IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES;
Hotel de la Prefecture, Grenoble (Isère).
PONT DE L'ARCHE, June 18th 18--.
I have only time to send you a line with the box of ribbons The trunk
will go to-morrow by the stage. I would have sent it before, but the
children's boots were not done. It is impossible to get anything done
now--the storekeepers say they can't get workmen, the workmen say they
can't get employment. Blanchard will be in Paris to superintend its
packing. If you are not pleased with your things, especially the blue
dress and mauve bonnet, I despair of ever satisfying you. I did not take
your sashes to Mlle. _Vatelin_. It was Prince de Monbert's fault; in
passing along the Boulevards I saw him talking to a gentleman--I turned
into Panorama street--he followed me, and to elude him I went into the
Chinese store. M. de Monbert remained outside; I bought some tea, and
telling the woman I would send for it, went out by the opposite door
which opens on Vivienne street. The Prince, who has been away from Paris
for ten years, was not aware of this store having two exits, so in this
way I escaped him. This hateful prince is also the cause of my returning
here. The day after that wretched evening at the Odeon, I went to
inquire about my cousin. There I found that Madame de Langeac had left
Fontainebleau and gone to Madame de H.'s, where they are having private
theatricals. She returns to Paris in ten days, where she begs me to wait
for her. I also heard that M. de Monbert had had quite a scene with the
porter on the same morning--insisting that he had seen me, and that he
would not be put off by lying servants any longer; his language and
manner quite shocked the household. The prospect of a visit from him
filled me with fright. I returned to my garret--Madame Taverneau was
anxiously waiting for my return, and carried me off without giving me
anytime for reflection; so I am here once more. Perhaps you think that
in this rural seclusion, under the shade of these willows, I ought to
find tranquillity? Just the reverse. A new danger threatens me; I escape
from a furious prince, to be ensnared by a delirious poet. I went away
leaving M. de Meilhan gracious, gallant, but reasonable; I return to
find him presuming, passionate, foolish. It makes me think that absence
increases my attractiveness, and separation clothes me with new charms.
This devotion is annoying, and I am determined to nip it in the bud; it
fills me with a horrible dread that in no way resembles the charming
fear I have dreamed of. The young poet takes a serious view of the
flattery I bestowed upon him only in order to discover what his friend
had written about me; he has persuaded himself that I love him, and I
despair of being able to dispel the foolish notion.
I have uselessly assumed the furious air of an angry Minerva, the
majestic deportment of the Queen of England opening Parliament, the
prudish, affected behavior of a school-mistress on promenade; all this
only incites his hopes. If it were love it might be seductive and
dangerous, but it is nothing more than magnetism.... You may laugh, but
it is surely this and nothing else; he acts as if he were under some
spell of fascination; he looks at me in a malevolent way that he thinks
irresistible.... But I find it unendurable. I shall end by frankly
telling him that in point of magnetism I am no longer free ... "that I
love another," as the vaudeville says, and if he asks who is this other,
I shall smilingly tell him, "it is the famous disciple of Mesmer, Dr.
Dupotet."
Yesterday his foolish behavior was very near causing my death. Alarmed
by an embarrassing tête-à-tête in the midst of an old castle we were
visiting, I mounted the window-sill in one of the towers to call Madame
Taverneau, whom I saw at the foot of the hill; the stone on which I
stood gave way, and if M. de Meilhan had not shown great presence of
mind and caught me, I would have fallen down a precipice forty feet
deep! Instant death would have been the result. Oh! how frightened I
was! I tremble yet. My terror was so great that I would have fainted if
I had had a little more confidence; but another fear made me recover
from this. Fortunately I am going away from here, and this trifling will
be over.
Yes, certainly I will accompany you to Geneva. Why can't we go as far as
Lake Como? What a charming trip to take, and what comfort we will enjoy
in my nice carriage! You must know that my travelling-carriage is a
wonder; it is being entirely renovated, and directly it is finished, I
will jump in it and fly to your arms. Of course you will ask what I am
to do with a travelling-carriage--I who have never made but one journey
in my life, and that from the Marais to the Faubourg Saint Honoré? I
will reply, that I bought this carriage because I had the opportunity;
it is a chef-d'oeuvre. There never was a handsomer carriage made in
London. It was invented--and you will soon see what a splendid invention
it is--for an immensely rich English lady who is always travelling, and
who is greatly distressed at having to sell it, but she believes herself
pursued by an audacious young lover whom she wishes to get rid of, and
as he has always recognised her by her carriage, she parts with it in
order to put him off her track. She is an odd sort of woman whom they
call Lady Penock; she resembles Levassor in his English rôles; that is
to say, she is a caricature. Levassor would not dare to be so
ridiculous.
Good-bye, until I see you. When I think that in one month we shall be
together again, I forget all my sorrows.