_The_ Chevalier Danceny _to_ Madame de Rosemonde.
You are very right, Madam; most certainly I will not refuse you any
thing that depends on me, and on which you are inclined to set a value.
The packet I have the honour to send you, contains all Mademoiselle de
Volanges’ letters. If you will take the trouble to read them, you will
be astonished to see so much candour united with such perfidiousness.
This is, at least, what has made the strongest impression on my mind,
at my last perusal of them.
But it is impossible to avoid being filled with the greatest
indignation against M. de Merteuil, when one recollects what horrible
pleasure and pains she took to destroy so much innocence and candour.
No, Madam, I am no longer in love. I have not the least spark of a
sentiment so unworthily betrayed; and it is not love that puts me
on means to justify Mademoiselle de Volanges. Still would not that
innocent heart, that soft and easy temper, be moulded to good more
readily than it was hurried to evil? What young person, just come out
of a convent, without experience, and almost divested of ideas, and
bringing with her into the world, as most always happens, an equal
share of ignorance of good and evil; what young person could have
resisted such culpable artifices more? In order to inspire us with some
indulgence, it is sufficient to reflect on how many circumstances,
independent of us, is the frightful alternative from delicacy, to the
depravity of sentiment. You, then, did me justice, Madam, in believing
me incapable of having any idea of revenge, for the injuries I received
from Mademoiselle de Volanges, and which, notwithstanding, I felt very
sensibly. The sacrifice is great, in being obliged to give over loving
her: but the attempt would be too great for me to hate her.
I had no need of reflection to wish every thing that concerns, or that
could be prejudicial to her, should ever be kept secret from the world.
If I have appeared something dilatory in fulfilling your wishes on this
occasion, I believe I may tell you my motive; I wished first to be
certain I should not be troubled on my late unhappy affair. At a time
when I was soliciting your indulgence, when I even dared to think I had
some right to it, I should have dreaded having the least appearance in
a manner of purchasing it by this condescension: certain of the purity
of my motives, I had, I own, the vanity to wish you could not have the
least doubt of them.
I hope you will pardon this delicacy, perhaps too susceptible, to the
veneration with which you have inspired me, and to the great value of
your esteem.
The same sentiment makes me request as a favour, you will be so
obliging to let me know if you think I have fulfilled all the
obligations the unhappy circumstances I was in required. Once satisfied
on this point, my resolution is taken; I set out for Malta: there I
shall with pleasure take and religiously keep vows which will separate
me from a world, with which, though young, I have so much reason to be
dissatisfied—I will endeavour in a foreign clime, to lose the idea of
so many accumulated horrors, whose remembrance can only bring sorrow
to my head.
I am with the greatest respect, Madam, &c.
_Paris, Dec._ 26, 17—.