_The_ Chevalier Danceny _to_ Madame de Rosemonde.
Madam,
You will perhaps think the step I now take very extraordinary; but
I beseech you to hear before you condemn me, and do not look for
either audacity or rashness, where there is nothing but respect and
confidence. I will not dissemble the injury I have done you; and during
my whole life I should never forgive myself, if I could for one moment
think it had been possible for me to avoid it; I also beg, Madam, you
will be persuaded, although I feel myself exempt from reproach, I am
not exempt from sorrow; and I can with the greatest sincerity add,
those I have caused you have a great share in those I feel. To believe
in those sentiments which I now presume to assure you of, it will be
enough you do yourself justice, and know, that without the honour of
being known to you, yet I have that of knowing you.
Still whilst I lament the fatality which has caused at once your grief
and my misfortune, I am taught to believe, that totally taken up with a
thirst for revenge, you sought means to satiate it even in the severity
of the laws.
Permit me first to observe on this subject, that here your grief
deceives you; for my interest in this circumstance is so intimately
linked with M. de Valmont’s, that his memory would be involved in
the same sentence you would have excited against me. I should then
reasonably suppose, Madam, I should rather expect assistance than
obstacles from you, in the endeavours I should be obliged to make, that
this unhappy event should remain buried in oblivion.
But this resource of complicity, which is equally favourable to the
innocent and guilty, is not sufficient to satisfy my delicacy; in
wishing to set you aside as a party, I call on you as my judge: the
esteem of those I respect is too dear, to suffer me to lose yours
without defending it, and I think I am furnished with the means.
For if you will only agree, that revenge is permitted, or rather, that
a man owes it to himself, when he is betrayed in his love, in his
friendship, and still more, in his confidence. If you agree to this,
the wrongs I have done will disappear: I do not ask you to believe what
I say; but read, if you have the resolution, the deposit I put into
your hands[1]; the number of original letters seem to authenticate
those, of which there is only copies. Moreover, I received those
letters, as I have the honour to transmit them to you, from M. de
Valmont himself. I have not added to them, nor have I taken any from
them but two letters, which I thought proper to publish.
The one was necessary to the mutual vengeance of M. de Valmont and
myself, to which we had an equal right, and of which he expressly gave
me a charge. I moreover thought, it would be doing an essential service
to society, to unmask a woman so really dangerous as Madame de Merteuil
is, and who, as you see, is the only, the true cause, of what happened
between M. de Valmont and me.
A sentiment of justice induced me to publish the second, for the
justification of M. de Prevan, whom I scarcely know; but who did not in
the least deserve the rigorous treatment he has met, nor the severity
of the public opinion, still more formidable, under which he has
languished so long, without being able to make any defence.
You will only find copies of those two letters, as I make it a point
to keep the originals. I do not think I can put into safer hands
a deposit, which, perhaps, I think of consequence to me not to be
destroyed, but which I should be ashamed to abuse. I think, confiding
those papers to you, Madam, I serve those who are interested, as
well as if I returned them to themselves, and I preserve them from
the embarrassment of receiving them from me, and of knowing I am no
stranger to events, which undoubtedly they wish all the world to be
unacquainted with.
I should, however, inform you, the annexed correspondence is only a
part of a much more voluminous collection from which M. de Valmont drew
it in my presence, and which you will find at the taking off the seals,
entitled as I saw, _An open account between the Marchioness de Merteuil
and Viscount de Valmont_. On this you will take what measures your
prudence will suggest. I am with great respect,
Madam, &c.
P. S. Some advices I have received, and the opinion of some friends,
have made me resolve to leave Paris for some time; but the place of my
retreat, which is secret to every one, must not be so to you. If you do
me the honour of an answer, I beg you will direct it to the commandery
of —— by P.—and under cover, to M. the Commander of ——. It is from
his house I have the honour to write to you.
_Paris, Dec._ 12, 17—.
[1] It is from this correspondence, from that given at the death of
M. de Tourvel, and the letters confided to M. Rosemonde, by Madame de
Volanges, that the present collection has been compiled; the originals
are still existing in the possession of Madame de Rosemonde’s heirs.