations it requires: but he is not the man appointed to tie them;
it is not an illusory moment that ought to regulate our choice for
life: for to choose well, we ought to compare; how then is it possible,
when our imaginations are engrossed by a sole object; when that object
cannot even be investigated, as we are plunged in intoxication and
blindness? I have often, I assure you, fallen in with women attacked by
this dangerous disorder; some of them I have been in confidence with:
hear them speak, their lovers were in every degree all perfection;
but those perfections were confined to their imaginations only. Their
exalted ideas dress at pleasure those they prefer; they dream of
nothing but excellence and virtue; it is the drapery of an angel often
worn by an abject model: be him as he may, they have no sooner adorned
him, than, dupes to their own labour, they fall down and adore him.
Your daughter, then, does not love Danceny, or, she is fascinated by
this same illusion; and if they mutually love, they both experience the
same. Thus your reason for uniting them is reduced to a certainty that
they do not know each other, but also, that they never can know each
other. I think I hear you say, “Can M. de Gercourt and my daughter know
each other better?” No, certainly; but at least they do not mistake
themselves; they are not sufficiently acquainted together. What then
happens between a couple that I suppose decent? Why they study to
please, observe, seek, and find out soon what inclinations or desires
they must relinquish, for their mutual tranquillity. Those small self
denials give but little uneasiness, as they are foreseen, and are
reciprocal; they are soon converted into mutual good will; and custom,
which ever strengthens all inclinations it does not destroy, gradually
leads to that sincere friendship, that tender confidence, which, when
united with esteem, forms, I think, the true solid happiness of the
married state.
The illusions of love, I will allow, are more engaging; but don’t we
well know they are not so lasting? And what dangers does not their
destruction bring on! Then the most trivial faults become shocking
and intolerable, being contrasted with the ideas of perfection which
had seduced us. Each then thinks the other is only altered, and they
themselves of as much worth as in the first instant the error took its
rise. They are astonished they can no longer create the charm they
experienced; they are humbled; vanity is hurt, the mind is soured,
injuries augmented, which bring on peevishness, and is succeeded by
hatred; thus frivolous pleasures are repaid by long misfortunes.
I have now given you, my dear friend, my thoughts on this subject. I
do not insist on them, only lay them before you:—you are to decide.
Should you persist in your opinion, I shall only beg to know the
reasons that combat mine. I shall be happy to be set right by you, and,
above all, to be made easy on the fate of that lovely child, whose
happiness I so ardently wish, not only for my particular friendship for
her, but also for that which unites me to you for ever.
_Paris, Oct._ 4, 17—.