UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 BROWSING ROOM
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 tie
 
 e tie JSaljac 
 
 PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 VOLUME II
 
 LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 
 
 NO. 
 
 713
 
 LOUISE AND FELIPE 
 
 He led me out on the balcony of the palace 
 "where we are and from which we can see a 
 part of Rome, there his language was worthy of 
 the scene which offered itself to our eyes; for 
 there was a superb moonlight. As we already 
 speak Italian, his love, expressed in this language 
 so soft and so suitable for passion, appeared to 
 me sublime. He said to me that, * * *
 
 THE NOVELS 
 
 OF 
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC 
 
 NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG WIVES 
 
 BY WILLIAM WALTON 
 
 WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY ADRIEN NARGEOT AND 
 CHARLES-HENRI TOUSSAINT, AFTER DRAW- 
 INGS BY ADRIEN MOREAU 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME 
 
 
 * -* 1 
 
 
 
 ; >'' 
 
 'J -\ 
 
 PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY 
 
 GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1896, BY G. B. 4 SON
 
 MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG WIVES 
 
 189937
 
 TO GEORGE S/tND 
 
 This, dear George, will add nothing to the splen- 
 dor of your name, which on the contrary will throw 
 its magic reflection over this book ; but there is in 
 this, on my part, neither calculation nor modesty. 
 I wish thus to bear witness to the true friendship 
 which has continued between us during our travels 
 and our separations, notwithstanding all our occu- 
 pations and the wickedness of the world. This 
 sentiment will doubtless never change. The com- 
 pany of friendly names which will accompany my 
 compositions serves to mingle a pleasure with the 
 pains which their number causes me, for they are 
 not produced without trouble, to speak only of the 
 reproaches drawn upon me by my menacing fecund- 
 ity, as if the world which presented itself before 
 me were not still more fecund. Will it not be fine, 
 George, if some day the antiquary of perished liter- 
 atures should find in this company only great names, 
 noble hearts, saintly and pure friendships, and the 
 glories of this century? Can I not show myself 
 more proud of this certain happiness than of an 
 always doubtful success ? For him whom you know 
 well, is it not a happiness to be able to call himself, 
 as I do here, 
 
 Your friend 
 
 DE BALZAC 
 
 Paris, June, 1840. 
 
 (3)
 
 MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG WIVES 
 
 I 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE 
 
 Paris, September. 
 
 My dear Iamb, I am abroad also, I am ! And, if 
 you have not written to me at Blois, I am also the 
 first at our pretty rendezvous of correspondence. 
 Do not let your fine black eyes rest too long on my 
 first phrase, and keep your exclamations for the 
 letter in which I confide to you my first love. One 
 is always hearing of the first love; there is then a 
 second? "Silence!" you will say to me; "tell me 
 rather," you will ask me, "how you came out of 
 the convent in which you were to take your vows?" 
 My dear, whatever may happen to the Carmelites, 
 the miracle of my deliverance is the most natural 
 thing. The cries of a terrified conscience ended by 
 overcoming the orders of an inflexible policy, that 
 was all. My aunt, who did not wish to see me die 
 of consumption, vanquished my mother, who con- 
 stantly prescribed the novitiate as the sole remedy 
 for my illness. The black melancholy into which 
 I fell after your departure hastened this happy 
 
 (5)
 
 6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 denouement And I am in Paris, my angel, and I 
 thus owe to you the happiness of being there. My 
 Renee, if you could have seen me, the day on which 
 I found myself without you, you would have been 
 proud of having inspired such deep feeling in so 
 young a heart We had dreamed so much together, 
 unfolded our wings so many times and lived so much 
 in common, that I thought our souls were soldered 
 together, one to the other, like those two Hungarian 
 girls whose death was related to us by Monsieur 
 Beauvisage, who certainly was not the man of his 
 name : never was the physician of a convent better 
 chosen. Were you not ill at the same time as your 
 darling? In the dull depression in which I was, I 
 could only recognize one by one the bonds which 
 unite us; I believed them broken by separation, I 
 was filled with disgust for existence like a turtle- 
 dove who has lost its mate, I found it pleasant to 
 die, and I was dying quite pleasantly. To be alone 
 in the Carmelites, at Blois, in the fear of taking my 
 vows without the preface of Mademoiselle de la 
 Valliere and without my Renee! why, it was an 
 illness, a mortal illness! This monotonous life in 
 which each hour brings a duty, a prayer, a task so 
 exactly like all the others that in any locality one 
 can always tell what a Carmelite is doing at such 
 or such an hour of the day or the night; this horri- 
 ble existence, in which it is entirely immaterial 
 whether the things which surround us are or are 
 not, had become for us the most varied, the flight 
 of our spirit knew no bounds, fancy had given to us
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 7 
 
 the key of her kingdom, we were alternately one for 
 the other a charming hippogriff, the most alert 
 awakened the sleepiest, and our souls wantoned at 
 will in taking possession of that world which was 
 forbidden us. There was nothing even to the "Lives 
 of the Saints" which did not aid us in comprehend- 
 ing the most hidden things! The day in which thy 
 sweet company was taken away from me, I became 
 that which a Carmelite is in our eyes, a modern 
 Danaide who, instead of endeavoring to fill a bot- 
 tomless cask, draws every day, from I know not 
 what well, an empty vessel, hoping to bring it up 
 full. My aunt was ignorant of our inward life. 
 She did not understand my aversion to existence, 
 she who has made for herself a celestial world in 
 the two acres of her convent To embrace the re- 
 ligious life at our ages, an excessive simplicity is 
 required, which we have not, my sweet one, or else 
 that ardor of devotion which renders my aunt a sub- 
 lime creature. My aunt sacrificed herself to an 
 adored brother ; but who can sacrifice one's self to 
 unknown persons or to ideas ? 
 
 It is now nearly two weeks that I have had so 
 many wild words smothered within me, so many 
 meditations buried in my heart, so many observa- 
 tions to communicate and recitals to make which 
 could only be made to you, that without the alter- 
 native of written confidences substituted for our 
 dear conversations, I should have suffocated. How 
 necessary to us is the life of the heart! I commence 
 my diary this morning imagining that yours is
 
 8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 begun, that in a few days I shall be living in the 
 depths of your beautiful valley of Gemenos, of 
 which I know only that which you have told me, as 
 you are going to live in Paris, of which you know 
 only what we have dreamed about it. 
 
 Well then, my dear child, on the morning which 
 will remain marked with a red seal in the book of 
 my life, there arrived from Paris a young woman 
 companion and Philippe, my grandmother's last 
 valet de chambre, sent to take me away. When, 
 after having had me brought into her chamber, my 
 aunt communicated this news to me, joy tied my 
 tongue, I looked at her with a stupid air. 
 
 "My child," she said to me in her guttural voice, 
 "you leave me without regret, I see it; but this 
 adieu is not the last, we shall see each other again: 
 God has marked you on the forehead with the sign 
 of the elect, you have that pride which leads equally 
 to heaven as to hell, but you have too much nobility 
 to descend ! I know you better than you know 
 yourself: passion will not be with you what it is in 
 ordinary women." 
 
 She drew me gently toward her and kissed me on 
 the forehead, communicating to me that fire which 
 devours her, which has clouded the azure of her 
 eyes, softened her eyelids, wrinkled her golden 
 temples and yellowed her fine countenance. She 
 gave me a sensation of goose flesh. Before reply- 
 ing, I kissed her hands. 
 
 "Dear aunt," I said to her, "if your adorable 
 bounties have not enabled me to find your Paraclete
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 9 
 
 healthy to the body and sweet to the heart, I should 
 weep as many tears to return to it as you could 
 know how to desire my return. I would wish to 
 return here only if betrayed by my Louis XIV., and 
 if I should capture one, it would be only death that 
 would wrest him from me! I should not fear the 
 Montespans. " 
 
 "Go, foolish girl," said she smiling, "do not 
 leave those vain ideas here, take them away with 
 you ; and know that you are more Montespan than 
 La Valliere." 
 
 I embraced her. The poor woman could not re- 
 frain from conducting me to the carriage, where her 
 eyes were alternately fixed upon the paternal arms 
 and upon me. 
 
 Night surprised me at Beaugency, plunged in a 
 moral torpor produced by this singular adieu. 
 What was I then going to find in this world so much 
 desired? In the first place, I did not find anyone to 
 receive me, all the preparations of my heart went 
 for naught, my mother was at the Bois de Bou- 
 logne, my father was at the Council ; my brother, 
 the Due de Rhetore, never returned, I was told, but 
 to dress himself before dinner. Mademoiselle 
 Griffiths she has griffes, claws and Philippe con- 
 ducted me to my apartment 
 
 This apartment is that of that grandmother so 
 much beloved, the Princesse de Vauremont from 
 whom I derived something of a fortune, of which no 
 one has ever spoken to me. In this, you will par- 
 take of the sadness which seized me on entering this
 
 10 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 spot consecrated by my memories. The apartment 
 was as she had left it! I was to sleep in the bed in 
 which she had died. Seated on the edge of her sofa, 
 I wept without seeing that I was not alone, I thought 
 how I had often placed myself at her knees in order 
 better to hear her. There, 1 had seen her counte- 
 nance framed in its yellow laces and emaciated by 
 age as well as by the sorrows of grief. This cham- 
 ber seemed to me still warm with the heat which 
 she had maintained there. How was it that Made- 
 moiselle Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu was 
 obliged, like a peasant woman, to sleep in her 
 mother's bed, almost on the day of her death? for 
 it seemed to me that the princess, dead in 1817, 
 had expired the night before. This chamber offered 
 to my view articles which should not have been 
 there, and which proved to what an extent those 
 occupied with the affairs of the kingdom are care- 
 less of their own, and how little, when she was 
 dead, this noble woman had been borne in mind, she 
 who will be one of the grand feminine figures of the 
 eighteenth century. Philippe as good as under- 
 stood the source of my tears. He said to me that in 
 her will the princess had bequeathed me her furni- 
 ture. My father, moreover, permitted the grand 
 apartments to remain in the state in which they had 
 been left by the Revolution. I rose, Philippe 
 opened for me the door of the little salon which 
 communicated with the reception apartment, and I 
 found it in the disordered state which I knew, the 
 panels over the doors which had contained valuable
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES II 
 
 paintings present their empty frames, the marbles 
 are broken, the mirrors have been carried away. 
 Formerly I was afraid to mount the grand staircase 
 and to traverse the vast solitude of these lofty apart- 
 ments, I reached that of the princess by a little 
 stairway which descends under the arch of the great 
 one and which leads to the private door of her 
 dressing-room. 
 
 The apartment, composed of a salon, of a bed- 
 chamber and of this pretty cabinet in vermilion and 
 gold of which I have spoken to you, occupies the 
 pavilion on the side of the Invalides. The hotel is 
 only separated from the boulevard by a wall 
 covered with climbing plants and by a magnificent 
 alley of trees which mingle their summits with 
 those of the young elms of the side alley of the 
 boulevard. Were it not for the blue and golden 
 dome, for the gray masses of the Invalides, you 
 would think yourself in a forest The style of 
 these three rooms and their situation proclaims them 
 the ancient state apartment of the Duchesses de 
 Chaulieu, those of the dukes are in the opposite 
 pavilion; these two are decently separated by the 
 two detached parts of the building and by the pa- 
 vilion of the facade, in which are those grand sail es, 
 murky and echoing, which Philippe showed to me 
 still stripped of their splendor, and just as I had 
 seen them in my childhood. Philippe assumed a 
 confidential air on seeing the astonishment depicted 
 on my countenance. My dear, in this diplomatic 
 mansion, all the people are discreet and mysterious.
 
 12 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 He told me then that everyone was waiting for a 
 law by which the value of their property was to be 
 restored to the 'emigr'es. My father postponed the 
 restoration of his hotel until the day of this restitu- 
 tion. The architect of the king had estimated the 
 expense at 300,000 francs. This confidence had 
 the effect of causing me to drop on the sofa of my 
 salon. And, instead of taking this money for my 
 marriage, why had my father left me to die in the 
 convent? This was the reflection which came to 
 me on the threshold of this door. Ah, Renee, how 
 I would have nestled my head on your shoulder, and 
 how I would have gone back to the days when my 
 grandmother loved these two chambers! She who 
 only exists in my heart, you who are at Maucombe, 
 at two hundred leagues from me, these are the 
 only two beings who love me and who have loved 
 me. This dear old woman whose looks were so 
 young would have wished to revive at my voice. 
 How we would have understood one another ! Mem- 
 ory has changed all at once the disposition in which 
 I dwelt at first. I have found I know not what of 
 saintly in that which appeared to me a profanation. 
 It seemed to me pleasant to breathe the vague odor 
 of powder & la Marechale which lingered there, 
 pleasant to sleep under the protection of these cur- 
 tains in yellow damask with white figures in which 
 her looks and her breath should have left something 
 of her soul. I directed Philippe to restore these 
 same objects to their original state, to give to my 
 apartment the aspect and the life suitable to a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 13 
 
 living-room. I have myself indicated how I desire to 
 have it arranged, assigning to each piece of furniture 
 its proper place. I have passed them all in review 
 in taking possession of everything, in directing how 
 these antiquities which I love may be renewed. 
 The chamber is in white, somewhat tarnished by 
 time, as also the gold of the whimsical arabesques 
 shows in some places reddish tints; but these 
 effects are in harmony with the faded colors of the 
 carpet of the Savonnerie which was given by Louis 
 XV. to my grandmother, as well as his portrait 
 The clock was a present from the Marechal de Saxe. 
 The porcelains of the chimney-piece came from the 
 Marechal de Richelieu. The portrait of my grand- 
 mother, taken at the age of twenty-five, is in an 
 oval frame, opposite to that of the king. The prince 
 does not appear at all. I love this frank omission, 
 without hypocrisy, which depicts with one stroke 
 this delicious character. In a serious illness which 
 befell my aunt, her confessor insisted that the 
 prince, who was waiting in the salon, should enter. 
 
 "With the doctor and his prescriptions," she said. 
 
 The bed has a canopy, with stuffed hangings ; the 
 curtains are gathered back in handsome and ample 
 folds; the furniture is in gilded wood, covered with 
 that yellow damask with white flowers with which 
 the windows are also draped, and which is lined 
 with a stuff of white silk which resembles moire. 
 The panels over the doors, painted by an unknown 
 artist, represent a rising sun and a moonlight. The 
 chimney-piece is arranged very curiously. It can
 
 14 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 readily be seen that in the last century much of the 
 time was passed at the corner of the fire. It was 
 there that the great events occurred, the hearth of 
 gilded copper is a marvel of sculpture, the casing 
 is of a precious finish, the shovel and the tongs are 
 delightful pieces of workmanship, the bellows is a 
 jewel. The tapestry of the screen is Gobelin, and 
 its mounting is exquisite; the fantastic figures 
 which traverse it, on the feet, on the supporting bar, 
 on the wings, are ravishing; everything in it is 
 finished like a fan. Who had given to her this 
 beautiful piece of furniture which she held in great 
 affection? I should like to know. How many 
 times have I seen her, her foot on the rest, buried 
 in her luxurious seat, her dress partially brought up 
 on her knee by her attitude, taking, putting back 
 and taking again her snuff-box from the little table 
 between her box of pastilles and her silk mittens! 
 Was she coquettish ? Up to the day of her death, 
 she took care of herself as if she were only on the 
 morrow of that beautiful portrait, as if she were 
 waiting for the flower of the Court to come throng- 
 ing around her. This seat recalls to me the inim- 
 itable movement which she gave to her petticoats 
 in settling herself in it. These women of a past 
 era have carried away with them certain secrets 
 which depict their epoch. The princess had certain 
 movements of the head, a certain manner of distrib- 
 uting her words and her looks, a particular lan- 
 guage which I do not find in my mother, there 
 were to be found in her a delicacy of wit and good
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 15 
 
 nature, of resolution without preparation; her con- 
 versation was at once prolix and laconic, she related 
 well and depicted in three words. She had above 
 all that excessive freedom of judgment which cer- 
 tainly has influenced the working of my mind. 
 From seven to ten years of age I lived in her pock- 
 ets ; she was as fond of drawing me to her as I was 
 of going. This preference was the cause of more 
 than one quarrel between her and my mother. 
 Now, nothing stirs up a sentiment so much as the 
 icy wind of persecution. With what grace would 
 she say to me: "Ah, there you are, little witch!" 
 when the serpent of curiosity had lent me its move- 
 ments enabling me to slip through the doors to her. 
 She felt herself loved, she loved my ingenuous love 
 which brought a ray of sunshine into her winter. I 
 do not know what passed in her apartments in the 
 evenings, but she received a great many people; 
 when I entered in the morning, on tiptoe, to see if 
 she had yet arisen, I saw the furniture of her salon 
 disarranged, the tables for play set out, plenty of 
 snuff spilled in places. This salon is in the same 
 style as the chamber, the furniture is singularly 
 formed, the wood has fluted mouldings, and termi- 
 nates in deer's feet Garlands of flowers richly 
 sculptured and beautiful in character wind across 
 the mirrors and descend in long festoons. On the 
 consoles are beautiful Chinese vases in the shape of 
 cornucopias. The ground of the furniture is deep 
 scarlet and white. My grandmother was a proud 
 and piquant brunette, her complexion might be
 
 16 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 divined from her choice of color. I have found 
 again in this salon a writing-table the figures of 
 which had much occupied my eyes formerly; it is 
 encrusted in chased silver; it was given to her by 
 a Lomellini of Genoa. Each side of this table 
 represents the operations of the various seasons; 
 the figures are in relief, there are hundreds of them 
 in each scene. I have remained for two hours quite 
 alone, resuming my souvenirs one by one, in the 
 sanctuary in which expired one of the women of the 
 Court of Louis XV. the most celebrated by her wit 
 and by her beauty. You know how I was brusquely 
 separated from her without warning, in 1816. 
 
 "Go and say good-bye to your grandmother," my 
 mother said to me. 
 
 I found the princess, not surprised at my depart- 
 ure, but apparently unaffected by it. She received 
 me as usual. 
 
 "You are going to the convent, my jewel," she 
 said to me; "you will there see your aunt, an ex- 
 cellent woman. I will take care that you are not 
 sacrificed, you will be independent, and even 
 enough so to marry whom you wish." 
 
 She died six months later ; she had placed her will 
 in the hands of the most assiduous of her old friends, 
 the Prince de Talleyrand, who, in visiting Made- 
 moiselle Chargebceuf, found means to inform me 
 through her that my grandmother forbade me to 
 take the vows. I strongly hope that, sooner or 
 later, I shall meet the prince; and, without doubt 
 he will tell me more. Thus, my dear lamb, if 1
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 17 
 
 have not found anyone to receive me, I have con- 
 soled myself with the shade of the dear princess, 
 and I put myself in the condition to fulfill one of our 
 agreements, which is, do you remember, to initiate 
 each other into the smallest details of our situation 
 and of our life. It is so sweet to know how and 
 where lives the being that is dear to us! Describe 
 to me carefully the least of the things which sur- 
 round you, everything in short, even to the effects 
 of the setting sun among the big trees. 
 
 October 10. 
 
 I had arrived at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 About half-past five, Rose came to tell me that my 
 mother had come in, and I descended to pay my 
 respects to her. My mother occupies on the ground 
 floor an apartment arranged like mine, in the same 
 pavilion. I am above her, and we have the same 
 private stairway. My father is' in the opposite 
 pavilion; but, as on the side of the court he has in 
 addition the space which is taken in ours by the 
 grand stairway, his apartment is much larger than 
 ours. Notwithstanding the duties of the position 
 which the return of the Bourbons has imposed upon 
 them, my father and my mother continue to inhabit 
 the ground floor and can there hold their receptions, 
 so vast are the mansions of our ancestors. I found 
 my mother in her salon, in which nothing had been 
 changed. She was dressed. From step to step as 
 I descended, I asked myself how she would be to 
 me, this woman, who has been so little a mother 
 
 2
 
 18 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 that I have only received from her in eight years 
 the two letters which you know. Thinking that it 
 would be unworthy of me to display an impossible 
 tenderness, I composed myself in the r61e of a reli- 
 gious idiot, and I entered sufficiently embarrassed 
 inwardly. This embarrassment was soon dissi- 
 pated. My mother displayed perfect grace; she 
 did not display toward me any false tenderness, she 
 was not cold, she did not treat me as a stranger, she 
 did not take me to her bosom as a beloved daughter ; 
 she received me as if she had seen me the night be- 
 fore, she was the most gentle, the most sincere 
 friend ; she spoke to me as if I were a grown woman, 
 and began by kissing me on the forehead. 
 
 "My dear little one, if you are going to die at the 
 convent," she said to me, "it is better to live with 
 us. You thwart your father's designs and mine, 
 but we are no longer in the times in which parents 
 were blindly obeyed. The intention of Monsieur 
 de Chaulieu, which is in accord with mine, is to 
 neglect nothing which may render life agreeable to 
 you and to permit you to see the world. At your 
 age, I would have thought as you do; thus I will 
 not quarrel with you, you cannot comprehend that 
 which we ask of you. You will not find in me a 
 ridiculous severity. If you have doubted my affec- 
 tion, you will soon recognize that you have de- 
 ceived yourself. Although I wish to leave you per- 
 fectly free, I think that at first you will do wisely 
 to listen to the advice of a mother who will be to 
 you as a sister."
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 19 
 
 The duchess spoke with a gentle voice, and ad- 
 justed my schoolgirl's mantle. She charmed me. At 
 thirty-eight, she is as beautiful as an angel ; her 
 eyes are of a blue-blackness with lashes like silk, 
 her forehead without wrinkles, her skin white and 
 pink as though she painted, her shoulders and her 
 bust surprising, her figure rounded and slender like 
 yours, her hand of a rare beauty, it is of the white- 
 ness of milk; nails on which the light lingers, they 
 are so polished; the little fingers slightly separated 
 from the others, the thumb of an ivory finish; 
 finally, she has the foot in keeping with her hand, 
 the Spanish foot of Mademoiselle de Vandenesse. 
 If she is thus at forty, she will be beautiful still at 
 sixty. I replied, my lamb, as a submissive daugh- 
 ter. I was to her that which she was to me, I was 
 even better, her beauty vanquished me, I for- 
 gave her her abandonment, I comprehended that a 
 woman such as she would have been carried away 
 by her role of queen. I said it to her as naively 
 as if I were talking with you. Perhaps she did not 
 expect to find a language of love in the mouth of her 
 daughter. The sincere homage of my admiration 
 touched her greatly, her manners changed, became 
 still more gracious; she abandoned theyou. 
 
 "Thou art a good daughter, and I hope that we 
 shall remain friends. " 
 
 This phrase appeared to me of an adorable ingen- 
 uousness. I did not wish to let her see how I took 
 it, for I understood soon enough that I should permit 
 her to believe that she is much more fine and more
 
 20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 spirituelle than her daughter. I accordingly played 
 the silly, she was enchanted with me. I kissed her 
 hand repeatedly, say ing to her that I was very happy 
 that she treated me thus, that I feit myself happy 
 and content, and I even confided to her my terror. 
 She smiled, took me by the neck to draw me toward 
 her and kissed me on the forehead with a gesture 
 full of tenderness. 
 
 "Dear child," she said, "we have a number of 
 people to dinner to-night; you will think perhaps, 
 with me, that it will be better to wait till the 
 dressmaker has furnished you before making your 
 entry into the world; therefore, after having seen 
 your father and your brother, you will go up again 
 to your own apartment" 
 
 In which I acquiesced with all my heart. The 
 ravishing toilet of my mother was the first revela- 
 tion of that world of which we had caught glimpses 
 in our dreams; but I did not experience the slightest 
 emotion of jealousy. My father entered. 
 
 "Monsieur, here is your daughter," said the 
 duchess to him. 
 
 My father suddenly assumed for me the most 
 tender manners; he so perfectly played his r61e of 
 father that I believed he had his heart in it. 
 
 "Here you are then, rebellious daughter !" he said 
 to me, taking my two hands in his and kissing me 
 with more of gallantry than of paternity. 
 
 And he drew me toward him, took me around the 
 waist, clasped me to embrace me on the cheeks and 
 on the forehead.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 21 
 
 "You will make up for the vexation which your 
 change of vocation causes us by the pleasures which 
 your success in the world will give us. Do you 
 know, Madame, that she will be very pretty and that 
 you can some day be proud of her ? Here is your 
 brother, Rhetore. Alphonse," said he, to a hand- 
 some young man who entered, "here is your sister, 
 the nun, who has renounced her veil." 
 
 My brother came up without hurrying himself, 
 took my hand and clasped it. 
 
 "Kiss her," said the duke to him. 
 
 And he kissed me on each cheek. 
 
 "I am delighted to see you, sister," he said to 
 me, "and I am on your side against my father." 
 
 I thanked him ; but it seems to me that he could 
 very well have come to Blois, when he went to 
 Orleans to see our brother, the marquis, in garrison 
 there. I withdrew, fearing that some strangers 
 might arrive. I have made some arrangements in 
 my apartment, I have put on the scarlet velvet 
 of the handsome table everything necessary for 
 writing to you while reflecting on my new po- 
 sition. 
 
 Here you have, my beautiful white lamb, neither 
 more nor less, just what has taken place on the re- 
 turn of a young girl of eighteen, after an absence of 
 nine years, in one of the most illustrious families of 
 the kingdom. The journey had fatigued me and also 
 the emotions of this return to the bosom of a family: 
 I accordingly retired as at the convent, at eight 
 o'clock, after having supped. They have preserved
 
 22 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 even a little service in Saxony porcelain which 
 this dear princess kept for her own use when alone 
 and when the fancy seized her. 
 
 II 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 November 25. 
 
 The next morning, I found my apartment put in 
 order and arranged by the old Philippe, who had 
 put flowers in the Chinese vases. Finally I was 
 installed. Only, no one had thought that a board- 
 ing-school girl of the Carmelites was hungry early 
 in the morning, and Rose had a thousand troubles 
 to get me a breakfast 
 
 "Mademoiselle went to bed at the hour when 
 dinner was served and rose just as monseigneur 
 was retiring," she said to me. 
 
 I sat down to write. About one o'clock my 
 father knocked at the door of my little salon and 
 asked me if I could receive him : I opened the door 
 to him, he entered and found me writing to you. 
 
 "My dear, you have to dress yourself, to accom- 
 modate yourself here; you will find twelve thou- 
 sand francs in this purse. It is a year's revenue 
 which I grant to you for your living expenses. 
 You will arrange with your mother to take a govern- 
 ess who will be agreeable to you, if Miss Griffith 
 does not please you; for Madame de Chaulieu will
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 23 
 
 not have the time to accompany you in the morn- 
 ing. You will have a carriage at your order and a 
 domestic." 
 
 "Let me keep Philippe," I said to him. 
 
 "So be it," he replied. "But do not have any 
 care, your fortune is sufficiently considerable to 
 prevent your being any charge either to your 
 mother or to me." 
 
 "Would I be indiscreet in asking you what is my 
 fortune?" 
 
 "Not in the least, my child; your grandmother 
 left to you five hundred thousand francs which were 
 her savings, for she did not wish to deprive her 
 family of a single piece of land. This sum has 
 been placed in the Funds. The accumulation of 
 interest has produced to-day about forty thousand 
 francs of income. I wished to employ this sum to 
 constitute the fortune of your second brother, thus 
 you derange very seriously my projects; but in a 
 little while perhaps you will concur in them, I 
 shall expect everything of you yourself. You seem 
 to me more reasonable than I had hoped. It is not 
 necessary for me to say to you how a Demoiselle 
 de Chaulieu conducts herself; the pride depicted in 
 your features is my safe guarantee. In our house- 
 hold, the precautions which smaller people take for 
 their daughters are harmful. An injurious speech 
 concerning you might cost the life of him who per- 
 mitted himself to utter it, or of one of your brothers, 
 if Heaven should be unjust. I will not say more to 
 you on this subject Adieu, dear little one."
 
 24 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 He kissed me on the forehead and went away. 
 After persevering in it for nine years, I cannot ex- 
 plain to myself the abandonment of this plan. My 
 father had expressed himself with a clearness which 
 I liked. There is not in his speech the slightest 
 ambiguity. My fortune should go to his son the 
 marquis. Who then has had bowels of compassion ? 
 is it my mother, is it my father, should it be my 
 brother ? 
 
 I remained seated on my grandmother's sofa, my 
 eyes on the purse which my father had left on the 
 chimney-piece, at once satisfied and discontented 
 with this attention which kept my thoughts on the 
 money. It is true that I no longer have to think of 
 it: my doubts are all cleared up, and there is some- 
 thing worthy in sparing me all wounded pride on 
 this subject Philippe had run about all the morn- 
 ing among all the different merchants and trades- 
 people who were to be charged with bringing about 
 my metamorphosis. A celebrated dressmaker, a 
 certain Victor ine, came, as well as a maker of 
 lingerie and a shoemaker. I was impatient, like a 
 child, to know how I should be when I had quitted 
 the sack in which the conventual costume envelops 
 us; but all these work-people want a great deal of 
 time, the corset-maker asks a week if I do not 
 wish to spoil my figure. This is becoming serious, 
 I have then a figure ? Janssen, the shoemaker of 
 the Opera, has positively assured me that I have 
 my mother's foot I have passed all the morning in 
 these serious occupations. There has even come a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 25 
 
 glove-maker who has taken the measure of my 
 hand. The maker of lingerie has had my orders. 
 At the hour of my dinner, which is that of the de- 
 jeuner, my mother said to me that we would go to- 
 gether to the modiste for hats, in order to form my 
 tastes and enable me to order my own. I am be- 
 wildered at this commencement of independence, 
 like a blind man who should recover his sight. I 
 can judge of what a Carmelite is to a young lady 
 of the world, the difference is so great that we 
 should never have been able to conceive it Dur- 
 ing this dejeuner my father was thoughtful, and we 
 left him to his own reflections ; he is deep in the 
 secrets of the king. I was completely forgotten, he 
 will think of me when I shall be necessary to him, 
 I have seen that My father is a charming man, 
 notwithstanding his fifty years: he has a youthful 
 figure, he is well built, he is blond, he has a style 
 and a gracefulness which are exquisite ; he has the 
 countenance, at once speaking and reserved, of the 
 diplomats; his nose is thin and long, his eyes are 
 brown. What a handsome couple! How many 
 singular thoughts have assailed me in seeing clearly 
 that these two beings, equally noble, rich, superior, 
 do not live together, have nothing in common but 
 the name, and maintain the appearance of being 
 united in the eyes of the world. The elite of the 
 court and of diplomacy were there yesterday. In 
 a few days, I am going to a ball in the house of the 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and I shall be presented 
 to this world which I wish so much to know. A
 
 26 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 dancing-master is to come every morning: I am to 
 know how to dance in a month, under penalty of 
 not going to the ball. Before the dinner, my 
 mother came to see me about my governess. I have 
 kept Miss Griffith, who was given to her by the 
 English ambassador. This Miss is the daughter of 
 a minister : her education is perfect, her mother was 
 noble; she is thirty-six years old, she will teach me 
 English. My Griffith is handsome enough to have 
 pretensions ; she is poor and proud, she is Scotch, 
 she will be my chaperon; she will sleep in the 
 chamber with Rose. Rose will be under Miss 
 Griffith's orders. I saw immediately that I shall 
 govern my governess. In the six days that we 
 have been together she has perfectly comprehended 
 that it is I alone who can take any interest in her; 
 for myself, notwithstanding her statuesque counte- 
 nance, I have perfectly comprehended that she will 
 be very complacent for me. She seems to me a 
 good creature, but discreet. I have never been able 
 to know what was said between her and my mother. 
 Another piece of news which seems to me of slight 
 importance! This morning, my father refused the 
 post of minister which was offered him. Hence his 
 preoccupation of the day before. He prefers an em- 
 bassy,he said, to the wearinesses of public discussion. 
 Spain smiles upon him. I learned this news at dejeu- 
 ner, the only time of the day when my father, my 
 mother and my brother meet in a sort of intimacy. 
 The servants only come then when some one rings 
 for them. All the rest of the time my brother is
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 27 
 
 absent as well as my father. My mother is dress- 
 ing, she is only visible from two o'clock to four: 
 at four o'clock she goes out for a promenade of an 
 hour ; she receives from six to seven when she does 
 not dine out; then the evening is employed in pleas- 
 ure, the theatre, balls, concerts, visits. In fact her 
 life is so full, that I doubt if she has a quarter of an 
 hour to herself. She must pass a very considerable 
 length of time at her morning toilet, for she is divine 
 at dejeuner, which is between eleven o'clock and 
 noon. I am commencing to understand the sounds 
 which are heard in her apartment, she takes first 
 a bath almost cold, and a cup of cold coffee with 
 cream; then she dresses; she is never awakened 
 before nine o'clock, excepting in extraordinary 
 cases; in the summer there are horseback rides in 
 the morning. At two o'clock, she receives a young 
 man whom I have not yet seen. This is our family 
 life. We meet each other at dejeuner and at din- 
 ner; but I am often alone with my mother at this 
 latter repast I foresee that more frequently still I 
 shall dine alone in my apartment with Miss Grif- 
 fith, as did my grandmother. My mother often 
 dines out I am no longer surprised at the little 
 interest which my family take in me. My dear, at 
 Paris, it requires heroism to love those who are 
 near us, for we are not often by ourselves. How 
 the absent are forgotten in this city! Still I 
 have not yet set foot outside the house, I know 
 nothing; I am waiting until I am uncountrified, until 
 my appearance and my air shall be in harmony
 
 28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 with this world, the movement of which astonishes 
 me, although as yet I have heard only its distant 
 murmur. I have only been out in the garden. The 
 performances begin at the Italiens in a few days. 
 My mother has a box there. I am almost crazy with 
 the desire to hear Italian music and to see a French 
 opera. I am commencing to break the habits of the 
 convent to take on those of the wordly life. I write 
 to you in the evening up to the time I go to bed, 
 which now is postponed till ten o'clock, the hour at 
 which my mother goes out when she does not go to 
 some theatre. There are a dozen theatres in Paris. 
 My ignorance is crass, and I read a great deal, but 
 I read indiscriminately. One book conducts me to 
 another. I find the titles of several works on the 
 cover of that which I have ; but I have no one to 
 guide me, so that I find some which are very weari- 
 some. That which I have read of modern literature 
 treats chiefly of love, the subject which occupies us 
 so much, since all our destiny is made by man and 
 for man ; but how much these authors are below two 
 young girls named the white lamb and the darling, 
 Renee and Louise! Ah, dear angel, what poor 
 events, what extravagance, and how unworthy is 
 the expression of this sentiment ! Two books, how- 
 ever, have pleased me strangely, the one is Co- 
 rinne and the other Adolphe. In connection with 
 this, I asked my father if I could see Madame de 
 Stae'l. My mother, my father, and Alphonse com- 
 menced to laugh. Alphonse said: 
 "Where does she come from, then?"
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 29 
 
 My father replied: 
 
 "We are very stupid, she comes from the Car- 
 melites." 
 
 "My daughter, Madame de Stae'l is dead," said 
 the duchess to me gently. 
 
 "How can a woman be deceived?" I asked Miss 
 Griffith when I finished Adolphe. 
 
 "Why, when she loves," said Miss Griffith to me. 
 
 Tell me then, Renee, could a man deceive us? 
 Miss Griffith has ended by perceiving that I am 
 only half silly, that I have an unknown educa- 
 tion, that which we have given to each other in 
 reasoning indefinitely. She has understood that 
 my ignorance relates only to exterior things. The 
 poor creature has opened her heart to me. This 
 laconic response, set in the balance against all 
 imaginable misfortunes, has caused me a slight 
 shudder. My Griffith has repeatedly warned me 
 not to allow myself to be dazzled by anything in the 
 world and to be suspicious of everything, principally 
 of that which pleases me the most She does not 
 know and can tell me nothing further. This dis- 
 course is too monotonous. She is in this like that 
 bird which has only one cry. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 December. 
 
 My dear, here I am ready to enter into the world; 
 thus have I endeavored to be very foolish before
 
 30 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 composing myself for it. This morning, after many 
 trials, I have seen myself well and duly corseted, 
 shod, laced, coiff'ee, dressed, adorned. I have done like 
 the duelist before the combat, I have exercised 
 myself behind closed doors. I wish to see myself 
 under arms, I very willingly found in myself a 
 little conquering and triumphant air to which it 
 would be necessary to surrender. I examined my- 
 self and judged myself. I passed in review all my 
 forces, putting into practice this fine maxim of an- 
 tiquity: "Know thyself!" I have had infinite 
 pleasure in making my own acquaintance. Griffith 
 alone was in the secret of my doll's play. I was at 
 once the doll and the child. You think you know 
 me? Not the least in the world! 
 
 Here, Renee, is the portrait of your sister formerly 
 disguised as a Carmelite and now resuscitated as a 
 light and worldly young woman. Provence ex- 
 cepted, I am one of the most beautiful persons in 
 France. This appears to me to be the true sum- 
 ming up of this agreeable chapter. I have defects; 
 but, if I were a man, I should love them. These 
 defects come from the hopes which I give. When 
 one has been admiring for fifteen days the exquisite 
 roundness of the arms of a mother, and this mother 
 is the Duchesse de Chaulieu, my dear, one is un- 
 happy at seeing the thinness of her own arms; but 
 there is consolation in finding the wrist fine, a cer- 
 tain suavity of lines in those hollows which one 
 day a flesh like satin will come to dimple, to round 
 and to model. The somewhat dried design of the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 31 
 
 arms repeats itself in the shoulders. To tell the 
 truth, I have no shoulders, but hard shoulder-blades 
 which form two harsh planes. My figure is equally 
 without suppleness, the sides are stiff. Ouf! I 
 have told all. But these profiles are fine and firm, 
 health bites with its lively and pure flame these 
 nervous lines, life and a blue blood flow in waves 
 under a transparent skin. Why, the very blondest 
 daughter of Eve, the blonde, is a negress beside me! 
 Why, I have the foot of a gazelle! Why, all the 
 outlines are delicate, and I possess the correct fea- 
 tures of a Greek design. The flesh tones are not 
 blended, it is true, mademoiselle; but they are vi- 
 vacious : I am a very pretty green fruit, and I have 
 of it the green graciousness. In short, I resemble 
 the figure which in the old missal of my aunt, rises 
 from a violet-colored lily. My blue eyes are not 
 stupid, they are proud, surrounded by two margins 
 of living mother-of-pearl shaded by pretty little 
 fibres and on which my long and crowded lashes 
 resemble silken fringes. My forehead dazzles, my 
 hair has the roots deliciously planted, it presents 
 little waves of pale gold, darkened in the middle and 
 from which escape a few mutinous hairs which as- 
 sert with sufficient clearness that I am not a faded 
 and fainting blonde, but a Southern blonde and full 
 of blood, a blonde who strikes instead of allowing 
 herself to be attacked. The hairdresser, did he not 
 want to smooth it down into two bands and place on 
 my forehead a pearl held by a golden chain, saying to 
 me that I would have the style of the Middle Ages.
 
 32 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Know that I am not of an age to be in the Mid- 
 dle, and to put on an ornament which is intended 
 to make more youthful ! 
 
 My nose is thin, the nostrils are well cut and sep- 
 arated by a charming pink partition; it is impe- 
 rious, mocking, and its extremity is too nervous to 
 ever grow gross or to redden. My dear lamb, if all 
 this is not enough to cause a young girl to be taken 
 without a dot, I do not know myself. My ears have 
 coquettish windings, a pearl at the end of each 
 would seem yellow. My neck is long, it has that 
 serpentine movement which gives so much majesty. 
 In the shadow, its whiteness becomes golden. Ah! 
 I have perhaps a somewhat large mouth, but it is so 
 expressive, the lips are of such a beautiful color, 
 the teeth laugh with so good a grace ! And then, 
 my dear, everything is in harmony, there is 
 a walk, there is a voice! One remembers the 
 movements of the petticoats of her ancestress, who 
 never equaled this. In short, I am beautiful and 
 graceful. 
 
 According to my whim, I can laugh as we have 
 often laughed and I would be respected, there will 
 be something indescribably striking in the dimples 
 which the light fingers of Pleasantry will make in 
 my white cheeks. I can lower my eye and give 
 myself a heart of ice under my front of snow. I 
 can offer the melancholy neck of the swan in posing 
 as a Madonna, and the Virgins designed by the 
 painters will be at a hundred degrees below me; I 
 shall be higher than they in the heaven. A man
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 33 
 
 will be forced, to speak to me, to change his voice 
 into music. 
 
 I am then armed at all points and can range the 
 keyboard of coquetry from the gravest notes up to 
 the most flute-like sound. It is an immense advan- 
 tage not to be uniform. My mother is neither 
 frolicsome nor virginal ; she is exclusively worthy, 
 imposing, she cannot issue from that but to become 
 leonine; when she wounds, she cures with diffi- 
 culty; I, I shall know how to wound and to cure. 
 I am entirely different from my mother. Thus 
 there will be no possible rivalry between us, unless 
 we should come to dispute over the greater or less 
 degree of perfection of our extreme ranges which 
 resemble each other. I take after my father, he is 
 fine and slender. I have the manners of my grand- 
 mother and her charming tone of voice, a voice from 
 the head when it is forced, a melodious chest voice 
 in the medium of the tte-ci-tete. ' It seems to me that 
 it is only to-day that I have left the convent. I do 
 not yet exist for the world, I am unknown to it 
 What a delicious moment! I belong to myself still, 
 like a flower which has not been seen and which 
 has just opened. Well, my angel, when I have 
 walked about in my salon looking at myself, when I 
 have seen the ingenuous possessions of the boarding- 
 school girl all cast aside, my heart has experienced 
 an inexpressible feeling, regrets for the past, in- 
 quietude for the future, fears of the world, farewells 
 to our pale marguerites innocently gathered, thought- 
 lessly stripped of their leaves; there was all of 
 3
 
 34 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 that; but there were also those fantastic ideas 
 which I send back into the depths of my soul, where 
 I dare not descend and from whence they come. 
 
 My Renee, I have the trousseau of a bride! The 
 whole is well arranged, perfumed in the drawers of 
 cedar and in the lacquered front of a delicious cabi- 
 net de toilette. I have ribbons, shoes, gloves, every- 
 thing in profusion. My father has graciously given 
 me the jewels for a young girl, a dressing-case, a 
 dressing-glass, a perfuming pan, a fan, an umbrella, 
 a book of prayers, a gold chain, a cashmere; he has 
 promised to have me taught to ride horseback. 
 Finally, I know how to dance! To-morrow, yes, 
 to-morrow evening, I shall be presented. My toilet 
 is a dress of white muslin. I shall have for head- 
 dress a garland of white roses tilagrecque. I will 
 put on my Madonna air, I wish to be very stupid 
 and to have the women on my side. My mother is 
 a thousand leagues from what I am writing to you, 
 she believes me incapable of reflection. If she read 
 my letter, she would be stupid with astonishment. 
 My brother honors me with a profound contempt, 
 and continues to me the bounties of his indifference. 
 He is a handsome man, but whimsical and melan- 
 choly. I have his secret: neither the duke nor the 
 duchess have discovered it Although duke and 
 young, he is jealous of his father, he is nothing in 
 the government, he has no office at the Court, he 
 has no occasion to say: "I must go to the Cham- 
 ber." I am the only one in the house who has six- 
 teen hours for reflection. My father is buried in
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 35 
 
 public affairs and in his pleasures, my mother is also 
 occupied; no one reacts upon another in the house- 
 hold, everyone is always out, there is not enough 
 time for living. I am curious to excess to know 
 what invincible attraction the world possesses to 
 keep you every evening from nine o'clock to two or 
 three in the morning, to make you undergo such 
 heavy expense and to support so many fatigues. In 
 desiring to enter it, I do not imagine for myself 
 such vast distances, similar intoxications; but in 
 truth I forget that it is a question of Paris. Thus, 
 then, people may live near each other, in the bosom 
 of a family, and not know each other. A quasi-nun 
 arrives, and in two weeks she perceives that which 
 a statesman does not see in his own household. 
 Perhaps he does see it, and there is a paternal feel- 
 ing in his voluntary blindness. I will investigate 
 this obscure corner 
 
 IV 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 December 15. 
 
 Yesterday, at two o'clock, I went to take my 
 promenade in the Champs-^lysees and in the Bois 
 de Boulogne on one of those autumnal days such as 
 we have so often admired on the banks of the Loire. 
 I have finally seen Paris! The aspect of the Place 
 Louis XV. is truly beautiful, but of that beauty 
 which men create. I was very well arrayed, mel- 
 ancholy, though very well disposed to laugh, my
 
 36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 countenance pale under a charming hat, my arms 
 crossed. I did not receive the least smile, 1 did not 
 even make one poor little young man stand still 
 stupefied, no one turned around to see me, and yet 
 the carriage went with a slowness in harmony with 
 my appearance. I am mistaken, a charming duke 
 who passed suddenly turned his horse. This man 
 who, alone of the whole public, saved my vanity, 
 was my father, whose pride, as he said to me, was 
 agreeably flattered. I met my mother, who with 
 the end of her finger sent me a little salutation 
 which resembled a kiss. My Griffith, who sus- 
 pected no one, looked about her right and left. Ac- 
 cording to my ideas, a young person should always 
 know where she directs her looks. I was furious. 
 One man very seriously examined my carriage 
 without paying any attention to me. This flatterer 
 was probably a carriage-maker. I have deceived 
 myself in the valuation of my powers, beauty, 
 that rare privilege which God alone can give, is 
 then more common at Paris than I had supposed. 
 The affected women were graciously saluted. At 
 the flushed faces, men said: "There she is!" My 
 mother was prodigiously admired. This enigma 
 has an answer, and I will seek it. The men, my 
 dear, seem to me in general very ugly. Those 
 who are handsome are like bad copies of us. I do 
 not know what fatal genius invented their costume, 
 it is surprisingly awkward when it is compared 
 with those of the preceding centuries; it is without 
 style, without color or poetry; it addresses itself
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 37 
 
 neither to the senses, nor to the spirit, nor to the 
 eye, and it should be very inconvenient; it is with- 
 out amplitude, curtailed. The hat particularly 
 struck me, it is a section of a column, it does not 
 take the shape of the head ; but it is, I have been 
 told, easier to make a revolution than to make the 
 hat graceful. Courage in France recoils at the idea 
 of wearing a felt hat with a round crown, and for 
 want of a day's bravery one goes ridiculously cov- 
 ered during a whole lifetime. And the French are 
 said to be so 1 ight ! The men are moreover per- 
 fectly horrible, no matter in what fashion they 
 cover their heads. I saw only hard and fatigued 
 faces, in which there is neither calm not tranquil- 
 lity; the lines are harsh and the wrinkles announce 
 thwarted ambitions, unhappy vanities. A fine 
 forehead is rare. 
 
 "Ah! these are the Parisians!" I said to Miss 
 Griffith. 
 
 "Pleasant men, and very clever ones," she re- 
 plied to me. 
 
 I was silent A single woman of thirty-six has 
 plenty of indulgence in the bottom of her heart 
 
 In the evening I went to the ball, and I kept my- 
 self by the side of my mother, who gave me her 
 arm with a devotion that was well rewarded. The 
 honors were all for her, I furnished the pretext for 
 the most agreeable flatteries. She had the clever- 
 ness to make me dance with imbeciles who all spoke 
 of the heat as if I had been frozen, and of the beauty 
 of the ball as if I were blind. Not one of them
 
 38 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 failed to go into ecstasies over a most strange, un- 
 heard-of, extraordinary, singular, grotesque thing, 
 and that was to see me there for the first time. My 
 toilet, which seemed to me ravishing in my little 
 white and gold salon where I parade all alone, was 
 scarcely noticeable in the midst of the marvelous 
 dresses of the majority of the women. Each one of 
 them had her faithful servitor, she observed him 
 out of the corner of her eye ; several of them were 
 brilliant with a triumphant beauty, as was my 
 mother. At a ball, a young person does not count, 
 she is a dancing-machine. The men, with rare ex- 
 ceptions, are no better than those of the Champs- 
 Elysees. They are worn, their features are without 
 character, or rather they have all the same charac- 
 ter. That proud and vigorous carriage which our 
 ancestors have in their portraits, and in which 
 physical strength is joined to moral strength, no 
 longer exists. However, there was in this assembly 
 one man of great talent who was noticeable among 
 the throng for the beauty of his countenance, but 
 he did not cause me the lively emotion which he 
 should have communicated. I am not acquainted 
 with his works, and he is not a gentleman born. 
 Whatever may be the genius or the qualities of a 
 bourgeois or of a man lately ennobled, I have not in 
 my blood one solitary drop for him. Moreover, I 
 found him so much occupied with himself, so little 
 with others, that he made it seem to me as though 
 we should be only things and not beings for these 
 great seekers of ideas. When men of talent love,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 39 
 
 they should no longer write, or they will not love. 
 There is something in their brains which takes the 
 precedence of their mistress. I seemed to see all 
 this in the appearance of this man, who is, it is 
 said, professor, speaker, author, and whom ambition 
 makes the most assiduous servitor. I came to my 
 decision immediately, I considered it very un- 
 worthy of myself to be vexed with the world at my 
 want of success, and I gave myself up to dancing 
 without any cares. Moreover, I found pleasure in 
 dancing. I heard a great deal of gossip without 
 any point in it concerning unknown people; but 
 perhaps it is necessary to know a great many things 
 of which I am ignorant in order to appreciate it, for 
 I saw most of the men and women taking a very 
 lively pleasure in saying or hearing certain phrases. 
 The world offers an enormous number of enigmas 
 the answers to which seem difficult to find. There 
 are in it multiplied intrigues. I have sufficiently 
 keen eyes and a fine hearing; as to the understand- 
 ing, you are acquainted with it, Mademoiselle de 
 Maucombe ! 
 
 I returned weary of it all and happy in this weari- 
 ness. I very ingenuously described my feelings 
 to my mother, in whose company I was, and who 
 told me to make these sorts of confidences only to 
 her. 
 
 "My dear little one," she added, "good taste con- 
 sists as much in the recognition of those things con- 
 cerning which one should be silent as in that of 
 those things which one may say."
 
 40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 This recommendation enabled me to comprehend 
 those feelings concerning which we should keep 
 silence with all the world, even perhaps with our 
 mother. I measured with one glance of the eye the 
 vast field of feminine dissimulation. I can assure 
 you, my dear lamb, that we will make, with all the 
 effrontery of our innocence, two little gossips pass- 
 ably awake to what is going on. How much in- 
 struction in a finger placed upon the lips, in a word, 
 in a look! I became excessively timid in a moment. 
 What! not to be able to express the happiness that 
 is naturally caused by the movements of the dance! 
 "But," I said to myself, "what will then become of 
 our sentiments ?" I went to bed sad. I am still 
 feeling keenly the results of this first encounter of 
 my fresh and gay nature with the hard laws of the 
 world. Already some of my white wool is left on 
 the bushes by the roadside ! Adieu, my angel. 
 
 V 
 
 RENE'S DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU 
 
 October. 
 
 How much your letter moved me! affected me 
 above all by the comparison of our destinies. In 
 what a brilliant world are you going to live! in 
 what a peaceful retreat shall I finish my obscure 
 career ! Two weeks after my arrival at the Chateau 
 de Maucombe, of which I have already told you too 
 much to tell you any more, and where I found my
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 41 
 
 chamber almost in the same state in which I left it, 
 but from which I have been able to comprehend the 
 sublime landscape of the valley of Gemenos which 
 as a child I looked at without seeing anything there, 
 my father and my mother, accompanied by my two 
 brothers, took me to dine at the house of one of our 
 neighbors, an old Monsieur de 1'Estorade, a gentle- 
 man become very rich as one becomes rich in the 
 provinces, through avarice. This old man had not 
 been able to save his only son from the rapacity of 
 Bonaparte ; after having kept him from the conscrip- 
 tion, he was obliged to send him to the army in 
 1813, as a guard of honor: since Leipsic, the old 
 Baron de 1'Estorade had never heard from him. 
 Monsieur de Montriveau, whom Monsieur de 1'Es- 
 torade went to see in 1814, declared to him that he 
 had seen him taken by the Russians. Madame de 
 PEstorade died of grief after making fruitless in- 
 quiries in Russia. The baron, a very Christian old 
 man, practised that fine theological virtue which 
 we cultivated at Blois Hope! This virtue caused 
 him to see his son in dreams, and he accumulated 
 his revenues for the son ; he took charge of the 
 share of this son in the inheritance which came to 
 him from the family of the late Madame de 1'Esto- 
 rade. No one had the courage to jest with this old 
 man. I ended by divining that the unhoped-for re- 
 turn of this son was the cause of mine. Who would 
 have said to us that, during the vagabond wander- 
 ings of our imaginations, my intended was slowly 
 traversing on foot Russia, Poland, and Germany?
 
 42 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 His evil destiny only ceased at Berlin, where the 
 French minister facilitated his return to France. 
 Monsieur de 1'Estorade, the father, a little gentle- 
 man of Provence, with a fortune of about ten thou- 
 sand francs' income, has not a name sufficiently well 
 known in Europe for much interest to be taken in 
 the Chevalier de 1'Estorade, whose name was so 
 peculiarly appropriate to the adventurer. 
 
 Twelve thousand francs, the annual product of 
 the property of Madame de 1'Estorade, accumulated 
 with the paternal savings, make for the poor guard 
 of honor a considerable fortune in Provence, some- 
 thing like two hundred and fifty thousand francs, in 
 addition to his real estate. The goodman L'Esto- 
 rade had bought, the evening of the day on which 
 he was again to see the Chevalier, a fine estate 
 badly administered, where he proposed to set out 
 ten thousand mulberry trees which he had pur- 
 posely grown in his nursery, foreseeing this pur- 
 chase. The baron, on finding his son again had 
 but one thought, to marry him, and to marry him to 
 a noble young girl. My father and my mother had 
 adopted for my sake their neighbor's idea as soon as 
 the old man had announced to them his intention to 
 take Renee de Maucombe without a dot, and to 
 recognize for her in the contract all the property 
 which might come to the aforesaid Renee in their 
 inheritance. At the time of his majority, my 
 younger brother, Jean de Maucombe, acknowledged 
 having received from his parents an advance on the 
 inheritance equal to a third of. the heritage. This
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 43 
 
 is how the noble families of Provence elude the pro- 
 visions of the infamous Civil Code of the Sieur de 
 Bonaparte, which would cause to be sent to the 
 convents as many noble daughters as it married. 
 The French nobility is, according to the little which 
 I have heard said on this subject, very much divided 
 in opinion on these grave matters. 
 
 This dinner, my dear mignonne, was an inter- 
 view between your lamb and the exile. Let us 
 proceed in due order. The people of the Comte de 
 Maucombe had arrayed themselves in their old em- 
 broidered liveries, with laced hats; the coachman 
 had put on his big top boots ; there were five of us 
 in the old carriage, and we arrived in great state 
 about two o'clock, to dine at three, at the country 
 house in which dwelt the Baron de 1'Estorade. The 
 father-in-law has no chateau but a simple house in 
 the country, situated at the foot, of one of our hills, 
 at the opening of our beautiful valley, the pride of 
 which is certainly the old Castle of Maucombe. 
 This country house is a country house, four walls 
 of pebbles united by a yellowish cement, covered 
 with hollow tiles of a fine red. The roofs bend 
 under the weight of this brick-field. The windows, 
 pierced through the walls without any symmetry, 
 have enormous shutters painted yellow. The garden 
 which surrounds this habitation is a Provencal 
 garden, inclosed in low walls built of big round 
 pebbles laid in courses, and in which the genius of 
 the mason displays itself in the manner in which he 
 disposes them alternately inclined or upright, the
 
 44 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 facing of plaster which covers them is falling in 
 places. The domanial appearance of this country 
 house is owing to an iron gate at the entrance, on 
 the road. There was long weeping before this gate 
 was acquired ; it is so thin that it reminds me of 
 Sister Angel ique. The house is approached by a 
 flight of stone steps, the door is decorated with a 
 little portico which a peasant of the Loire would not 
 have for his elegant house in white stone with a 
 blue roof, on which the sun glitters. The garden, 
 the surroundings, are horribly dusty, the trees are 
 burnt It is easy to see, that, since a long time, 
 the life of the baron has consisted in rising, in 
 going to bed and in rising again the next day with- 
 out any other care than that of piling sou upon sou. 
 He eats what his two domestics eat, they are a Pro- 
 vencal youth and his wife's old femme de chambre. 
 The rooms have but little furniture. However, the 
 house of L'Estorade was rejuvenated and adorned, 
 it had emptied its closets, convoked the ban and 
 the arriere-ban of its serfs for this dinner, which 
 was served to us in old silver, blackened and 
 dented. The exile, my dear mignonne, is like the 
 iron gate, very thin! He is pale, he has suffered, 
 he is taciturn. At thirty-seven, he looks as though 
 he were fifty years old. The ebony of his ex-hand- 
 some young man's hair is mingled with white like 
 the wing of a lark. His fine blue eyes are hollow; 
 he is a little deaf, which makes him resemble the 
 Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance ; nevertheless, 
 I have graciously consented to become Madame de
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 45 
 
 PEstorade, to permit myself to be given a dot of two 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs, but on the ex- 
 press condition of being mistress, of arranging the 
 country house and of making of it a park. I have 
 formally exacted from my father a condition that he 
 shall concede to me a small supply of water which 
 can be brought from Maucombe here. In a month I 
 shall be Madame de PEstorade, for I pleased, my 
 dear. After the snows of Siberia, a man is very 
 well disposed to find merit in those black eyes, 
 which, as you said, would ripen the fruits that I 
 looked at. Louis de PEstorade appears to be ex- 
 cessively happy to marry the beautiful Renee de 
 Maucombe, such is the glorious appellation of your 
 friend. Whilst you are making ready to harvest 
 the pleasures of that much more vast existence, 
 that of a Demoiselle de Chaulieu in Paris where 
 you will reign, your poor lamb, Renee, that daugh- 
 ter of the desert, has fallen from the Empyrean 
 into which we lifted ourselves to the common reali- 
 ties of a destiny simple as that of an Easter daisy. 
 Yes, I have sworn to myself to console this young 
 man without youth, who passed from the maternal 
 lap to that of war, and from the joys of his country 
 house to the ice and to the labors of Siberia. The 
 uniformity of my coming days will be varied by 
 the humble pleasures of the country. I will con- 
 tinue the oasis of the valley of Gemenos around my 
 house, which shall be majestically shaded with 
 beautiful trees. I shall have lawns always green in 
 Provence, I shall make my park ascend as far as the
 
 46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 hill, I will place on the most elevated point some 
 pretty kiosk from which I may see, perhaps, the 
 brilliant Mediterranean. The orange, the lemon 
 tree, the richest productions of botany shall embel- 
 lish my retreat, and I will there be a materfamilias. 
 A poesy natural, indestructible, shall environ us. 
 While remaining faithful to my duties, no unhappi- 
 ness is to be feared. My Christian sentiments are 
 shared by my father-in-law and by the Chevalier 
 de 1'Estorade. Ah! mignonne, I see life like one of 
 those great French roads, smooth and pleasant, 
 shaded with trees eternal. There will not be two 
 Bonapartes in this century : I shall be able to keep 
 my children, if I have any, bring them up, make 
 of them men; I will enjoy life for them. If you do 
 not fail in your destiny, you who are to be the wife 
 of some powerful one of the earth, the children of 
 your Renee will have an active protection. Fare- 
 well then, for my part at least, to the romances and 
 the fantastic situations in which we made ourselves 
 the heroines. I know already in advance the his- 
 tory of my life: my life will be traversed by the 
 great events of the teething of the Messieurs de 
 PEstorade, by their nursing, by the damage which 
 they will make in my bushes and in my person, 
 to embroider their bonnets, to be loved and admired 
 by a poor man who is suffering, at the entrance of 
 the valley of Gemenos, there are my pleasures. 
 Perhaps one day the countrywoman will go to live 
 in Marseilles during the winter; but even then 
 she will only appear on the narrow stage of the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 47 
 
 provinces, in which the side-scenes are not perilous. 
 I shall have nothing to fear, not even one of those 
 admirations which can render us proud. We will 
 interest ourselves very much in silkworms for 
 which we shall have mulberry leaves to sell. We 
 shall know the strange vicissitudes of the provincial 
 life and the tempests of a household without possi- 
 ble quarrel : Monsieur de 1'Estorade announces his 
 formal intention to allow himself to be ruled by his 
 wife. Now, as I will do nothing to keep him in 
 this wisdom, it is probable that he will persist in 
 it You will be, my dear Louise, the romantic half 
 of my existence. Therefore, relate to me well all 
 your adventures, paint me the balls, the ftes, tell 
 me all about how you are dressed, what flowers 
 crowned your beautiful blonde hair, and the words 
 of the men and their manners. You will be two to 
 listen, to dance, to feel the end of your fingers 
 pressed. I would wish much to amuse myself at 
 Paris, whilst you will be mother of a family at La 
 Crampade, such is the name of our country house. 
 Poor man, who thought to marry only one woman! 
 Will he perceive that there are two? I am com- 
 mencing to say foolishnesses. As I can only do 
 them by proxy, I stop. Therefore, a kiss on each 
 of thy cheeks, my lips are still those of a young 
 girl he only dared to take my hand. Oh! we are 
 of a respectfulness and a conventionality sufficiently 
 disquieting. Well, I am recommencing . Adieu, 
 dear. 
 
 P. S. I have just opened your third letter. My
 
 48 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 dear, I can dispose of about a thousand francs, 
 spend them for me in those pretty things which are 
 not found in these surroundings, nor even at Mar- 
 seilles. In going around for yourself think of your 
 recluse of La Crampade. Think that, neither on 
 one side nor the other, have the grandparents any 
 people of taste in Paris to make their purchases. I 
 will reply later to this letter. 
 
 VI 
 
 DON FELIPE HENAREZ TO DON FERNAND 
 
 Paris, September. 
 
 The date of this letter will inform you, my 
 brother, that the head of your house is not in any 
 danger. If the massacre of our ancestors in the 
 Court of the Lions converted us despite ourselves 
 into Spaniards and Christians, it has left us the 
 prudence of the Arabs; and perhaps I have been 
 indebted for my safety to the blood of Abencerrage 
 which still flows in my veins. Fear rendered Fer- 
 dinand so good an actor, that Valdez believed in his 
 protestations. Had it not been for me, this poor 
 admiral would have been lost. The Liberals will 
 never know what a king really is. But the charac- 
 ter of this Bourbon has been known to me for a long 
 time: the oftener that His Majesty assured us of his 
 protection, the more he excited my suspicion. A 
 true Spaniard has no need to repeat his promises. 
 Who talks too much wishes to deceive. Valdez
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 49 
 
 embarked on an English vessel. As for myself, 
 when the destinies of my beloved Spain were ruined 
 in Andalusia, I wrote to the superintendent of my 
 property in Sardinia to take measures for my safety. 
 Some skilful coral fishers were waiting for me with 
 a bark at a point of the coast. When Ferdinand 
 was recommending to the French my capture, I was 
 in my barony of Macumer, in the midst of bandits 
 who defy all the laws and all vengeances. The last 
 Hispano-Moorish House of Granada had again found 
 the African deserts, even to a Saracen horse, in a 
 domain which came to it from the Saracens. The 
 eyes of these bandits gleamed with joy and with a 
 savage pride when they learned that they were pro- 
 tecting against the vendetta of the King of Spain 
 the Duke of Soria, their master, a Henarez indeed, 
 the first who had come to visit them since the time 
 when the island had belonged to the Moors, they 
 who the day before feared my justice ! Twenty-two 
 carbines were ready to level at Ferdinand the Bour- 
 bon, that son of a race still unknown in the day 
 when the Abencerrages arrived as conquerors on the 
 banks of the Loire. I thought to be able to live on 
 the revenues of these immense domains, of which 
 we have unhappily thought so little; but my so- 
 journ demonstrated to me my errors and the truth- 
 fulness of the reports of Queverdo. The poor man 
 had twenty-two men's lives at my service, and not 
 a real; savannahs of twenty thousand acres in ex- 
 tent and not a house; virgin forests and not a piece 
 of furniture! A million piastres and the presence 
 4
 
 50 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of the master during half a century would be neces- 
 sary to bring into a state of productiveness these 
 magnificent lands : I will think of it in the future. 
 The vanquished reflect during their flight, on them- 
 selves and on their lost cause. When I saw this 
 handsome corpse defaced by the monks, my eyes 
 were filled with tears: I recognized in it the sorrow- 
 ful future of Spain. I heard at Marseilles of the 
 end of Riego. I reflected sorrowfully that my life 
 also would end in a martyrdom, but one obscure 
 and long. Could that be said to be life which 
 would neither consecrate itself to a country, or live 
 for a woman! To love, to conquer, this double 
 aspect of the same thought was the law engraved on 
 our sabres, written in letters of gold on the vaults 
 of our palaces, incessantly repeated in the jets of 
 water which mount in fountains in our marble 
 basins. But this law uselessly imparts fanaticism 
 to my heart: the sabre is broken, the palace is in 
 ashes, the living spring is absorbed by the sterile 
 sands. 
 
 This then is my testament 
 
 Don Fernand, you will understand why I bridle 
 your ardor in ordering you to remain faithful to the 
 rey netto. As your brother and your friend, I en- 
 treat you to obey ; as your master, I command it 
 You will go to the king, you will ask of him my 
 grandeurs and my property, my office and my titles; 
 he will hesitate perhaps, he will make a few royal 
 grimaces; but you will say to him that you are be- 
 loved of Marie Heredia, and that Marie can only
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 51 
 
 espouse the Duke of Soria. You will then see him 
 shake with joy: the immense fortune of the Here- 
 dias will prevent him from consummating my ruin: 
 it will appear to him thus complete, you will im- 
 mediately receive all my spoils. You will espouse 
 Marie : I had surprised the secret of your mutual 
 love so valiantly struggled against. Thus I have 
 prepared the old count for this substitution. Marie 
 and I, we bowed to the conventionalities and to the 
 wishes of our fathers. You are as handsome as a 
 love-child, I am as ugly as a grandee of Spain; 
 you are beloved, I am the object of an unavowed 
 repugnance; you will soon have over come the slight 
 resistance that my misfortune will perhaps inspire 
 in this noble Spanish lady. As Duke of Soria, your 
 predecessor will not wish to cost you a regret nor 
 deprive you of a maravedi. As the jewels of Marie 
 can fill the place which my mother's diamonds 
 would have occupied in your house, you will send 
 me these diamonds, which will be sufficient to assure 
 the independence of my life, by my nurse, the old 
 Urraca, the only person whom I wish to keep of my 
 household retinue: she alone knows how to pre- 
 pare my chocolate. 
 
 During our short revolution, my constant labors 
 reduced my living to the simplest necessities, and 
 the salary of my office provided for them. You will 
 find the revenues of these last two years in the 
 hands of your superintendent This sum belongs 
 to me: the marriage of a Duke of Soria will involve 
 great expenses, we will then share them. You will
 
 52 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 not refuse the wedding present of your brother the 
 bandit Moreover, such is my desire. The barony 
 of Macumer, not being under the hand of the King 
 of Spain, remains to me and leaves me the privilege 
 of having a country and a name, if it should happen 
 that I should wish to become something. 
 
 God be praised, this business is finished, the 
 House of Soria is saved ! 
 
 At the moment when I am no longer anything but 
 the Baron de Macumer, the French cannon announce 
 the entry of the Due d'Angouleme. You will under- 
 stand, monsieur, why I interrupt my letter here 
 
 October. 
 
 When I arrived here, I had not ten quadruples.* 
 A statesman, is he not indeed little when, in the 
 midst of catastrophes which he has not prevented, 
 he displays an egotistical forethought? To the 
 vanquished Moors, a horse and the desert; to the 
 Christians deceived in their hopes, the convent and 
 a few pieces of gold. However, my resignation is 
 as yet nothing but weariness. I am not sufficiently 
 near to the monastery to no longer think of living. 
 Ozalga gave to me at a great risk some letters of 
 recommendation, among which there was one for a 
 bookseller who is to our compatriots here that 
 which Galignani is to the English. This man pro- 
 cured for me eight scholars at three francs a lesson. 
 I go to my pupils every other day, I have thus four 
 
 * Quadruple, Spanish coin of the value of two pistoles, about $8.75.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 53 
 
 lessons a day and earn twelve francs, a sum much 
 superior to my needs. When Urraca arrives I will 
 make the happiness of some proscribed Spaniard by 
 passing over my pupils to him. I am lodged in the 
 Rue Hillerin-Bertin, in the house of a poor widow 
 who takes boarders. My chamber faces south and 
 looks on a little garden. I do not hear any noise, I 
 see the verdure and I do not expend in all more than 
 a piastre a day; I am quite astonished at the calm 
 and pure pleasures which I taste in this life of 
 Dionysius at Corinth. From the rising of the sun 
 up to ten o'clock, I smoke and take my chocolate, 
 seated at my window, looking at two Spanish plants, 
 a genista which arises through the masses of a jes- 
 samine, gold on a white ground, a picture which 
 will always thrill a scion of the Moors. At ten 
 o'clock, I go out and give my lessons up to four 
 o'clock. At that hour I return to dine, I smoke and 
 I read afterwards until my bedtime. I can lead for 
 a long time this life, which mingles work and med- 
 itation, solitude and the world. Do not have any 
 apprehensions, Fernand, my abdication has been 
 accomplished without any afterthought; it is not 
 followed by any regret like that of Charles V., 
 by any desire to renew the struggle like that 
 of Napoleon. Five nights and five days have 
 passed since my last will and testament, reflection 
 has made of them five centuries. Grandeur, titles, 
 worldy goods, are for me as if they had never been. 
 Now that the barrier of respect which separated us 
 has fallen, I can, dear child, open to you my heart
 
 54 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 This heart, which gravity covers with an impene- 
 trable armor, is full of tenderness and of devotions 
 without occupation ; but no woman has ever divined 
 it, not even she who, from the cradle, was destined 
 for me. This is the secret of my ardent political 
 life. In default of a mistress, I adored Spain. 
 Spain also escaped from me ! Now that I am no 
 longer anything, I can contemplate the /destroyed, 
 ask myself why life came to it and when it will 
 leave it? why the chivalrous race par excellence has 
 thrown into its last scion its first virtues, its Afri- 
 can love, its warm poetry? if the seed should pre- 
 serve its rough envelope without pushing out any 
 stem, without dispensing its Oriental perfume from 
 above a radiant calix? What crime had I com- 
 mitted before being born that I have never inspired 
 love in anyone ? Have I been then from my birth 
 an ancient wreck destined to be cast away on an 
 arid shore ? I find in my soul the paternal deserts, 
 lit by a sun which burns them without permitting 
 anything to grow there. Proud remnant of a fallen 
 race, useless strength, lost love, old young man, I 
 will wait then where I am, better than anywhere 
 else, the last favor of death. Alas! under this 
 cloudy sky, no spark will come to reanimate the 
 flame in all these ashes. Thus could I say for my 
 last word, as did Jesus Christ: "My God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me!" A terrible speech which 
 no one has dared to fathom. 
 
 Judge, Fernand, how happy I am to live again 
 in you and in Marie! I shall contemplate you
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 55 
 
 henceforth with the pride of a creator satisfied with 
 his work. Love each other well and always, do not 
 give me any griefs: a discord between you would 
 distress me more than it would you yourselves. 
 Our mother had foreseen that events would one day 
 accomplish her hopes. Perhaps a mother's desire 
 is a contract exchanged between herself and God. 
 Was she not, moreover, one of those mysterious be- 
 ings who can communicate with Heaven and who 
 bring from there a vision of the future ! How many 
 times have I not read in the wrinkles of her fore- 
 head that she desired for Fernand the honors and the 
 estates of Felipe! I said so to her, she replied to 
 me by two tears showing me the wounds of her 
 heart which was entirely devoted to us both, to one 
 as to the other, but which an invincible love gave 
 to you alone. Thus will her joyful shade float over 
 your heads when you bow before the altar. Will 
 you come at last to caress your Felipe, Donna 
 Clara? you see him, he yields to your beloved 
 everything, even to the young girl whom you 
 placed regretfully on his knees. That which I am 
 doing pleases the women, the dead, the king, God 
 wishes it, do not then disarrange anything of it, 
 Fernand : obey and keep silent 
 
 P. S. Recommend to Urraca not to speak of me 
 otherwise than as Monsieur Henarez. Do not say 
 a word of me to Marie. You should be the only 
 living being who knows the secrets of the last 
 Christianized Moor, in whose veins will perish the
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 blood of the great family born in the desert, and 
 which is to end in solitude. Adieu. 
 
 VII 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE 
 
 January, 1824. 
 
 How, so soon married ! but do people take each 
 other in this manner ? At the end of a month, you 
 promise yourself to a man, without being acquainted 
 with him, without even knowing him. This man 
 may be deaf, there are so many ways of being so! 
 he may be unhealthy, wearisome, insupportable. 
 Do you not see, Renee, what they are going to do 
 with you? You are necessary to them to continue 
 the glorious house of L'Estorade, and that is all. 
 You are going to become a provincial. Are these 
 our mutual promises? In your place, I would rather 
 go and drift around the Hyeres Islands in a launch 
 until an Algerian corsair carried me off and sold me 
 to the Grand Seigneur; I would become sultana, 
 then some day Valide; I would set the Seraglio 
 topsy-turvy, and as much while I was young as 
 when I was old. You come out of one convent to 
 enter into another ! I know you, you are cowardly, 
 you are going to enter a household with the submis- 
 sion of a lamb. I will give you some advice, you 
 will come to Paris, we will here set the men wild 
 and we will become queens. Your husband, my
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 57 
 
 beautiful lamb, can, in three years from now, get 
 himself elected deputy. I know now what a deputy 
 is, I will explain it to you; you can play very well 
 on this machine; you can live in Paris and there 
 become, as my mother says, a woman d, la mode. 
 Oh! I certainly will not leave you in your country 
 house ! 
 
 Monday. 
 
 It is now two weeks, my dear, that I have been 
 living a fashionable life, one evening at the Ita- 
 liens, the other at the Grand Opera, from there 
 always to a ball. Ah! the world is a fairy spec- 
 tacle. The music of the Italiens seemed to me rav- 
 ishing, and, while my soul was swimming in a 
 divine pleasure, I was watched through the opera- 
 glasses, admired; but with only one look I could 
 make the most courageous young man lower his 
 eyes. I have seen there such charming young per- 
 sons; well, not one of them has pleased me; none 
 has caused me the emotion which I feel when hear- 
 ing Garcia in his magnificent duet with Pelegrini 
 in Othello. Mon Dieu! how that Rossini must have 
 been jealous, to have so well expressed jealousy! 
 What a cry that of // mio cor si divide ! I am tal king 
 Greek to you, you have not heard Garcia, but you 
 know how jealous I am ! What a sorrowful dram- 
 atist is that Shakespeare! Othello conquers 
 glory, he gains victory, he commands, he parades, 
 he promenades himself, leaving Desdemona in her 
 corner; and Desdemona, who sees him preferring
 
 58 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the stupidities of public life to her, does not com- 
 plain? This sheep is worthy of death. Let him 
 whom I shall deign to love dare to do anything else 
 besides loving me! For my part, I am for the long 
 trials of ancient chivalry. I consider as very im- 
 pertinent and very stupid that clown of a young 
 lord who took it ill that his sovereign lady sent him 
 to seek her glove among the lions, she reserved 
 for him doubtless some fine flower of love, and he 
 lost it after having merited it, the insolent! But I 
 chatter as though I had no great news to reveal to 
 you! My father will doubtless go to represent the 
 king, our master, at Madrid : I say our master, for I 
 shall make part of the embassy. My mother de- 
 sires to remain here, my father will take me with 
 him so as to have a woman in his household. 
 
 My dear, you see in this only something very 
 simple, yet nevertheless, there is in it something 
 monstrous : in two weeks I have discovered the se- 
 crets of the household. My mother would follow my 
 father to Madrid, if he would take Monsieur Canal is 
 as Secretary of Embassy ; but the king designates 
 the secretaries, the duke dare not go contrary to 
 the king, who is very absolute, nor vex my mother; 
 and this great politician believes that he has solved 
 the difficulties in leaving the duchess here. Mon- 
 sieur de Canalis, the great poet of the day, is the 
 young man who cultivates my mother's society, and 
 who doubtless studies diplomacy with her from 
 three o'clock to five. Diplomacy must be a fine 
 thing, for he is as assiduous as a gambler at the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 59 
 
 Bourse. Monsieur le Due de Rhetore, our eldest, 
 solemn, cold, and fantastic, would be eclipsed by 
 his father at Madrid, he remains in Paris. Miss 
 Griffith knows moreover, that Alphonse is in love 
 with a danseuse at the Opera. How can one love 
 legs and pirouettes? We have noticed that my 
 brother is present at the performances when Tullia 
 dances, he applauds the steps of this creature and 
 leaves immediately afterwards. I think that two 
 daughters in one house would make more ravages 
 there than a pestilence. As to my second brother, 
 he is with his regiment, I have not yet seen him. 
 This is how I am destined to be the Antigone of an 
 Ambassador of His Majesty. Perhaps I shall be 
 married in Spain, and perhaps my father's idea is 
 to marry me there without a dot, absolutely as you 
 have been married to the remnant of the old Guard 
 of Honor. My father proposed to me to follow him 
 and offered me his teacher of Spanish. 
 
 "You wish," I said to him, "to have me make 
 some marriages in Spain?" 
 
 For all reply he honored me with a shrewd look. 
 He has amused himself for the last few days with 
 tormenting me at dejeuner, he studies me and I dis- 
 simulate ; thus I have, as father and as ambassador, 
 in petto, cruelly mystified him. Did he not take me 
 for a silly? He asked me what 1 thought of such a 
 young man and of certain demoiselles whom 1 have 
 met in several houses. 1 replied to him by the most 
 stupid discussion on the color of the hair, on the 
 difference of the figures, on the physiognomy of the
 
 60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 young persons. My father seemed disappointed to 
 find me so vacant, he blamed himself inwardly for 
 having interrogated me. 
 
 "However, mon p&re," I added, "I do not say 
 what I really think, my mother has recently made 
 me fear to appear unseemly in speaking of my im- 
 pressions. " 
 
 "In your own family, you can express yourself 
 without fear," replied my mother. 
 
 "Well," 1 resumed, "up to the present, young 
 people have appeared to me to be more interested 
 than interesting, more occupied with themselves 
 than with us; but they have, in fact, very little 
 dissimulation, they put off in a moment the ex- 
 pression which they have assumed to speak to us, 
 thinking doubtless that we do not know how to use 
 our eyes. The man who speaks to us is the lover, 
 the man who no longer speaks to us is the husband. 
 As to the young women, they are so false that it is 
 impossible to judge of their character otherwise 
 than by that of their dance, it is only their figure 
 and their movements which do not lie. I have 
 above all been frightened at the brutality of the fine 
 world. When it is a question of supper, there takes 
 place due allowance being made for proportion 
 things which give me an idea of the popular out- 
 bursts. Politeness conceals only very imperfectly 
 the general egotism. I imagined to myself the 
 world as very different. Women in it are counted 
 for very little, and perhaps this is a remnant of the 
 doctrines of Bonaparte."
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 6 1 
 
 "Armande is making astonishing progress," said 
 my mother. 
 
 "Ma mire, do you think that I am always going 
 to ask if Madame de Stael is dead?" 
 
 My father smiled and rose. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 My dear, I have not told you all. This is what I 
 keep from you. Of that love which we imagined 
 should be profoundly hidden I have not seen any 
 sign anywhere. I have indeed surprised some looks 
 rapidly exchanged in the salons; but what pale 
 ones! Our love, that world of marvels, of beauti- 
 ful dreams, of delicious realities, and of sorrows 
 answering each other, those smiles which light up 
 all nature, those words which ravish, that happi- 
 ness always given, always received, those sad- 
 nesses caused by separation and those joys so 
 prodigally given by the presence of the beloved 
 one! of all that, nothing. Where do all these 
 splendid flowers of the soul have birth? Who lies? 
 we or the world? I have already seen youths, 
 men by hundreds, and not one of them has caused 
 me the least emotion; they might have testified 
 to me their admiration and devotion, they might 
 have fought for me, I would have surveyed it all 
 with an unmoved eye. Love, my dear, relates 
 to a phenomenon so rare, that one can live through 
 life without encountering the being to whom nature 
 has imparted the power of rendering us happy. 
 This reflection causes us to shudder, for, if this
 
 62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 being should be encountered late, what would 
 you say ? 
 
 Within the last few days, I have begun to be ter- 
 rified at our destiny, to understand why so many 
 women have sad countenances under the layer of 
 vermilion which is given them- by the false joys of 
 a festival. Marriages are made by chance, and 
 you have been married in this manner. Storms of 
 thoughts have passed through my soul. To be 
 loved always in the same manner and yet differ- 
 ently, to be loved as much after ten years of happi- 
 ness as on the first day! Such a love is worth 
 years : it is necessary that it should be desired for 
 a very long time, that it should have awakened 
 many curiosities and satisfied them, that it should 
 have excited many sympathies and responded to 
 them. Are there then laws for the creations of the 
 heart, as for those of the visible creations of nature ? 
 Can gaiety maintain itself? In what proportion 
 should love mingle its tears and its pleasures ? The 
 cold combinations of the funereal, equal, permanent 
 life of the convent formerly seemed to me possible; 
 while the richness, the magnificence, the tears, the 
 delights, the fetes, the joys, the pleasures of equal 
 love partaken, permitted, seemed to me impossible. I 
 do not see any place in this city for the sweetnesses of 
 love, for those holy walks under the elm, in the 
 light of the full moon, when it glitters on the waters 
 and when one resists prayers. Rich, young, and 
 beautiful, I have only to love, love might become 
 my whole life, my sole occupation: well, for three
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 63 
 
 months that I have been coming and going with an 
 impatient curiosity, I have encountered nothing 
 among these brilliant, eager, sprightly looks. No 
 voice has moved me, no regard has illuminated for me 
 this world. Music only has filled my soul, it alone 
 has been for me that which our friendship is. I 
 have remained sometimes for an hour at my window 
 in the night, looking at the garden, calling up 
 events, demanding of them the unknown source 
 from which they came. I have sometimes gone out 
 in a carriage to drive, getting out to walk in the 
 Champs-Elysees in imagining that a man, that he 
 who would re-awaken my torpid soul, would arrive, 
 would follow me, would look at me; but on those 
 days I have seen the street jugglers, the ginger- 
 bread sellers and the mountebanks, passers-by hur- 
 rying to attend to their affairs, or lovers who 
 shunned all looks, and I was tempted to stop them 
 and to say to them : "You who are happy, tell me 
 what is love?" But I restrained these foolish 
 thoughts, I got into the carriage again and I prom- 
 ised myself to remain an old maid. Love is cer- 
 tainly an incarnation, and how many conditions 
 does it not require in order that it should take 
 place! We are not certain of always being in 
 accord with ourselves, what would it be with two ? 
 God alone can solve this problem. I commence to 
 think that I shall return to the convent If I re- 
 main in the world, I shall do things which will 
 resemble stupidities, for it is impossible for me to 
 accept that which I see. Everything wounds my
 
 64 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 delicacies, the manners and customs of my soul, or 
 my secret thoughts. Ah ! my mother is the most 
 happy woman in the world, she is adored by her 
 great little Canalis. My angel, I am assailed by 
 horrible desires to know what passes between my 
 mother and this young man. Griffith has had, she 
 says, all these thoughts; she has had a strong 
 desire to leap at the faces of the women whom she 
 saw happy ; she has disparaged them, rent them. 
 According to her, virtue consists in burying all 
 these thoughts of savageries in the bottom of the 
 heart. What is then the bottom of the heart ? A 
 depository of everything that we have of evil. I 
 am very much humiliated not to have found an 
 adorer. I am a young girl to be married, but I have 
 brothers, a family, parents who are very sensitive. 
 Ah ! if that is the reason of the restraint of the men, 
 they are very cowardly. The r61e of Chimene, in 
 Le Cid, and that of the Cid filled me with delight. 
 What an admirable theatre-piece ! Come, farewell. 
 
 VIII 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 January. 
 
 We have for instructor a poor refugee forced to 
 conceal himself in consequence of his participation 
 in the Revolution which the Duke d'Angouleme 
 suppressed ; a triumph to which we were indebted 
 for some brilliant festivals. Although liberal and
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 65 
 
 doubtless bourgeois, this man interested me: I 
 imagined that he had been condemned to death. I 
 made him talk to discover his secret, but he is of 
 Castilian taciturnity, proud as if he were Gonzalva 
 of Cordova, and, nevertheless, of an angelic gentle- 
 ness and patience ; his pride is not displayed like 
 that of Miss Griffith, it is all inward; he causes that 
 which is due him to be rendered him by fulfilling 
 his duties to us, and keeps us at a distance from him 
 by the respect which he testifies to us. My father 
 pretends that there is a good deal of the grand 
 seigneur in the Sieur Henarez, whom he calls, be- 
 tween ourselves, Don Henarez by way of jest 
 When I allowed myself to address him thus, a few 
 days ago, this man lifted to me his eyes, which he 
 usually keeps lowered, and launched at me two 
 glances which amazed me; my dear, he has cer- 
 tainly the finest eyes in the world. I asked him 
 if I had vexed him in any way, and he said to 
 me then in his sublime and grandiose Spanish 
 tongue : 
 
 "Mademoiselle, I come here only to teach you 
 Spanish." 
 
 I felt myself humiliated, I blushed, I was about 
 to reply to him by some fine impertinence, when I 
 remembered what our dear mother in God had said 
 to us, and I then replied to him : 
 
 "If you should have to correct me in anything 
 whatever, I should be obliged to you." 
 
 He was moved, the blood colored his olive skin, 
 he answered me in a voice that trembled slightly: 
 5
 
 66 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "Religion should teach you better than I should 
 be able to, to respect great misfortunes. If I were 
 a Don in Spain, and had lost everything at the 
 triumph of Ferdinand VII., your jest would be a 
 cruelty; but, if I am only a poor teacher of lan- 
 guages, is it not an atrocious mockery ? Neither is 
 worthy of a noble young girl." 
 
 I took his hand saying to him : 
 
 "I will invoke also religion to pray you to forget 
 my wrong." 
 
 He lowered his head, opened my Don Quixote 
 and sat down. This little incident caused me more 
 emotion than all the compliments, the looks and the 
 phrases which I have received during the evening 
 in which I have been the most courted. During the 
 lesson,! looked attentively at this man, who allowed 
 himself to be examined without knowing it: he 
 never lifts his eyes to me. I discovered that our 
 instructor, whom we supposed to be forty years old, 
 was young ; he cannot be more than twenty-six or 
 twenty-eight. My governess, to whom I abandoned 
 him, caused me to remark the beauty of his black 
 hair and that of his teeth, which are like pearls. 
 As to his eyes, they are at once of velvet and of 
 fire. That is all, he is for the rest little and ugly. 
 The Spaniards have been described to us as not 
 very clean; but he is extremely well cared for, his 
 hands are whiter than his face; his back is slightly 
 stooped ; his head is enormous and of an odd shape ; 
 his ugliness, sufficiently spiritual moreover, is 
 aggravated by the marks of the small-pox which
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 67 
 
 have pitted his visage ; his forehead is very promi- 
 nent, his eyebrows join and are too heavy, they 
 give him a hard appearance which repels sympathy. 
 He has the grim and unhealthy aspect which dis- 
 tinguishes the children that are not destined to 
 live and who owe their lives only to infinite care, 
 like sister Martha. In short, as my father says, 
 he has the mask somewhat softened of Cardinal 
 Ximenes. My father does not like him, he feels 
 constrained with him. The manners of our in- 
 structor have a natural dignity which seems to dis- 
 quiet the dear duke ; he cannot suffer superiority 
 in any form near him. As soon as my father 
 knows Spanish, we will set out for Madrid. Two 
 days after the lesson which I had received, when 
 Henarez returned, I said to him to indicate to him a 
 sort of gratitude : 
 
 "I do not doubt that you have' left Spain in con- 
 sequence of political events; if my father is sent 
 there, as it is said, we shall be in the way of ren- 
 dering you some service and of obtaining your par- 
 don, in case you have been condemned." 
 
 "It is in the power of no one to oblige me," he 
 replied. 
 
 "How, Monsieur," I said to him, "is it because 
 you do not wish to accept any protection, or because 
 it is impossible?" 
 
 "Both," he said bowing, and with an accent 
 which reduced me to silence. 
 
 My father's blood boiled in my veins. This 
 haughtiness revolted me, and I left the Sieur Henarez
 
 68 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 alone. However, my dear, there is something fine 
 in not wishing to receive anything from others. 
 "He will not accept even our friendship," I thought 
 in conjugating a verb. There I stopped, and I re- 
 peated to him the thought which occurred to me, but 
 in Spanish. The Henarez replied to me very cour- 
 teously that the feelings required an equality which 
 was not to be found in this case, and that therefore 
 this question was useless. 
 
 "Do you understand equality as relative to the 
 reciprocity of feelings or to the difference of ranks ?" 
 I asked him to endeavor to draw him out of his 
 gravity, which made me impatient. 
 
 He lifted once more his redoubtable eyes and I 
 lowered mine. Dear, this man is an insolvable 
 enigma. He seemed to ask me if my words were 
 a declaration : there was in his look a happiness, a 
 pride, an anguish of uncertainty which constricted 
 my heart I understood that these coquetries, 
 which are in France esteemed at their just value, 
 assume a dangerous signification with a Spaniard, 
 and I withdrew a little stupidly into my shell. 
 When the lesson was finished, he saluted me throw- 
 ing upon me a look full of humble prayers, and 
 which said: "Do not amuse yourself with an unfor- 
 tunate." This sudden contrast with his grave and 
 dignified manners made a lively impression upon 
 me. Is it not horrible to think and to say ? it seems 
 to me that there are treasures of affection in this 
 man.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 69 
 
 IX 
 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADEMOISELLE DE 
 CHAULIEU 
 
 December. 
 
 Everything is said and everything is done, my 
 dear child, it is Madame de 1'Estorade who writes 
 to you ; but there is nothing changed between us, 
 there is only one young girl the less. Do not be 
 disturbed, I thought over my consent, and I did not 
 give it foolishly. My life is now determined. The 
 certainty of proceeding in a designated road accords 
 equally well with my spirit and my character. A 
 great moral force has corrected for all time that 
 which we call the chances of life. We have grounds 
 to make valuable, a dwelling to ornament, to em- 
 bellish; I have an interior to conduct and to render 
 pleasant, a man to reconcile with life. I shall have 
 without doubt a family to take care of, children to 
 bring up. What do you desire! ordinary life could 
 not be anything great or excessive. Certainly, the 
 immense desires which expand the soul and the 
 mind do not enter into these combinations, appar- 
 ently at least Who prevents me from sending to 
 drift on the sea of the infinite those embarkations 
 which we once launched on it? Nevertheless, do 
 not think that the humble things to which I devote 
 myself are exempt from passion. The task of 
 bringing to believe in happiness a poor man who 
 has been the sport of the tempest is a noble work,
 
 70 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and will be sufficient to modify the monotony of my 
 existence. I have not been able to see that I should 
 give way to sorrow, and I have seen good to be 
 done. Between ourselves, I do not love Louis de 
 PEstorade with that love which makes the heart 
 beat when one hears a step, which moves us pro- 
 foundly at the least sound of a voice, or when an 
 ardent regard envelops us; but he does not in the 
 least displease me, nevertheless. What" shall I do, 
 you would say to me, with that instinct for sublime 
 things, with those great thoughts which united us 
 and which are in us ? Yes, this is what has preoc- 
 cupied me. Well, is it not a great thing to hide 
 them, to employ them, unknown to all, for the hap- 
 piness of a family, to make of them the means of 
 the happiness of beings who are confided to us and 
 to whom we belong? The season during which 
 these faculties are at their highest development is 
 very limited with women, it will soon be passed; 
 and, if my life has not been great, it will have been 
 calm, united and without vicissitudes. We are 
 born with certain endowments, we can choose be- 
 tween love and maternity. Well, I have chosen, 
 I will make my divinities of my children and my 
 Eldorado of this corner of the earth. This is all I 
 can say to you to-day. I thank you for all the 
 things which you have sent me. Look over my 
 orders, the list of which is added to this letter. I 
 wish to live in an atmosphere of luxury and of ele- 
 gance, and to have of the province only that which it 
 can offer of the delightful. In remaining in solitude,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 71 
 
 a woman can never become provincial, she remains 
 herself. I rely greatly on your devotion to keep 
 me informed of all the things of the world. In his 
 enthusiasm, my father-in-law refuses me nothing 
 and turns his house upside down. We are going to 
 have workmen from Paris and we will modernize 
 everything. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE CHAULIEU TO MADAME DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 January. 
 
 O Renee, you have saddened me for several 
 days! So, that delicious body, that proud and 
 handsome countenance, those manners so naturally 
 elegant, that soul full of precious gifts, those eyes 
 in which the soul quenches its ;thirst as at a living 
 source of love, that heart filled with exquisite deli- 
 cacies, that wide spirit, all those so rare faculties, 
 those products of nature and of our mutual educa- 
 tion, those treasures from which should issue for 
 passion and for desire unique riches, poems, hours 
 which should have been worth years, pleasures to 
 render a man the slave of a single graceful move- 
 ment, all that is to be lost in the tediousness of a 
 common and vulgar marriage, to be effaced in the 
 emptiness of a life which will become to you weari- 
 some! I hate in advance the children which you 
 will have; they will be badly constituted. Every- 
 thing is foreseen in your life: you will have neither
 
 72 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to hope, nor to fear, nor to suffer. And if you 
 should encounter, in some day of splendor, a being 
 who will awaken you from a slumber to which you 
 are going to give yourself up ? Ah ! I have shud- 
 dered at this thought At least, you have a friend. 
 You will be without doubt the spirit of this valley, 
 you will initiate yourself into all its beauties, you 
 will live with this nature, you will be penetrated 
 with the grandeur of all things, with the slowness 
 with which vegetation develops, with the rapidity 
 with which thought travels; and, when you look at 
 your smiling flowers, you will return into yourself. 
 Then, when you walk with your husband before 
 you and your children behind, the one screaming, 
 murmuring, playing, the other mute and satisfied, I 
 know in advance what you will write to me. Your 
 valley which intoxicates and its hills, arid or shaded 
 with handsome trees, your so curious Provencal 
 meadow, its clear waters divided into streamlets, 
 the different tints of the light, all this infinitude, 
 varied by God and surrounding you, will recall to 
 you the infinite monotony of your own heart But 
 at least I shall be there, my Renee, and you will 
 find a friend whose heart will never be affected by 
 the least social pettiness, a heart all your own. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 My dear, my Spaniard is of an admirable melan- 
 choly, there is in him an unspeakable calmness, 
 austerity, worthiness, earnestness which interest
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 73 
 
 me to the last degree. This constant solemnity and 
 the silence which covers this man have in them 
 something provocative for the soul. He is mute 
 and superb like a fallen king. We occupy our- 
 selves greatly with him, Griffith and I, as with an 
 enigma. What an absurdity ! a teacher of languages 
 has the triumph of attracting more of my attention 
 than any other man has done, I who have now 
 passed in review all the sons of noble families, all 
 the attaches of embassy and the ambassadors, the 
 generals and the sub-lieutenants, the peers of 
 France, their sons and their nephews, the Court and 
 the city. The coldness of this man is irritating. 
 The most profound pride fills the desert which he 
 endeavors to put and does put between us ; in short, 
 he envelops himself in obscurity. It is he who 
 has the coquetry and it is I who have the enter- 
 prise. This strangeness amuses me all the more 
 that all this is without consequence. What is a 
 man, a Spaniard and a teacher of languages? I do 
 not feel within me the least respect for any man 
 whatever, were he a king. I find that we are worth 
 more than all the men, even the most justly illus- 
 trious. Oh! howl would have dominated Napo- 
 leon! how I would have made him feel, if he had 
 loved me, that he was at my mercy! 
 
 Yesterday I launched an epigram which must 
 have touched Master Henarez to the quick ; he made 
 no reply, he had finished his lesson, he took his hat 
 and saluted, giving me a look which made me think 
 that he will never return. This seems to me a
 
 74 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 great deal, there would be something sinister in 
 recommencing the Nouvelle Heloise of Jean- Jacques 
 Rousseau, which I have just read and which causes 
 me to hate all love. Discussing and phrasing love 
 seems to me insupportable. Clarissa is also too 
 much contented when she has written her long little 
 letter; but Richardson's book explains moreover, 
 admirably, my father tells me, the English charac- 
 ter. That of Rousseau has upon me the effect of an 
 epistolary philosophical sermon. 
 
 Love is, I believe, a poem entirely personal. 
 There is nothing that is not at once both false and 
 true in all that the authors write for us about it. 
 Verily, my pretty dear, as you can only tell me of 
 conjugal love, I think, in the well understood in- 
 terests of our double existence, it is necessary that 
 I should remain single, and that I should have some 
 fine passion, so that we may get to know life well. 
 Relate to me very exactly everything that happens 
 to you, especially in the first days, with that animal 
 which I call a husband. I promise you the same 
 exactitude, if ever I am loved. Adieu, poor swal- 
 lowed-up dear. 
 
 XI 
 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADEMOISELLE DE 
 CHAULIEU 
 
 La Crampade. 
 
 Your Spaniard and you, you make me shudder, 
 my dear mignonne. I write you these few lines to
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 75 
 
 entreat you to send him away. Everything that 
 you say to me of him relates to the most dangerous 
 character of those of this class who, not having any- 
 thing to lose, risk everything. This man should not 
 be your lover and cannot be your husband. I will 
 write you more in detail on the secret events of my 
 marriage, but when I shall no longer have at heart 
 the uneasiness which your last letter has occa- 
 sioned me. 
 
 XII 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE CHAULIEU TO MADAME DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 February. 
 
 My beautiful lamb, this morning at nine o'clock, 
 my father was announced in my apartment: I was 
 up and dressed. I found him seated gravely at the 
 chimney-corner, in my salon, thoughtful beyond 
 his usual custom ; he indicated to me the sofa oppo- 
 site to him, I understood him, and took my place on it 
 with a gravity which mimicked his own so well that 
 he commenced to smile, but a smile tinged with a 
 grave sadness. 
 
 "You are at least as clever as your grandmother," 
 he said to me. 
 
 "Come, monptre, do not play the courtier here," 
 I replied to him; "you have something to ask me!" 
 
 He rose in great agitation, and talked to me for 
 half an hour. This conversation, my dear, de- 
 serves to be preserved. As soon as he had gone, I
 
 76 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 placed myself at my table endeavoring to set down 
 his words. This is the first time that I had known 
 my father to express himself fully. He commenced 
 by flattering me, in which he was not altogether ill- 
 advised; I should at least be grateful to him for 
 having divined me and appreciated me. 
 
 "Armande," he said to me, "you have curiously 
 deceived me and agreeably surprised me. When 
 you arrived from the convent, I took you for a young 
 girl like all the other young girls, without much 
 judgment, ignorant, who can be bought off cheaply 
 with gewgaws, finery, and who reflect but little." 
 "Thank you, monpere, for the young girls." 
 "Oh! it is no longer a question of young girls!" 
 said he, with the involuntary gesture of a man of 
 public affairs. "You have a mind of an incredible 
 breadth, you judge everything by its intrinsic worth, 
 your acuteness is extreme; you are very malicious, 
 you are believed to have seen nothing when in 
 fact you have your eyes on the cause of the effects 
 which others are examining. You are a minister 
 in petticoats ; there is no one but you who could 
 understand me here, there is then only yourself to 
 employ against you if it were wished to obtain some 
 sacrifice from you. Therefore I have come to ex- 
 plain myself frankly concerning the designs which 
 I have formed and in which I persist. In order to 
 cause you to adopt them I must demonstrate to you 
 that they require elevated sentiments. I am there- 
 fore obliged to enter into political considerations of 
 the highest interest for the kingdom, and which
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 77 
 
 might weary any other person than you. After 
 having heard me, you will have a long time for re- 
 flection; I will give you six months if necessary. 
 You are your own absolute mistress; and, if you 
 refuse the sacrifices which I ask of you, I will sub- 
 mit to your refusal without tormenting you any 
 more." 
 
 At this exordium, my lamb, I became really seri- 
 ous, and I said to him : 
 
 "Speak, monplre." 
 
 Well, here is what the statesman pronounced: 
 
 "My child, France is in a precarious situation 
 which is known only to the king and some lofty 
 minds ; but the king is a head without arms ; and 
 the great minds which are in the secret of the dan- 
 ger have no authority over the men to be employed 
 in order to arrive at happy results. These men, 
 vomited up by the popular elections, are not willing 
 to serve as instruments. However remarkable they 
 may be, they continue the work of social destruc- 
 tion, instead of aiding us to re-establish the edifice. 
 In two words, there are now only two parties, that 
 of Marius and that of Sylla; I am for Sylla against 
 Marius. This is our situation broadly. As to de- 
 tails, the Revolution continues, it is implanted in 
 the law, it is written on the soil, it is always in 
 men's minds: it is so much the more formidable 
 that it appears to be vanquished to the greater num- 
 ber of those counselors of the throne who see in it 
 neither soldiers nor treasures. The king has a 
 great mind, he sees clearly here; but, from day to
 
 78 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 day more and more under the influence of his 
 brother's followers, who wish to go too fast, he has 
 not two years to live, and this dying man arranges 
 his draperies to die peacefully. Do you know, my 
 child, what are the most destructive effects of the 
 Revolution? You would never suspect them. In 
 cutting off the head of Louis XVI., the Revolution 
 has struck off all the heads of fathers of families. 
 There is no longer any family to-day, there is no 
 longer anything but individuals. In wishing to be- 
 come a nation, the French have renounced being an 
 Empire. In proclaiming the equality of rights to 
 the paternal inheritance, they have killed the fam- 
 ily spirit, they have created the exchequer. But 
 they have provided for the feebleness of superior- 
 ities and the blind force of the masses, for the 
 extinction of the arts, the reign of personal interest 
 and opened the pathways to conquest We are be- 
 tween two systems : either to constitute the State 
 by the family, or to constitute it by personal inter- 
 est, democracy or aristocracy, discussion or obedi- 
 ence, Catholicism or religious indifference, that is 
 the question in a few words. I am of the small 
 number of those who wish to resist that which is 
 called the people, in their own interest be it under- 
 stood. It is no longer a question of feudal rights, 
 as the fools are told, and of gentility; it is a ques- 
 tion of the State, it is a question of the life of 
 France. Every country which does not estab- 
 lish its base on paternal power is without an 
 assured existence. There commences the ladder of
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 79 
 
 responsibilities, and the subordination, which as- 
 cends even to the king. The king, he is all of us! 
 To die for the king, that is to die for one's self, for 
 one's family, which does not die any more surely 
 than does the kingdom. Each animal has its own 
 instinct; that of man is the family spirit. A nation 
 is strong when it is composed of rich families, all 
 the members of which are interested in the defence 
 of the common treasure, treasure of money, of 
 glory, of privileges, of enjoyments; it is weak when 
 it is composed of individuals not bound together, to 
 whom it matters but little whether they obey seven 
 men or one only, a Russian or a Corsican, provided 
 that each individual keeps his own field; and this 
 unhappy egotist does not see that some day this 
 field will be taken from him. We are on the way 
 to a horrible state of affairs, in case of failure. 
 There will no longer be any but penal or fiscal laws, 
 the purse or the life. The most generous country 
 on the earth will no longer be conducted by senti- 
 ments. They should have been developed there, 
 nursed for incurable wounds. In the first place, 
 there will be a universal jealousy: the superior 
 classes will be hopelessly confounded, the equality 
 of wishes will be taken for the equality of capacity; 
 the real superiorities recognized, authenticated, will 
 be invaded by the masses of the bourgeoisie. A 
 man can be chosen among a thousand; nothing can 
 be found among three millions of similar ambitions, 
 clothed with the same livery, that of mediocrity. 
 This triumphant mass will not perceive that it will
 
 80 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 have against it a terrible mass, that of the peasant 
 owners, twenty millions of acres of land, living, 
 marching, reasoning, understanding nothing, always 
 wishing more, barricading everything, disposing of 
 brutal strength " 
 
 "But," said I interrupting my father, "what can 
 I do for the State? I do not feel the slightest dis- 
 position to become the family Joan of Arc and to 
 perish at the stake of a convent." 
 
 "You are a little plague," said my father to me. 
 "If I speak seriously to you, you answer me by 
 jests; when I jest, you speak to me as if you were 
 ambassador." 
 
 "Love lives by contrasts," I said to him. 
 
 And he laughed till the tears came in his eyes. 
 
 "You will think about what I have explained to 
 you; you will remark how much there is of confi- 
 dence and of grandeur in speaking to you as I have 
 just done, and perhaps events will help my projects. 
 I know that, as to yourself, these projects will be 
 injurious, iniquitous; therefore I ask their approval 
 less of your heart and of your imagination than of 
 your reason, I have recognized more reason and 
 good sense in you than I have seen in any one else 
 whomsoever " 
 
 "You flatter yourself," I said to himsmiling,"for 
 I am indeed your daughter!" 
 
 "In short," he resumed, "I could not be inconsist- 
 ent Who wishes the end wishes the means, and 
 we owe the example to all. Therefore, you are not 
 entitled to a fortune so long as that of your younger
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 8 1 
 
 brother is not assured, and I wish to employ your 
 entire capital in constituting a majorat for him." 
 
 "But," I replied, "you do not forbid me to live 
 as I please and to be happy when I pass over my 
 fortune to you?" 
 
 "Ah! provided," he answered, "that life as you 
 understand it should reflect in no way upon the 
 honor, the consideration and, I may add, the glory of 
 your family." 
 
 "Come," I cried, "you strip me very promptly 
 of my superior reason." 
 
 "We will not find in France," he said with bit- 
 terness, "a man who would wish for wife a young 
 girl of the highest nobility without dot and who 
 would acknowledge her to be herself a sufficient for- 
 tune. If this husband should be encountered, he 
 will belong to the class of parvenu bourgeois: I am, 
 in this respect, of the eleventh century." 
 
 "And 1 also," I said to him. "But why do you 
 make me despair ? are there not some old peers of 
 France?" 
 
 "You are well advanced, Louise," he cried. 
 
 Then he left me smiling after having kissed my 
 hand. 
 
 I received your letter this very morning, and it 
 caused me to think precisely of that abyss in which 
 you assume that I might fall. It seemed that a 
 voice cried to me within myself: "You will fall 
 in!" I have, therefore, taken my precaution. 
 Henarez dares to look at me, my dear, and his eyes 
 trouble me, they produce upon me a sensation which 
 6
 
 82 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 I can only compare to that of profound terror. This 
 man should no more be looked at than should a toad; 
 he is ugly and fascinating. Here are now two days 
 that I have been deliberating with myself whether 
 I should say plainly to my father that I did not wish 
 to take any more lessons, and cause this Henarez 
 to be dismissed; but, after my virile resolutions, I 
 felt within me the need of being moved by the hor- 
 rible sensations which I experienced on seeing this 
 man, and I said: "Just once more, and then I will 
 speak." My dear, his voice is of a penetrating 
 sweetness, he speaks as La Fodor sings. His man- 
 ners are simple and without the least affectation. 
 And what beautiful teeth! Just now, on leaving 
 me, he seemed to notice how much he interested me, 
 and he made the motion, very respectfully more- 
 over, of taking my hand to kiss it; but he repressed 
 it, as if frightened at his boldness and the distance 
 which he was about to overleap. Notwithstanding 
 the little of this that he showed, I guessed it; I 
 smiled, for nothing is more provocative of tender- 
 ness than to see the impulse of an inferior nature 
 which is thrown back upon itself. There is so 
 much audacity in the love of a bourgeois for a noble 
 young girl ! My smile encouraged him, the poor 
 man looked for his hat without seeing it, he was 
 not able to find it, and I brought it to him gravely. 
 His eyes were moistened by restrained tears. 
 There was a world of things and of thoughts in that 
 so brief moment We comprehended each other so 
 well that at that moment I offered him my hand to
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 83 
 
 kiss. Perhaps this was to say to him that love 
 could fill up the space which separated us. Well, I 
 do not know what it was that moved me, Griffith 
 had turned her back, I offered to him proudly my 
 white hand, and I felt the fire of his lips tempered 
 by two big tears. Ah ! my angel, I remained with- 
 out strength in my armchair, thoughtful ; I was 
 happy, and it was impossible for me to explain how 
 or why. That which I felt, it is poesy. My 
 abasement, at which I am ashamed at this hour, 
 seemed to me a grandeur : it fascinated me, that is 
 my excuse. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 This man is really very fine. His words are ele- 
 gant, his mind is of a remarkable superiority. My 
 dear, he is as strong and logical as Bossuet while 
 explaining to me the mechanism not only of the 
 Spanish language, but also of human thought and of 
 all languages. French seems to be his maternal 
 tongue. When I expressed to him my surprise at 
 this he replied that he had been in France when 
 very young with the King of Spain, at Valencay. 
 What has happened in this soul ? He is no longer 
 the same: he came simply dressed, but absolutely 
 like a grand seigneur who had come out for a morn- 
 ing walk. His mind was as brilliant as a beacon 
 during this lesson: he displayed all his eloquence. 
 Like a weary man who had regained his strength, 
 he revealed to me the whole of a soul that had been 
 carefully hidden. He related to me the story of a
 
 84 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 poor devil of a valet who killed himself for one look 
 of a queen of Spain. 
 
 "He could only die!" I said to him. 
 
 This reply brought joy to his heart, and his look 
 veritably terrified me. 
 
 That evening I went to a ball at the house of the 
 Duchesse de Lenoncourt; the Prince de Talleyrand 
 was there. I asked him, through Monsieur de Van- 
 denesse, a charming young man, if he had among 
 his guests in 1809, at his estate, a Henarez. 
 
 "Henarez is the Moorish name of the De Soria 
 family, who are, it is said, Abencerrages converted 
 to Christianity. The old duke and his two sons 
 accompanied the king. The eldest, the Due de 
 Soria of to-day, has been deprived of all his property, 
 honors and grandeurs by the King Ferdinand, who 
 avenges an old enmity. The duke committed an 
 immense fault in accepting the constitutional minis- 
 try with Valdez. Happily, he escaped from Cadiz 
 before the entry of Monseigneur, the Due d'Angou- 
 leme, who, despite his good will did not succeed in 
 saving him from the anger of the king." 
 
 This reply, which the Vicomte de Vandenesse 
 brought me textual ly, gave me a great deal to think 
 of. I cannot say in what anxiety I passed the time 
 till my first lesson, which took place this morning. 
 During the first quarter of an hour of the lesson, I 
 asked myself, while studying him, if he were duke 
 or bourgeois, without being able to arrive at any 
 conclusion. He seemed to divine my thoughts as 
 they rose in me and to please himself by baffling
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 85 
 
 them. Finally I could no longer restrain myself, I 
 left my book abruptly, and, interrupting the trans- 
 lation which I was making aloud, I said to him in 
 Spanish: 
 
 "You are deceiving us, monsieur. You are not a 
 poor bourgeois liberal, you are the Due de Soria!" 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he replied with a sorrowful 
 movement, "unfortunately, I am not the Due de 
 Soria." 
 
 I comprehended all the despair that he put in the 
 word unfortunately. Ah! my dear, it would be, 
 certainly, impossible to put so much and as much 
 passion in a single word. He had lowered his eyes 
 and no longer dared to look at me. 
 
 "Monsieur de Talleyrand," I said to him, "with 
 whom you passed the years of exile, leaves no other 
 alternative to a Henarez but to be either the Due 
 de Soria in disgrace or a servant" 
 
 He lifted his eyes to me and showed me two 
 brasiers black and brilliant, two eyes at once flam- 
 ing and humiliated. This man appeared to me to 
 be at this moment in torture. 
 
 "My father," he said, "was in fact a servant 
 of the King of Spain." 
 
 Griffith was not acquainted with this method of 
 study. We made disquieting pauses at each ques- 
 tion and at each answer. 
 
 "In fact," I said to him, "are you noble or bour- 
 geois?" 
 
 "You know, mademoiselle, that in Spain every- 
 body, even the beggar, is noble."
 
 86 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 This reserve made me impatient. I had prepared 
 since the last lesson one of those amusements which 
 please the imagination. I had traced in a letter 
 the ideal portrait of the man by whom I should wish 
 to be loved, proposing to myself to give it to him to 
 translate. Up to this time, I had translated from 
 Spanish into French, and not from French into 
 Spanish; I made this observation to him, and asked 
 Griffith to get for me the last letter which I had 
 received from one of my girl friends. 
 
 "I will see," I thought, "by the effect which 
 my programme has on him, what blood is in his 
 veins." 
 
 I took the paper from the hands of Griffith saying : 
 
 "See if I have made a good copy." 
 
 For it was all in my handwriting. I offered the 
 paper, in which lay if you wish the trap, and I ex- 
 amined him while he read this: 
 
 "The man who will please me, my dear, will be 
 rude and haughty with men, but gentle with women. 
 His eagle glance will repress instantly anything 
 which can resemble ridicule. He will have a smile 
 of pity for those who wish to turn into jest sacred 
 things, those above all which constitute the poetry 
 of the heart, and without which life would be noth- 
 ing more than a sorrowful reality. I despise pro- 
 foundly those who would wish to deprive us of the 
 source of religious ideas, so fertile in consolation. 
 Thus, his beliefs should have the simplicity of those 
 of a child united to the unshakable conviction of a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 87 
 
 man of intellect who has thoroughly examined his 
 reasons for belief. His wit new, original, shall be 
 without affectation or parade; he can say nothing 
 which shall be unnecessary or out of place; it will 
 be as impossible for him to weary others as to weary 
 himself; for he will have in his soul a fund of rich- 
 ness. All his thoughts should be of a noble charac- 
 ter, elevated, chivalrous, with no trace of egotism. 
 In all his actions, there shall be remarked the total 
 absence of calculation or of interest. His defects 
 shall arise from the very extent of his ideas, which 
 shall be above his time. In everything, 1 should 
 expect to find him in advance of his epoch. Full of 
 delicate attentions for all feeble things, he shall be 
 considerate for all women, but only with great diffi- 
 culty seriously attracted by any one; he will con- 
 sider this as much too serious to be made a sport of. 
 It may thus happen that he wrll pass his life with- 
 out truly loving, whilst displaying in himself all 
 the qualities which can inspire a profound passion. 
 But, if he once finds his ideal woman, that one seen 
 in glimpses of waking dreams; if he encounters a 
 being who comprehends him, who fills his soul and 
 sheds on all his life a ray of happiness, who shines 
 for him as a star through the clouds of this world so 
 sombre, so cold, so icy; who gives an entirely new 
 charm to his existence, and causes to vibrate in him 
 the hitherto silent chords, it is useless to say that 
 he will recognize and appreciate his happiness. 
 Also will he render her perfectly happy. Never, 
 neither by a word or by a look, will he hurt that
 
 88 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 loving heart which will be placed in his hands with 
 the blind love of an infant who sleeps in the arms 
 of its mother ; for, if she awaken from this sweet 
 dream, her heart and her soul will be forever rent; 
 it will be impossible for her to embark on this ocean 
 without committing to it all her future. 
 
 "This man will have necessarily the physiog- 
 nomy, the appearance, the walk, in short the manner 
 of doing the greatest as well as the smallest things 
 of superior beings, who are simple and without pre- 
 vious preparation. He may be ugly, but his hands 
 shall be handsome; he will have the upper lip 
 slightly curled by an ironical and disdainful smile 
 for the indifferent; and he will reserve for those 
 whom he loves the celestial and brilliant ray of his 
 look which reveals his soul." 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said to me in Spanish and in 
 a voice deeply moved, "will she permit me to keep 
 this in memory of her? This is the last lesson 
 which I shall have the honor to give her, and that 
 which I receive in this writing may become an 
 eternal rule of conduct I left Spain a fugitive and 
 penniless ; but to-day I have received from my fam- 
 ily a sum which suffices for my needs. I shall have 
 the honor to send you some poor Spaniard to re- 
 place me." 
 
 He seemed thus to say to me : "There is enough 
 of this play." He rose by a movement of incredi- 
 ble dignity and left me confounded by this deli- 
 cacy unknown among the men of his class. He
 
 LOUISE AND THE BARON DE MACUMER 
 
 He seemed thus to say to me : " There is enough 
 of this play" He rose by a movement of incredi- 
 ble dignity and left me confounded by this deli- 
 cacy unknown among the ' men of his class. He 
 descended and asked to see my father. At dinner, 
 my father said to me smiling: 
 
 "Louise, you have received lessons in Spanish 
 from an ex-minister of the king of Spam and a 
 man condemned to death''

 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 89 
 
 descended and asked to see my father. At dinner, 
 my father said to me smiling: 
 
 "Louise, you have received lessons in Spanish 
 from an ex-minister of the King of Spain and a man 
 condemned to death." 
 
 "The Due de Soria," I said to him. 
 
 "The duke!" replied my father. "He is so no 
 longer, he now takes the title of Baron de Macumer, 
 from a fief which remains to him in Sardinia. He 
 seems to me sufficiently original." 
 
 "Do not dishonor with this word which, with you, 
 always carries a tinge of mockery and disdain, a 
 man who is worthy of you," I said to him, "and 
 who, I believe, has a noble soul." 
 
 "Baroness de Macumer?" cried my father looking 
 at me with a mocking air. 
 
 I lowered my eyes with a movement of pride. 
 
 "But," said my mother, "Henarez must have en- 
 countered on the doorstep the Spanish ambassa- 
 dor?" 
 
 "Yes," replied my father. "The ambassador 
 asked me if I were conspiring against the king, his 
 master; but he saluted the ex-grandee of Spain with 
 much deference, placing himself at his orders." 
 
 This, my dear Madame de 1'Estorade, happened 
 two weeks ago, and it is now two weeks since I 
 have seen this man who loves me, for this man 
 loves me. What is he doing? I would like to be 
 a fly, a mouse, a sparrow. I should like to see him 
 alone, at home, without his perceiving me. We 
 have a man to whom I can say: "Go and die for
 
 90 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 me! " And he is of a character to do it, I believe 
 so at least Finally, there is in Paris a man of 
 whom I think, whose look and whose glance 
 fill me inwardly with light. Oh! it is an enemy 
 whom I should tread under foot What, there should 
 be a man without whom I could not live, who should 
 be necessary to me ! You are married and I am in 
 love ! At the end of four months, these two pigeons 
 who flew so high have fallen into the mire of reality. 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 Yesterday, at the Italiens, I felt myself looked at, 
 my eyes were attracted as if by magic by two eyes 
 of fire which burned like two carbuncles in an ob- 
 scure corner of the orchestra. Henarez did not take 
 his eyes off me. The monster had sought the only 
 pi ace from which he could see me, and there he was. 
 I do not know what he is in politics, but he has a 
 genius for love. 
 
 " Such, beautiful Rene'e, is the point where we are," 
 as the grand Corneille says 
 
 XIII 
 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADEMOISELLE DE 
 CHAULIEU 
 
 La Crampade, February. 
 
 My dear Louise, before writing to you I have been 
 obliged to wait; but now I know so many things,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 91 
 
 or, rather, I have learned them, and I should reveal 
 them to you for your future happiness. There is 
 so much difference between a young girl and a mar- 
 ried woman, that the young girl can no more con- 
 ceive it than the married woman could become 
 again a young girl. I prefer being married to Louis 
 de 1'Estorade to returning to the convent This is 
 clear. After having understood that, if I did not 
 marry Louis I would return to the convent, I was 
 obliged, in the words of the young girl, to resign 
 myself. Resigned, I set myself to examining my 
 situation in order to make the best possible use 
 of it 
 
 In the first place, the gravity of the engagement 
 filled me with terror. Marriage proposes to itself a 
 life, whilst love only proposes to itself pleasure; 
 but marriage continues when the pleasures dis- 
 appear, and gives birth to interests much more dear 
 than those of the man and the woman who unite 
 themselves. Thus perhaps it is not necessary, in 
 order to have a happy marriage, to have more than 
 that friendship which, because of its gentleness, 
 resigns itself to many human imperfections. Noth- 
 ing opposed my having a friendship for Louis de 
 1'Estorade. Fully decided not to seek in marriage 
 the enjoyments of that love of which we thought so 
 often and with a so dangerous exaltation, I felt the 
 gentlest tranquillity within me. "If I have not 
 love, why not seek for happiness?" I said to 
 myself. "Moreover, I am loved, and I will let myself 
 be loved. My marriage will not be a servitude, but
 
 92 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 a perpetual commandment. What inconvenience 
 will this state of affairs offer to a woman who 
 wishes to remain absolute mistress of herself?" 
 
 This point, so important, of having marriage 
 without the husband was arranged in a conversation 
 between Louis and myself, in which he revealed to 
 me the excellence of his character and the gentle- 
 ness of his soul. My mignonne, I wish greatly to 
 remain in this beautiful season of amorous hope 
 which, not giving birth to pleasure, leaves to the 
 soul its virginity. To yield nothing to duty, to the 
 law, to depend only on one's self and to preserve 
 one's freedom of will what a sweet and noble 
 thing! This contract, opposed to that of the laws 
 and of the sacrament itself, could only be drawn up 
 between Louis and myself. This difficulty, the 
 first one seen, is the only one which followed the 
 conclusion of my marriage. If, from the beginning, 
 I had resolved to do anything rather than to return to 
 the convent, it is in our natures to demand the most 
 after having obtained the least; and we are, dear 
 angel, of those who want all. I examined my 
 Louis out of the corner of my eye, and I said to my- 
 self: "Has misfortune made him good or bad?" 
 By dint of studying him, 1 ended by discovering 
 that his love amounted to a passion. Once arrived 
 at the state of an idol, in seeing him pale and trem- 
 ble at the least look of coolness, I comprehended 
 that I could dare anything. I naturally led him 
 away from his parents, in walks in which I pru- 
 dently interrogated his heart I made him talk, I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 93 
 
 demanded of him an account of his ideas, of his 
 plans, of our future. My questions revealed so 
 much preconceived reflection and attacked so pre- 
 cisely the weakest spots of this horrible double life, 
 that Louis has since avowed to me that he was ter- 
 rified at a so sapient virginity. For myself, I lis- 
 tened to his answers; he twisted himself up in them 
 like those from whom fear takes away all their 
 methods ; I finished by seeing that chance had given 
 me an adversary who was so much the more inferior 
 to me that he divined instinctively that which you 
 named so proudly my great soul. Broken by mis- 
 fortunes and by distress, he regarded himself as 
 almost destroyed, and lost himself in three horrible 
 fears. In the first place, he is thirty-seven and I 
 am only seventeen; it is not without fear then that 
 he measures the twenty years which separate our 
 ages. Then, he is convinced that I am very beau- 
 tiful ; and Louis, who shares our opinions on this 
 subject, does not see without deep sorrow how much 
 of his youth has been lost through his sufferings. 
 Finally, he feels that I as a woman, am much supe- 
 rior to him as a man. Reduced to distrust of him- 
 self by these three visible inferiorities, he fears 
 that he cannot make me happy, and sees himself 
 taken only as a last resource. Were it not for the 
 convent in the distance, I would not marry him, 
 he said to me one evening timidly. 
 
 "That is true," I replied gravely. 
 
 My dear friend, he caused me the first of those 
 great emotions which men occasion us. I was
 
 94 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 touched to the heart by the two great tears which 
 welled up in his eyes 
 
 "Louis," I said in a consoling voice, "it rests en- 
 tirely with you to make of this marriage of conven- 
 ience a marriage to which I can give my entire 
 consent. That which I am going to ask of you re- 
 quires on your part a much nobler abnegation than 
 the pretended servitude of your love when it is sin- 
 cere. Can you elevate yourself to the level of 
 friendship as I understand it? One has only one 
 friend during life, and 1 wish to be yours. Friend- 
 ship is the bond of two similar souls, united by 
 their strength and yet independent. Let us be 
 friends and associates to support life together. 
 Leave me my entire independence. I do not forbid 
 your inspiring me with that love for you which you 
 say you have for me; but I wish to be your wife 
 only willingly. Give me the desire to abandon to 
 you my free will, and I will sacrifice it to you im- 
 mediately. Thus, I do not forbid your importing 
 passion into this friendship, or troubling it by the 
 voice of love: I will endeavor for my part to make 
 our affection perfect. Above all, spare me the un- 
 pleasantnesses which the sufficiently awkward sit- 
 uations in which we will then find ourselves may 
 give me before others. I do not wish to appear 
 either capricious or prudish, because 1 am not so in 
 the least, and I think you a sufficiently honest man 
 to offer to you to preserve the outward appearances 
 of marriage." 
 
 My dear, I have never seen a man so happy as
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 95 
 
 was Louis at my proposition; his eyes sparkled, the 
 fire of happiness in them dried his tears. 
 
 "Do not think," I said to him in conclusion, 
 "that there is anything extravagant in that which I 
 ask of you. This condition arises from my very 
 great desire to have your esteem. If you had ac- 
 quired me only through marriage, would you be 
 more grateful to me some day to see your love 
 crowned by the legal or religious formalities and 
 not by myself? If, while you still did not please 
 me, but while obeying you passively, as my very 
 honored mother had just recommended me to do, I 
 should have a child, do you think that I would love 
 that child as much as one who would be the son of 
 a mutual desire? If it be not indispensable to 
 please each other as much as the lovers do, admit, 
 monsieur, that it is necessary not to displease each 
 other. Well, we are about to be placed in a dan- 
 gerous situation, we are going to live in the 
 country, is it not necessary to reflect on all the in- 
 stabilities of passion? Can not the wise take 
 measures in advance against the misfortunes of 
 change?" 
 
 He was strangely suprised to find me so reason- 
 able and so reasoning; but he made me a solemn 
 promise, on which I took his hand and grasped it 
 affectionately. 
 
 We were married at the end of the week. Cer- 
 tain of preserving my liberty, I put a good deal of 
 gaiety into all the insipid details of the ceremony, 
 I could be myself, and perhaps I was set down for
 
 96 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 a very lively gossip, to use the phrase of Blois. 
 They had secured for the position of mistress of the 
 household a young girl charmed with the situation, 
 so novel and full of resources, in which I had been 
 able to establish myself. My dear, I had perceived, 
 as in a vision, all the difficulties of my life, and I 
 sincerely desired to make the happiness of this man. 
 Now, in the solitude in which we live, if a wife 
 does not command, the marriage becomes insup- 
 portable in a very little time. A wife should 
 therefore have the charms of a mistress and the 
 qualities of a spouse. To mingle some uncertainty 
 with pleasure, is it not to prolong the illusion and 
 to perpetuate the enjoyments of self-love to which 
 all creatures cling so close and with so much reason ? 
 Conjugal love, as I conceive it, invests a wife with 
 hope, renders her sovereign and gives her an inex- 
 haustible force, a warmth of life which makes 
 everything flourish around her. The more she is 
 mistress of herself, the more certain is she to render 
 happiness and love vital qualities. But I have 
 above all exacted that the most profound mystery 
 should cover our interior arrangements. The man 
 who is ruled by his wife is justly an object of ridi- 
 cule. The influence of a woman should be entirely 
 secret: with us, in everything, it is grace, that is 
 mystery. If I undertake to lift up this disheartened 
 character, to restore to their native lustre qualities 
 of which I have caught gl impses, I wish that every- 
 thing should seem spontaneous in Louis. Such is 
 the sufficiently fine task which I have given myself
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 97 
 
 and which is enough for the glory of a woman. I 
 am almost proud of having a secret to make my life 
 interesting, a plan to which I shall bring all my 
 efforts, and which will be known only to you and to 
 God. 
 
 At present I am almost happy, and perhaps would 
 be entirely so if I could communicate it to a be- 
 loved soul, but the idea of saying it to him, to 
 him? My happiness would hurt him, it has been 
 necessary to hide it from him. He has, my dear, 
 the delicacy of a woman, like all men who have 
 suffered much. During three months we remained 
 as we were before marriage. I studied, as you may 
 well think, a multitude of little personal questions, 
 of much more importance to love than is generally 
 believed. Notwithstanding my coldness, this em- 
 boldened soul unfolded itself, I have seen this 
 countenance change expression and rejuvenate itself. 
 The elegance which I introduced in the household 
 has thrown its reflection upon his person. I have 
 become accustomed to him insensibly, I have made 
 of him another myself. Through constantly seeing 
 him, I have discovered the correspondence between 
 his soul and his physiognomy. The beast which 
 we call a husband, according to your expression, 
 has disappeared. I have seen, on an evening I 
 know not how sweet, a lover whose words went to 
 my soul, and on whose arm I leaned with an inde- 
 scribable pleasure. Finally, to be truthful with 
 you, as I shall be with God, whom one cannot de- 
 ceive, piqued perhaps by the admirable fidelity 
 7
 
 98 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 with which he kept his oath, curiosity awakened 
 in my heart Very much ashamed of myself, I re- 
 sisted. Alas! when one no longer resists but 
 through dignity, an agreement is soon arrived at. 
 The fete has then been secret as between two 
 lovers, and secret it shall remain between us. 
 When you get married, you will approve of my dis- 
 cretion. You may know, however, that nothing was 
 wanting of that which the most delicate love might 
 wish, nor of that something unforeseen which is, in 
 some sort, the honor of that moment, the myster- 
 ious graces which our imaginations ask of it, the 
 impulse which excuses, the consent obtained, the 
 ideal delights of which we have long had glimpses 
 and which subjugate our souls before we allow our- 
 selves tp come to the reality, all the seductions 
 were there in enchanting forms. 
 
 I avow to you that, notwithstanding all these fine 
 things, I have anew stipulated for my freedom of 
 will, and I do not wish to tell you all the reasons. 
 You will certainly be the only soul in whom I will 
 confide this demi-confidence. Even in belonging to 
 one's husband, adored or not, I believe that we 
 should lose a great deal in not hiding our senti- 
 ments and the judgment which we form of marriage. 
 The only joy which I have had, and which has been 
 heavenly, comes from the certainty of having re- 
 stored life to this poor being before giving it to 
 children. Louis has resumed his youth, his 
 strength, his gaiety. He is no longer the same 
 man. I have, like a fairy, effaced even the memory
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 99 
 
 of his sorrows. I have metamorphosed Louis, he 
 has become charming. Sure of pleasing me, he 
 displays his mind and reveals new qualities. To 
 be the constant principle of the happiness of a man, 
 when that man is conscious of it and mingles grati- 
 tude with love, ah! dear, this certainly develops 
 in the soul a strength which surpasses that of the 
 most complete love. This impetuous and durable 
 force, one and varied, gives birth finally to the 
 family, that beautiful work of women, and which 
 I now comprehend in all its fertile beauty. The 
 old father is no longer avaricious. He gives blindly 
 whatever I wish for. The domestics are joyful ; it 
 seems as though the happiness of Louis had radiated 
 in this interior, where I reign through love. The old 
 man has adapted himself to all my ameliorations, he 
 has wished not to offer any contrast to my luxury ; he 
 has assumed, to please me, the costume and,with the 
 costume, the manners of the present day. We have 
 English horses, a coupe, a caleche and a tilbury. 
 Our servants have a simple but not inelegant liv- 
 ery. Thus we pass for prodigals. I employ my 
 intelligence I am not laughing to maintain my 
 household with economy, to give in it the utmost 
 pleasure for the least possible sum. I have already 
 demonstrated to Louis the necessity of constructing 
 roads, in order to acquire the reputation of a man 
 occupied with the welfare of his country. I oblige 
 him to complete his instruction. I hope to see him 
 soon member of the Council General of his depart- 
 ment through the influence of my family and that of
 
 100 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 his mother. I have declared to him flatly that I 
 was ambitious, that I did not take it ill that his 
 father continued to look after our property, to accu- 
 mulate savings, because I wished him to be devoted 
 to politics; if we should have children, I should 
 wish to see them all happy and occupying good sit- 
 uations in the State; under penalty of losing my 
 esteem and my affection, he must become a deputy 
 of the department at the coming elections; my fam- 
 ily will aid his candidacy, and we shall then have 
 the pleasure of passing all the winters at Paris. 
 Ah! my angel, by the ardor with which he has 
 obeyed me, I have been able to see how much I was 
 loved. Finally, yesterday, he wrote me this letter 
 from Marseilles, where he had gone for a few hours. 
 
 "When you gave me permission to love you, my 
 gentle Renee, I believed in happiness; but, to-day, 
 I no longer see any end to it. The past is no longer 
 anything but a vague memory, a shadow necessary 
 to give value to the splendor of my felicity. When 
 I am at your side, I am transported by love to such 
 an extent that I am incapable of expressing to you 
 the extent of my affection, I can only admire you, 
 adore you. Speech only comes to me when 1 am 
 away from you. You are perfectly beautiful, and 
 of a beauty so grave, so majestic, that time will 
 change it with difficulty; and, although love be- 
 tween husband and wife is not connected so much 
 with beauty as with the feelings, which are excel- 
 lent in you, let me say to you that this certainty of
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES IOI 
 
 seeing you always beautiful gives me a joy which 
 is increased at every look I give you. The har- 
 mony and the dignity of the lines of your face, in 
 which your sublime soul is revealed, have an inex- 
 pressible purity under the vigorous color of the skin. 
 The light of your black eyes and the bold line of 
 your forehead reveal to us how much your virtues 
 are elevated, how valuable is your intercourse and 
 how your heart would be superior to the storms of 
 life, if any should arise. Nobility is your distinc- 
 tive character ; I do not pretend to comprehend you ; 
 but I write this to you that you may know that I 
 am aware of all the value of the treasure which I 
 possess. The little which you will grant me will 
 be always happiness for me, for a longtime to come 
 as at present; for I feel all that is grand in our 
 promise to retain on both sides, all our liberty. We 
 shall never be indebted to anything but our free 
 will for any testimony of tenderness. We shall be 
 free notwithstanding the close chains. I shall be 
 so much the more proud to win you again thus that 
 I now know the prize which you attach to this con- 
 quest. You will never be able to speak or to 
 breathe, to act or to think, without my forever ad- 
 miring, all the more, the grace of your body and 
 that of your soul. There is in you something 
 divine, sensible, and enchanting, which I cannot 
 express, that brings into accord reflection, honor, 
 pleasure and hope, which gives, in short, to love a 
 more spacious extent than that of life. Oh, my 
 angel, may the genius of love remain faithful to me
 
 102 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and the future be full of that delight by the aid of 
 which you have embellished everything around me! 
 When will you be a mother, that I may see you 
 commended by the vigor of your life, that I may 
 hear you, with that voice so smooth and with those 
 thoughts so fine, so new, and so curiously well ren- 
 dered, bless that love which has refreshed my soul, 
 retempered my faculties, which constitutes my 
 pride, and from which I have drawn, as from a 
 magic fountain, a new life? Yes, I will be all that 
 you wish that I should be: I will become one of the 
 men useful to my country, and I will reflect upon 
 you that glory the guiding principle of which will 
 be your satisfaction." 
 
 My dear, you may see how I form him. This 
 style is of recent date; in a year, it will be better. 
 Louis is in the first transports, I am expecting for 
 him that equal and continuous sensation of happi- 
 ness which a happy marriage should give when, 
 sure of a perfect mutual knowledge, a man and a 
 woman have found the secret of varying the infinite, 
 of lending enchantment to the very basis of life. 
 This fine secret of true spouses, I have glimpses of 
 and wish to possess. You see that he thinks him- 
 self loved, the stupid, as if he were not my hus-. 
 band. I am as yet, however, only at that material 
 attachment which gives us the strength to support 
 many things. However, Louis is amiable, there is 
 a grand equality in his character, he does quite 
 simply those things for which the greater number
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 103 
 
 of men praise themselves. In fact, if I do not love 
 him, I feel myself very capable of cherishing him. 
 
 Here then are my black hairs, my black eyes the 
 lashes of which unfold themselves, according to 
 you, like jalousies, my imperial air and my person 
 elevated to the rank of sovereign power. We will 
 see in ten years from now, my dear, if we are not 
 both of us very gay, very happy in that Paris, from 
 which I shall bring you back sometimes into my 
 beautiful oasis of Provence. Oh, Louise, do not 
 compromise our beautiful future for both of us! Do 
 not commit the follies with which you menace me. 
 I have married an old young man, do you marry 
 some young old man of the Chamber of Peers. You 
 will be there in the right 
 
 XIV 
 THE DUG DE SORIA TO THE BARON DE MACUMER 
 
 Madrid. 
 
 My dear brother, you have not made me Due de 
 Soria for me not to act as Due de Soria. If I knew 
 you were wandering and without the comforts which 
 fortune gives everywhere, you would render my 
 happiness insupportable. Neither Marie nor I, we 
 will not marry until we have learned that you have 
 accepted the sum sent to you by Urraca. These 
 two millions come from your own savings and from 
 those of Marie. We have prayed both of us kneel- 
 ing before the same altar, and with what fervor ! 
 ah! God knows! for your happiness. Oh! my
 
 104 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 brother ! our wishes should be granted. The love 
 which you seek and which should be the consola- 
 tion of your exile, it will descend from Heaven. 
 Marie read your letter weeping, and all her admi- 
 ration is for you. As for myself, I have accepted 
 for my house and not for myself. The king has 
 fulfilled your expectation. Ah! you have so dis- 
 dainfully thrown to him his pleasure, as their prey 
 is thrown to tigers, that, to avenge you, I would like 
 to make him feel how you have crushed him by 
 your grandeur. The only thing which I have taken 
 for myself, dear beloved brother, is my happiness, 
 it is Marie. Thus shall 1 always be before you as 
 a creature before the Creator. There will be in 
 my life and in that of Marie a day as beautiful as 
 that of our happy marriage, this will be that one on 
 which we shall know that your heart is compre- 
 hended, that a woman loves you as you should be 
 and wished to be loved. Do not forget that, if you 
 live for us, we live also for you. You can write to 
 us in all confidence under cover of the Papal Nuncio, 
 sending your letters by way of Rome. The am- 
 bassador of France at Rome will doubtless take 
 charge of conveying them to the Secretary of State, 
 to Monseigneur Bemboni, whom our legate has had 
 care to notify. Any other conveyance would be 
 unsafe. Adieu, dear dispossessed one, dear exile. 
 Be proud at least of the happiness which you have 
 given us if you can be proud of it. God will with- 
 out doubt listen to our prayers full of you. 
 
 FERNAND.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 105 
 
 XV 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MADAME DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 March. 
 
 Ah, my angel, marriage makes one philosophi- 
 cal ! Your dear face should have been yellow then 
 when you were writing me those terrible thoughts 
 on human life and on our duties. Do you believe 
 then that you will convert me to marriage by this 
 programme of subterranean labors? Alas! do you 
 see then the state to which you have been brought 
 by our too knowing reveries? We came out of 
 Blois adorned with all our innocence and armed 
 with the sharp points of reflection : the darts of this 
 purely moral experience of things have turned 
 against you ! If I did not know you for the purest 
 and most angelic creature in the' world, I would say 
 to you that your calculations suggested depravation. 
 Why, my dear, in the interest of your country life, 
 you put your pleasure in regular order, you treat 
 love as you treat your woods! Oh! I had rather 
 perish in the violence of the whirlwinds of my 
 heart than live in the dryness of your wise arithme- 
 tic. You were, like me, the best instructed young 
 girl, because we had reflected a great deal on a very 
 few things; but, my child, philosophy without love, 
 or under a false love, is the most horrible of the 
 conjugal hypocrisies. I do not know if, from time 
 to time, the greatest imbecile on the earth would 
 not perceive the owl of wisdom squatting in your
 
 106 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 heap of roses, a discovery but very slightly divert- 
 ing, which may put to flight the best kindled pas- 
 sion. You make your own destiny, instead of being 
 its plaything. We are both of us developing very 
 singularly, much philosophy and little love, 
 this is your regimen; much love and little philos- 
 ophy, this is mine. The Julie of Jean- Jacques, 
 whom I thought a professor, is only a student 
 compared with you. Feminine virtue! have you 
 measured life! Alas! 1 am making fun of you, 
 perhaps you are right You have immolated 
 your youth in a day, and you have made yourself 
 miserly before the time. Your Louis will un- 
 doubtedly be happy. If he loves you, and I do 
 not doubt it, he will never perceive that you are 
 conducting yourself in the interest of your family 
 just as the courtesans conduct themselves in the in- 
 terest of their fortune; and certainly they render 
 men happy, if we may judge by the crazy dissipa- 
 tions of which they are the object. A clear-seeing 
 husband would remain, without doubt, passionately 
 attached to you; but would he not end by dispens- 
 ing for himself with all gratitude for a wife who 
 makes of falsehood a sort of moral corset as neces- 
 sary to her life as the other is to her body? But, 
 dear, love is in my eyes the principle of all the vir- 
 tues ascribed to an image of the Divinity! Love, 
 like all the principles, does not calculate, and is 
 the infinite in our souls. Have you not wished to 
 justify to yourself the frightful position of a young 
 girl married to a man whom she can only esteem?
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 107 
 
 Duty, that is your rule and your measure; but to 
 act through necessity, is not that the moral ity of a 
 society of Atheists? To act through love and 
 through feeling, is not that the secret law of 
 women? You have made a man of yourself, and 
 your Louis will find himself the woman ! Oh! dear, 
 your letter has plunged me into infinite meditations. 
 I have perceived that the convent will never take 
 the place of a mother for young girls. I entreat 
 you, my noble angel with black eyes, so pure and 
 so proud, so grave and so elegant, think on these 
 first cries which your letter has drawn from me ! I 
 have consoled myself by reflecting that, at the 
 moment in which I am lamenting, love has doubt- 
 less overthrown the scaffoldings of reason. I should 
 perhaps do worse without reasoning, without calcu- 
 lating: passion is an element which should have a 
 logic as cruel as yours. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Yesterday evening, when retiring, I placed my- 
 self at my window to contemplate the sky, which 
 was of a sublime purity. The stars resembled sil- 
 ver nails which held up a blue veil. In the silence 
 of the night, I could hear a breathing, and by the 
 faint light of the stars I saw my Spaniard, perched 
 like a squirrel in the branches of one of the trees of 
 the side alley of the boulevards, admiring doubtless 
 my windows. This discovery had for its first effect 
 to send me back into my chamber, with a feeling 
 as though my hands and feet were broken ; but, at
 
 108 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the bottom of this sensation of fear, I felt a deli- 
 cious joy. I was crushed and happy. Not one of 
 these brilliant Frenchmen who wish to marry me 
 has had the spirit to come and pass his nights in an 
 elm, at the risk of being arrested by the guard. 
 My Spaniard had doubtless been there some time. 
 Ah! he no longer gives me lessons, he wishes to 
 receive them, he shall have them. If he knew all 
 that I had said to myself about his apparent ugli- 
 ness! I also, Renee, I have philosophized. I have 
 thought that there was something horrible in lov- 
 ing a handsome man. Is it not to admit that the 
 senses count for three-quarters in love, which 
 should be divine? When I had recovered from my 
 first fear, I stretched my neck behind the glass to 
 see him again, and well he caught me! By means 
 of a hollow cane he blew to me through the window 
 a letter artistically rolled around a large leaden 
 pellet. 
 
 "Mon Dieu! does he think that I have left my 
 window open purposely?" I said to myself; "to 
 close it suddenly would be to make myself his con- 
 federate." 
 
 I did better, I returned to my window as if I had 
 not heard the sound of his message, as if I had seen 
 nothing, and I said aloud: 
 
 "Come and see the stars, Griffith!" 
 
 Griffith was sleeping like an old maid. On hear- 
 ing me, the Moor descended with the quickness of a 
 shadow. He must have died with fear as well as 
 myself, for I did not hear him go away, he remained
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 109 
 
 doubtless at the foot of the elm. After a good quar- 
 ter of an hour, during which I drowned myself in 
 the blue of the heaven and swam in an ocean of 
 curiosity, I closed my window, and I got in bed to 
 unroll the fine paper with the care of those scien- 
 tists who examine in Naples the antique volumes. 
 My fingers seemed to touch fire. "What a horrible 
 power this man exercises over me!" I said to my- 
 self. Whereupon I presented the paper to the light 
 to burn it without reading it A thought restrained 
 my hand. "What is he writing to me, that he 
 should write to me secretly?" Well, my dear, I 
 burned the letter reflecting that, if all the young 
 girls in the world would have devoured it, I, 
 Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu, / should not 
 read it 
 
 The next day at the Italiens, he was at his post; 
 but, First Constitutional Minister though he may 
 be, I do not think that my attitude revealed to him 
 the least agitation of my soul, I remained abso- 
 lutely as if I had neither seen nor received anything 
 the night before. I was satisfied with myself, but 
 he was very sad. Poor man, it is so natural in 
 Spain that love should enter by the window! He 
 came between the acts to walk about the corridors. 
 The First Secretary of the Spanish Embassy told 
 me of it in relating to me an action of his which is 
 sublime. As Due de Soria, he was to marry one 
 of the richest heiresses in Spain, the young Princess 
 Marie Heredia, whose fortune would have softened 
 for him the rigors of exile; but it appears that,
 
 1 10 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 contrary to the wishes of their fathers who had be- 
 trothed them in childhood, Marie loved the youngest 
 De Soria, and my Felipe renounced the Princess 
 Marie in allowing himself to be stripped of his pos- 
 sessions by the King of Spain. 
 
 "He must have done this fine thing very sim- 
 ply," I said to the young man. 
 
 "You know him then?" he said ingenuously. 
 
 My mother smiled. 
 
 "What will become of him if he is condemned to 
 death?" I said. 
 
 "If he is dead in Spain, he has the right to live 
 in Sardinia." 
 
 "Ah! there are also tombs in Spain?" I said, to 
 appear to take this as a jest. 
 
 "There is everything in Spain, even to Spaniards 
 of the old time," my mother answered me. 
 
 "The King of Sardinia, not without some diffi- 
 culty, granted to the Baron de Macumer a pass- 
 port," resumed the young diplomat; "but finally he 
 has become a Sardinian subject, he possesses mag- 
 nificent fiefs in Sardinia, with the right to adminis- 
 ter civil and criminal justice. He has a palace at 
 Sassari. If Ferdinand VII. should die, Macumer 
 would probably enter into diplomacy, and the Court 
 of Turin would make him an ambassador. Although 
 young, he " 
 
 "Ah, he is young?" 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle although young, he is one 
 of the most distinguished men of Spain." 
 
 I surveyed the audience while listening to the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES III 
 
 secretary, and seemed to lend him a slight atten- 
 tion; but, between ourselves, I was in despair at 
 having burned the letter. How would such a man 
 express himself when he loved? and he loved me. 
 To be loved, adored in secret, to have in this audi- 
 ence in which were assembled all the superiorities 
 of Paris a man all to one's self, without any one 
 knowing it! Oh Renee, I comprehended then the 
 Parisian life, and its balls and its fetes! Every- 
 thing took on its true color to my eyes. One has 
 need of others when one loves, were it only to sac- 
 rifice them to the one loved. I felt within my be- 
 ing another being, a happy one. All my vanities, 
 my self-love, my pride, were flattered. Heaven 
 knows what looks I bestowed upon the world around 
 me! 
 
 "Ah, sharp little one!" said the duchess in my 
 ear, smiling. 
 
 Yes, my very crafty mother had divined some 
 secret joy in my attitude, and I lowered my flag 
 before this knowing woman. These three words 
 have taught me more of the science of the world 
 than I have been able to acquire in a year, for we 
 are in March. Alas! in a month we shall have no 
 more Italiens. What to do without this adorable 
 music, when one's heart is full of love? 
 
 My dear, on my return, with a resolution worthy 
 of a Chaulieu I opened my window to admire a 
 shower. Oh ! if men knew the power of seduction 
 which heroic actions exercise on us, they would be 
 indeed great; the most cowardly would become
 
 112 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 heroes. That which I had heard of my Spaniard 
 gave me a fever. I was sure that he was there, 
 ready to send me a new letter. Thus I burned 
 nothing: I read. Here is then the first love letter 
 which I have received, madame the reasoner: now 
 each has one. 
 
 "Louise, I do not love you because of your sub- 
 lime beauty; I do not love you because of the wide 
 range of your intellect, of the nobility of your sen- 
 timents, of the infinite grace which you give to 
 everything, nor because of your pride, of your royal 
 disdain for that which is not of your sphere, and 
 which in you does not exclude goodness, for you 
 have the charity of the angels; Louise, I love you 
 because you have bent all these haughty gran- 
 deurs for a poor exile; because, by a gesture, by a 
 look, you have consoled a man of a state so far be- 
 low you that he had right only to your pity, but to 
 a generous pity. You are the only woman in the 
 world who has tempered for me the rigor of her 
 eyes; and, as you have let this beneficent regard 
 fall on me when I was a grain in the dust, some- 
 thing which I had never obtained when I had all 
 that a subject could have of power, I wish to let 
 you know, Louise, that you have become dear to 
 me, that I love you for yourself and without any 
 afterthought, far exceeding in so doing the condi- 
 tions placed by you on a perfect love. Learn then, 
 idol placed by me in the highest of the heavens, 
 that there is in the world a scion of the Saracenic
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU AND THE 
 SPANIARD 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! does he think that I have left my 
 window open purposely .?" / said to myself; " to 
 close it suddenly would be ' to make myself his 
 confederate." 
 
 I did better, I returned to my window as if I 
 had not heard the sound of his message, as if I 
 had seen nothing, and I said aloud : 
 
 " Come and see the stars, Griffith .'" 
 
 Griffith was sleeping like an old maid.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 113 
 
 race whose life belongs to you, of whom you can 
 demand everything as of a slave, and who will 
 honor himself in executing your orders. I have 
 given myself to you without return, and for the 
 sole pleasure of giving myself, for one only of your 
 looks, for that hand offered one morning to your 
 Spanish teacher. You have a servitor, Louise, and 
 nothing else. No, I dare not think that I can ever 
 be loved; but perhaps I may be suffered, and solely 
 because of my devotion. Since that morning when 
 you smiled upon me as a noble young girl who 
 divined the misery of my solitary and betrayed 
 heart, I have enthroned you: you are the absolute 
 sovereign of my life, the queen of my thoughts, the 
 divinity of my heart, the sunshine which enlightens 
 me, the flower of my flowers, the balm of the air 
 which I breathe, the richness of my blood, the light 
 in which I sleep. One thought- only troubles this 
 happiness, that you do not know that you have for 
 yourself a devotion without bounds, a faithful arm, 
 a blind slave, a mute agent, a treasure, for I am no 
 longer anything but the guardian of all which I pos- 
 sess; in short, that you do not know of a heart to 
 which you could confide everything, the heart of an 
 old ancestress of whom you could ask anything, a 
 father from whom you could claim all protection, a 
 friend, a brother; all these sentiments are lacking 
 around you, I know it. I have surprised the secret 
 of your isolation! My hardihood is born of my de- 
 sire to reveal to you the extent of your possessions. 
 Accept all, Louise, you will have given me the only 
 8
 
 114 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 life which there is for me in the world, that of de- 
 voting myself. In placing upon me the collar of 
 servitude, you do not expose yourself to anything: 
 I shall never demand any other thing than the 
 pleasure of knowing myself yours. Do not even 
 say to me that you will never love me: that should 
 be so, I know it; I should love from a distance, 
 without hope and for myself. I greatly desire to 
 know if you will accept me for your servant, and I 
 have racked my brain in order to find a proof which 
 would signify it and which will in no way impair 
 your dignity in informing me, for I have now been 
 yours for many days, without your knowing it. 
 Then you will say it to me by having in your hand 
 in the evening, at the Italiens, a bouquet composed 
 of a white camellia and of a red camellia, the image 
 of all the blood of a man at the orders of an adored 
 candor. Everything will be said then: at any 
 hour, in ten years as to-morrow, whatever you wish 
 that it may be possible for a man to do, that will 
 be done as soon as you demand it of your happy 
 servant, 
 
 "FELIPE HENAREZ." 
 
 P. S. My dear, admit that the grand seigneurs 
 know how to love! What a bound of an African 
 lion! what contained ardor! what faith! what sin- 
 cerity! what a grandeur of soul in abasement! I 
 felt myself little and I asked myself, all abashed: 
 "What to do?" The quality of a great man is to
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 115 
 
 set aside all ordinary calculations. He is sublime 
 and affecting, ingenuous and gigantic. In one sole 
 letter, he is beyond the hundred letters of Lovelace 
 and of Saint-Preux. Oh! this is the true love, 
 without quibbling: it is or it is not; but, when it 
 is, it should produce itself in its immensity. Now, 
 I am stripped of all my coquetries. To refuse or to 
 accept! 1 am between these two alternatives with- 
 out a pretext to shelter my irresolution. All dis- 
 cussion is suppressed. It is no longer Paris, it is 
 Spain or the Orient; in short, it is the Abencerrage 
 who speaks, who kneels before the Catholic Eve 
 bringing to her his scimitar, his horse and his head. 
 Shall I accept this last of the Moors? Read over 
 again often this Hispano-Saracen letter, my Renee, 
 and you will see there that love carries away all 
 the Judaic stipulations of your philosophy. See, 
 Renee, I have your letter on, my heart, you have 
 made life all bourgeois for me. Have I any need 
 to act cunningly ? Am I not eternal mistress of this 
 lion who changes his roarings into humble and re- 
 ligious sighs? Oh! how he must have roared in 
 his den in the Rue Hillerin-Bertin! I know where 
 he lives, I have his card: F., BARON DE MA- 
 CUMER. He has rendered all reply impossible for 
 me, there is nothing to be done but to throw in his 
 face two camellias. What an infernal science is 
 possessed by love pure, true, ingenuous ! See then 
 what there is of the greatest for a woman's heart 
 reduced to a simple and easy action. Oh Asia! 
 1 have read The Thousand and One Nights, and here
 
 116 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 is the spirit of them: two flowers and all is said. 
 We traversed the fourteen volumes of Clarissa Har- 
 lowe with a bouquet I twist myself before this 
 letter like a cord in the fire. Take or do not take 
 your two camellias. Yes or no, kill or make live! 
 Finally, a voice cried to me: "Prove him!" Thus 
 I will prove him. 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 March. 
 
 I was dressed in white: I had white camellias in 
 my hair and a white camellia in my hand; my 
 mother had red ones, I could take one from her if 
 I wished. I felt within myself an indescribable 
 desire to sell him his red camellia by a little hesita- 
 tion, and not to make my decision but on the ground 
 itself. I was looking my very best! Griffith en- 
 treated me to let her contemplate me for a moment. 
 The solemnity of this evening and the drama of the 
 secret consent gave me color, I had on each cheek a 
 red camellia spread upon a white camellia! 
 
 One o'clock. 
 
 All the world admired me, one only adored me. 
 He lowered his head on seeing me with a white 
 camellia in the hand, and I saw him become white 
 as the flower when 1 took a red one from my
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 117 
 
 mother. To have come with the two flowers might 
 have been merely accidental ; but this action was a 
 response. I had then emphasized my avowal ! 
 They were giving Romeo and Juliet, and, as you do 
 not know the duet of these two lovers, you cannot 
 comprehend the happiness of two neophytes of love 
 listening to this divine expression of tenderness. 
 As I went to bed I heard steps upon the resounding 
 pavement of the side alley of the boulevard. Oh! 
 now, my angel, my heart is on fire and my head. 
 What is he doing? what does he think? Has he a 
 thought, one only, to which I am foreign? Is he the 
 slave always ready which he told me he was? How 
 to assure myself of it? Has he in his soul the 
 slightest suspicion that my acceptance carries with 
 it anything blamable, any return whatever, any 
 thanks? I am given over to all the petty quibbling 
 of the women in Cyrus and in' the Astroea to the 
 subtleties of the Courts of Love. Does he know 
 that in love the very slightest actions of women are 
 the result of a world of reflection, of inward com- 
 bats, of lost victories! Of what is he thinking at 
 this moment? How to order him to write to me in 
 the evening the details of his day ? He is my slave, 
 I should keep him occupied and 1 am going to over- 
 whelm him with labor. 
 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 I slept very little this morning. It is noon. I 
 have just caused Griffith to write the following 
 letter:
 
 Il8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "TO MONSIEUR LE BARON DE MACUMER. 
 
 "Mademoiselle de Chaulieu directs me, Monsieur 
 le Baron, to ask of you the copy of a letter which 
 was written to her by one of her friends, which is in 
 her handwriting and which you have taken away. 
 
 "Accept, etc. 
 
 "GRIFFITH." 
 
 My dear, Griffith went out, she went to the Rue 
 Hillerin-Bertin, she had this billet-doux handed to 
 my slave, who returned me in an envelope my pro- 
 gramme spotted with tears. He obeyed. Oh my 
 dear, he ought to have kept it Another would 
 have refused in writing to me a letter full of flat- 
 tery; but the Saracen has been what he promised to 
 be, he obeyed. I am affected to the point of tears. 
 
 XVII 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 April 2. 
 
 Yesterday the weather was magnificent, I arrayed 
 myself like a young girl who is beloved and who 
 wishes to please. At my entreaty, my father has 
 given me the prettiest turnout that it is possible to 
 see in Paris, two dapple-gray horses and a caleche 
 of the utmost elegance. I tried my new equipage. 
 I was like a flower under an umbrella lined with 
 white silk. As I ascended the avenue of the Champs- 
 Elysees, I saw coming toward me my Abencerrage
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 119 
 
 on a horse of the most admirable beauty, the men, 
 who now-a-days are almost all perfect horse dealers, 
 stopped to see it, to examine it. He bowed to me, 
 and I made to him a friendly sign of encouragement; 
 he moderated the pace of his horse, and I was able 
 to say to him : 
 
 "You will not take it ill, Monsieur le Baron, that I 
 have asked my letter of you, it was useless for you. 
 You have already exceeded this programme, " I 
 added in a low voice. "You have a horse which 
 causes you to be much remarked," I said to him. 
 
 "My intendant in Sardinia sent it to me through 
 pride, for this horse of the Arab race was born in 
 my stable." 
 
 This morning, my dear, Henarez was on an 
 English sorrel horse, still a very handsome one but 
 which no longer attracted attention, the slight 
 mocking criticism of my words had been sufficient. 
 He bowed to me, and I replied by a slight inclina- 
 tion of the head. The Due d'Angoule"me has bought 
 Macumer's horse. My slave comprehended that he 
 had departed from the desired simplicity in attract- 
 ing to himself the attention of the gazers. A man 
 should be remarked for himself, and not for his 
 horse or for other things. To have a too handsome 
 horse seems to me as ridiculous as to wear a big 
 diamond in his shirt front. I was delighted to catch 
 him in a fault, and perhaps there was in his act a 
 little self-love, permissible in a poor outlaw. This 
 childishness pleases me. O my ancient reasoner! 
 do you amuse yourself with my love affairs as much
 
 120 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 as I am saddened by your sombre philosophy ? Dear 
 Philip II. in petticoats, do you truly go riding in 
 my caleche ? Do you see this velvet glance, hum- 
 ble and expressive, proud of its servitude, which is 
 directed to me in passing by this man truly great 
 who wears my livery, and who has always in his 
 buttonhole a red camellia, whilst I have always a 
 white one in my hand? What enlightenment comes 
 with love! How well I comprehend Paris! Now, 
 everything in it seems to me spiritual and intelli- 
 gent. Yes, love is there more beautiful, grander, 
 more charming than anywhere else. Decidedly, I 
 have recognized that I could never torment, disquiet 
 a stupid man, nor have the least empire over him. 
 It is only the superior men who comprehend us 
 thoroughly and on whom we can act. Oh! poor 
 friend, forgive me, I have forgotten our L'Estorade; 
 but have you not told me that you are going to 
 make a genius of him? Oh! I guess why, you 
 are bringing him up with the utmost care so that 
 you may be comprehended some day. Adieu, I am 
 a little foolish and do not wish to continue. 
 
 XVIII 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU 
 
 April. 
 
 Dear angel, or should I not rather say, dear demon ? 
 you have distressed me without wishing to, and if 
 we were not the same soul, I would say wounded;
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 121 
 
 but does one not also wound one's self? How 
 readily it is to be seen that you have not yet seri- 
 ously considered that word indissoluble applied to 
 the contract which unites a woman to a man ! I do 
 not wish to contradict the philosophers nor the legis- 
 lators, they are quite able to contradict them- 
 selves; but, dear, by rendering marriage irrevocable 
 and by imposing upon it a formula the same for all 
 and pitiless, each union has been made an entirely 
 dissimilar thing, as dissimilar as are the individuals 
 among themselves; each one of them has its interior 
 laws different, those of a marriage in the country, 
 where the two beings are ceaselessly in each other's 
 presence, are not those of a city household, where 
 life is marked by more distractions; and those of a 
 household in Paris, where life passes like a torrent, 
 will not be those of a provincial marriage where 
 life is less agitated. If the conditions vary accord- 
 ing to the localities, they vary still more according 
 to the characters. The wife of a man of genius has 
 only to allow himself to be conducted, and the wife 
 of a foolish man should, under penalty of the great- 
 est misfortunes, assume the direction of the machine 
 if she feels herself more intelligent than he. Per- 
 haps, after all, it is reflection and reason which ar- 
 rive at that which we call depravation. For us, 
 depravation, is it not the introduction of calculation 
 into the feelings? A passion which reasons is 
 depraved ; it is only beautiful when involuntary and 
 in those sublime outbursts which exclude all ego- 
 tism. Ah! sooner or later you will say, my dear:
 
 122 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "Yes! falsehood is as necessary to the woman as 
 her corset, if by falsehood is understood the silence 
 of her who has the courage not to speak, if by false- 
 hood is understood the forethought necessary for the 
 future." Every married woman learns at her own 
 expense the social laws, which are incompatible in 
 many respects with those of nature. We could 
 have in marriage a dozen children, by marrying at 
 our present age; and, if we had them, we would 
 commit a dozen crimes, we would make a dozen 
 misfortunes. Would we not be delivering to pov- 
 erty and to despair charming beings? whilst two 
 children are two happinesses, two benefits, two 
 creatures in harmony with the moral and the actual 
 laws. The natural law and the code are enemies, 
 and we are the ground on which they combat 
 Would you call depravation the wisdom of the wife 
 who watches to see that the family does not ruin 
 itself by itself? One calculation or a thousand, all 
 is lost for the heart. This atrocious calculation, 
 you will make it one day yourself, beautiful Ba- 
 ronne de Macumer, when you will be the happy and 
 proud wife of the man whom you adore ; or rather 
 this superior man will spare you the trouble of it, 
 for he will make it himself. You see, dear foolish 
 one, that we have studied the code in its relations 
 with conjugal love. You will know that we are 
 accountable only to God and to ourselves for the 
 means which we employ to perpetuate happiness in 
 the bosom of our households; and it is much better 
 that calculation should direct there than unreflecting
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 123 
 
 love, which brings there mourning, quarrels or 
 disunion. I have cruelly studied the role of wife 
 and of mother of family. Yes, dear angel, we have 
 sublime falsehoods to act in order to be the noble 
 creature that we are in fulfilling our duties. You 
 tax me with falsehood because I wish to measure 
 out day by day to Louis the knowledge of myself; 
 but is it not a too intimate acquaintance which 
 causes disunions? I wish to occupy him much, in 
 order to distract him a great deal from myself, in 
 the name of his own proper happiness; and such is 
 not the calculation of passion. If tenderness is in- 
 exhaustible, love is not: thus it is a worthy under- 
 taking for an honest woman to distribute it sagely 
 through all her life. At the risk of seeming to you 
 execrable, I will say to you that I persist in my 
 principles, believing myself very great and very 
 generous. Virtue, mignonne, 'is a principle the 
 manifestations of which differ according to the sur- 
 roundings: the virtue of Provence, that of Constan- 
 tinople, that of London and that of Paris present 
 effects perfectly dissimilar without ceasing to be 
 virtue. Each human life offers in its tissue the 
 most irregular combinations; but, seen from a cer- 
 tain height, all resemble each other. If I wish to 
 see Louis unhappy and bring about a bodily separa- 
 tion, I would only have to follow in his leash. I 
 have not had, like you, the happiness of encounter- 
 ing a superior being, but perhaps I shall have the 
 pleasure of rendering him superior, and I give you 
 a rendezvous in Paris in five years. You will be
 
 124 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 taken in yourself, and you will tell me that I have 
 deceived myself, that Monsieur de 1'Estorade is in- 
 trinsically remarkable. As to those beautiful 
 loves, to those emotions which I only experience 
 through you ; as to those nocturnal stations on the 
 balcony, in the light of the stars; as to those ex- 
 cessive adorations, as to those deifications of our- 
 selves, I have learned that it is necessary to 
 renounce them. Your glowing expansion in life 
 radiates around you at your own pleasure; mine is 
 circumscribed, it has the bounding wall of La 
 Crampade : and you reproach me with the precau- 
 tions which a fragile, a secret, a poor happiness de- 
 mands in order to become durable, rich and 
 mysterious! I thought I had found the graces of a 
 mistress in my estate of a wife, and you have 
 almost made me blush for myself. Between us two, 
 which is wrong, which is right? Perhaps we are 
 both equally right and wrong, and perhaps society 
 sells us very dearly our laces, our titles and our 
 children! For myself, I have my red camellias, 
 they are on my lips, in smiles which flourish for 
 those two beings, the father and the son, to whom 
 I am devoted, at once slave and mistress. But, 
 dear, your last letters have caused me to perceive 
 all that I have lost! You have taught me the ex- 
 tent of the sacrifices of a married woman. I had 
 scarcely cast my eyes on those beautiful wild 
 meadows in which you leap and sport, and I will 
 not speak to you of some tears dried in reading 
 your letter; but regret is not remorse, although it
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 12$ 
 
 is somewhat related. You have said to me : "Mar- 
 riage renders philosophical!" Alas! no; I have 
 truly felt it when I wept in knowing you carried 
 away by the torrent of love. But my father has 
 caused me to read one of the most profound writers 
 of our provinces, one of the heirs of Bossuet, one of 
 those cruel politicians whose pages beget conviction. 
 While you were reading Corinne, I was reading Bo- 
 nald, and this is the secret of my philosophy, the 
 Family, holy and strong, appeared before me. 
 Therefore, according to Bonald, your father was 
 right in his discourse. Adieu, my dear imagina- 
 tion, my friend, you who are my folly! 
 
 XIX 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MADAME DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 Well, you are a love of a woman, my Renee; and 
 I will now agree that it is honest to deceive, are 
 you content? Moreover, the man who loves us be- 
 longs to us; we have the right to make of him a 
 fool or a man of genius; but between ourselves, we 
 oftener make of him a fool. You will make of 
 yours a man of genius, and you will keep your 
 secret, two magnificent actions! Ah! if there 
 were no paradise, you would pay dearly, for you 
 are vowing yourself to a voluntary martyrdom. 
 You wish to make him ambitious and to keep 
 him loving! but, child that you are, it is quite 
 enough to keep him loving. Up to what point is
 
 126 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 calculation virtue or is virtue calculation? Hein? 
 We will not quarrel on this point, since there is 
 Donald. We are and wish to be virtuous; but at 
 this moment I believe that, notwithstanding your 
 charming knaveries, you are better than I. Yes, I 
 am a young woman horribly false: I love Felipe 
 and I hide it from him with an infamous dissimu- 
 lation. I would wish to see him leap from his tree 
 to the top of the wall, from the top of the wall to 
 my balcony; and, if he did as I wish, I would over- 
 whelm him with my scorn. You see, I am of a ter- 
 rible honesty. Who hinders me? what mysterious 
 power prevents me from telling this dear Felipe all 
 the happiness which he communicates to me in 
 floods by his love pure, entire, grand, secret, com- 
 plete ? Madame de Mirbel is executing my portrait, 
 I intend to give it to him, my dear. That which 
 surprises me each day the more is the activity 
 which love gives to life. What an interest do the 
 hours take on, the actions, the smallest things! and 
 what an admirable blending of the past, of the 
 future, in the present! One lives in the three 
 tenses of the verb. Is it still so when one has 
 been happy? Oh! answer me, tell me what is 
 happiness, if it calms or if it irritates. I am of a 
 mortal uneasiness, I know no longer how to 
 conduct myself: there is in my heart a force which 
 attracts me towards him, notwithstanding reason 
 and the conventionalities. Finally, I understand 
 your curiosity with Louis, are you content? The 
 happiness which Felipe has in being mine, his
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 127 
 
 distant love and his obedience make me impatient as 
 much as his profound respect irritated me when he 
 was only my Spanish teacher. I am tempted to 
 call to him when he passes: "Imbecile, if you love 
 me as a picture, what would it be then if you knew 
 me!" 
 
 Oh Renee, you burn my letters, do you not? For 
 myself, I will burn yours. If other eyes than ours 
 should read these thoughts which are poured from 
 heart to heart, I would send Felipe to crush them 
 and to kill a few more people for still greater 
 surety. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Ah! Renee, how shall we sound the heart of a 
 man? My father should present to me your Mon- 
 sieur Bonald, and, since he is so wise, I will ask 
 it of him. God is very happy to be able to read 
 the depths of the heart. Shall I always bean angel 
 for this man ? That is the whole question. 
 
 If ever in a gesture, in a look, in the accent of a 
 word, I should perceive a diminution of that respect 
 which he had for me when he was my teacher of 
 Spanish, I feel myself strong enough to forget every- 
 thing! "Wherefore these great words, these grand 
 resolutions?" you will say to me. Ah! for this 
 reason, my dear. My charming father, who con- 
 ducts himself toward me like an old cavaliere ser- 
 vente with an Italian lady, has had, as I told you, 
 my portrait executed by Madame de Mirbel. I 
 have found means to have a sufficiently good copy
 
 128 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 executed to be able to give it to the duke and to 
 send the original to Felipe. This sending was done 
 yesterday, accompanied by these three lines: 
 
 "Don Felipe, your entire devotion is answered by 
 a blind confidence: time will say whether it is not 
 to accord too much grandeur to a man." 
 
 The recompense is great, it has the air of a 
 promise, and, horrible thing, an invitation; but, 
 what will seem to you still more horrible, I wish 
 that the recompense should express promise and in- 
 vitation without going so far as to offer them. If in 
 his reply there is: "My Louise," or only: 
 "Louise" he is lost! 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 No, he is not lost! This constitutional minister 
 is an adorable lover. Here is his letter: 
 
 "Every moment which I pass without seeing you 
 I remain occupied with you, my eyes closed to all 
 things and fixed in meditation upon your image, 
 which never revealed itself with sufficient prompt- 
 ness in the dusky palace traversed by dreams and 
 in which you diffuse light. Henceforth my sight 
 shall repose on this marvelous ivory, on this talis- 
 man, I should say: for me, your blue eyes become 
 animated, and the painting immediately becomes a 
 reality. The delay of this letter is owing to my 
 eagerness to enjoy this contemplation during which
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 129 
 
 I would say to you all that I should keep silent on. 
 Yes, since yesterday, shut up alone with you I have 
 given myself up, for the first time in my life, to a 
 happiness complete, entire, infinite. If you could 
 see where I have placed you, between the Virgin 
 and God, you would comprehend in what agonies I 
 have passed the night; but in telling you, I would 
 not wish to offend you, for there would be so many 
 torments for me in a look deprived of that angelic 
 goodness which makes me live, that I ask pardon of 
 you in advance. If then, queen of my life and of 
 my soul, you would but grant me a thousandth 
 part of the love I bear for you! 
 
 "The if of this constant prayer has ravaged my 
 soul. I was between belief and error, between life 
 and death, between the darkness and the light 
 A criminal is not more agitated during the discus- 
 sion of his doom than I am in accusing myself to 
 you of this audacity. The smile expressed on your 
 lips, and which I have seen again from moment to 
 moment, calmed these storms aroused by the fear of 
 displeasing you. During my lifetime, no one, not 
 even my mother, has ever smiled upon me. The 
 beautiful young girl who was destined for me re- 
 jected my heart and loved my brother. My efforts 
 in politics met with only defeat. I have never seen 
 in the eyes of my king anything but a desire for 
 vengeance ; and we have been such enemies, since 
 our youth, that he considered the vote by which 
 the Cortes elected me to power as a cruel injury. 
 However strong you may make the soul, doubt at 
 9
 
 130 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 least will enter it. Moreover, I am just to myself; 
 I know the bad grace of my exterior, and know 
 how difficult it is to appreciate my heart through 
 such an envelope. To be beloved, it was no longer 
 anything but a dream when I saw you. Thus, 
 when I attached myself to you, I comprehended that 
 devotion alone could excuse my tenderness. In con- 
 templating this portrait, in watching this smile full 
 of divine promises, a hope which I did not permit 
 myself has irradiated my soul. This light of the 
 morning is incessantly combated by the shadows of 
 doubt, by the fear of offending you in letting it ap- 
 pear. No, you cannot yet love me, I feel it; but, 
 in proportion as you will have experienced the 
 power, the duration, the extent of my inexhaustible 
 affection, you will give it a little place in your 
 heart If my ambition is an insult, you will tell 
 me so without anger, I will return to my part; but, 
 if you would wish to endeavor to love me, do not 
 let it be known without minute precautions to him 
 who puts all the happiness of his life in only serv- 
 ing you." 
 
 My dear, on reading these last words, I seemed to 
 see him pale as he was the evening in which I said 
 to him, in showing him the camellia, that I accepted 
 the treasures of his devotion. I saw in these sub- 
 missive phrases something quite different from a 
 simple flower of flattery in the manner of lovers, 
 and I felt something like a great movement within 
 myself, the breath of happiness.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 131 
 
 The weather was detestable, it was not possible 
 for me to go to the Bois without giving rise to 
 strange suspicions ; for my mother who often goes 
 out notwithstanding the rain, remained in her own 
 apartments, alone. 
 
 Wednesday evening. 
 
 I have just seen him, at the Opera. My dear, he 
 is no longer the same man: he came into our box, 
 presented by the Sardinian ambassador. After 
 having seen in my eyes that his audacity did not 
 displease, he seemed to me as though he were bodily 
 embarrassed and he said Mademoiselle to the Mar- 
 quise d'Espard. His eyes shed glances which 
 made a light more vivid than that of the sconces. 
 Finally he went out, like a man who feared to com- 
 mit an extravagance. 
 
 "The Baron de Macumer is in love!" said Ma- 
 dame de Maufrigneuse to my mother. 
 
 "That is all the more extraordinary as he is a 
 fallen minister," replied my mother. 
 
 I had the strength to look at Madame d'Espard, 
 Madame de Maufrigneuse, and my mother with the 
 curiosity of one who does not know a foreign lan- 
 guage and who wishes to know what is said ; but I 
 was inwardly a prey to a voluptuous joy in which 
 it seemed to me that my soul was bathed. There 
 is only one word to explain to you that which I felt, 
 that is ravishment. Felipe loves so much, that I 
 find him worthy of being loved. I am exactly the 
 principle of his life, and I hold in my hand the
 
 132 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 thread which conducts his thoughts. Finally, if 
 we must tell everything to each other, there is 
 within me the most violent desire to see him over- 
 come all obstacles, to come to me to ask me of my- 
 self, in order to know if this furious love would 
 become humble and calm before only one of my 
 glances. 
 
 Ah! my dear, 1 have stopped and am all trem- 
 bling. While writing to you, I heard outside a si ight 
 noise and I rose. From my window, I saw him 
 walking along the crest of the wall, at the risk of 
 killing himself. I went to the window of my cham- 
 ber and I made him only one sign; he leaped from 
 the wall, which is ten feet high; then he ran out 
 on the road, just so far that I could see him, to show 
 me that he had not hurt himself. This attention, 
 at the moment when he must have been dazed by 
 his fall, so much affected me, that I wept without 
 knowing why. Poor ugly fellow! what did he 
 come to seek ? what did he wish to say to me ? 
 
 I do not dare to write my thoughts, and I am go- 
 ing to bed in my joy, thinking of everything we 
 would say to each other if we were together. Fare- 
 well, beautiful mute. I have not the time to com- 
 plain to you of your silence, but here it is more 
 than a month since I have had any news of you ! 
 Have you, by chance, become happy? Have you 
 no longer that free will which rendered you so 
 proud and which, this evening, has almost aban- 
 doned me ?
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 133 
 
 XX 
 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU 
 
 May. 
 
 If love is the life of the world, why do the 
 austere philosophers suppress it in marriage ? Why 
 does society take for its supreme law the sacrifice 
 of the Woman to the Family, thus necessarily cre- 
 ating a hidden struggle in the heart of marriage? a 
 struggle foreseen by it and so dangerous, that it 
 has invented powers to arm the man against us, 
 divining that we could annul everything either by 
 the power of tenderness or by the persistence of a 
 hidden hatred. I see at this moment, in marriage, 
 two opposing forces which the legislator should have 
 re-united; when will they be re-united? that is 
 what I said to myself while reading your letter. 
 Oh ! dear, one only of your letters ruins that edifice 
 built by the great writer of L'Aveyron, and in 
 which I had taken up my residence with a gentle 
 satisfaction! Laws have been made by old men, 
 the women perceive it; they have very sagely de- 
 creed that conjugal love exempt from passion should 
 not debase us, and that a woman should give her- 
 self without love once the law permitted a man to 
 make her his. Preoccupied with the family, they 
 have imitated nature, anxious only to perpetuate 
 the species. I was a being formerly, and I am now 
 a thing! It is more than one tear that I have shed 
 apart, alone, and which I would wish to give in
 
 134 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 exchange for a consoling smile. From whence comes 
 the inequality of our destinies ? Lawful love makes 
 your soul greater. For you, virtue is to be found 
 in pleasure. You will only suffer of your own free 
 will. Your duty, if you marry your Felipe, will 
 become the sweetest, the most expansive of senti- 
 ments. Our future is big with the reply, and 1 am 
 waiting for it with an unquiet curiosity. 
 
 You love, you are adored. Oh, dear, give your- 
 self up entirely to this beautiful poem which has so 
 much occupied us ! This beauty of the woman, so 
 fine and so spiritualized in you, God has made it 
 thus that it might charm and please: he has his 
 designs. Yes, my angel, guard well the secret of 
 your tenderness, and submit Felipe to the subtle 
 proofs which we invented to know if the lover 
 whom we dreamed of should be worthy of us. 
 Above all, know rather if you love him than if he 
 loves you: nothing is more deceiving than the mi- 
 rage produced in our soul by curiosity, by desire, by 
 belief in happiness. You who, alone of us two, 
 remain intact, dear, do not risk yourself without 
 security in the dangerous bargain of an irrevocable 
 marriage, I entreat you! Sometimes a gesture, a 
 word, a look, in a conversation without witnesses, 
 when the souls are stripped of their worldly hypoc- 
 risy, will light up abysses. You are sufficiently 
 noble, sufficiently sure of yourself, to be able to 
 enter courageously in paths where others lose them- 
 selves. You cannot imagine in what anxieties I 
 am. Notwithstanding the distance, I see you, I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 135 
 
 experience all your emotions. Therefore, do not fail 
 to write me, omit nothing! Your letters make for 
 me a passionate life in the midst of my household so 
 simple, so tranquil, all alike as a highroad on a sun- 
 less day. That which takes place here, my angel, is a 
 series of quibblings with myself concerning which I 
 wish to keep the secret to-day, I will tell you about 
 it later. I give myself, and take myself back with 
 a sombre pertinacity, passing from discouragement 
 to hope. Perhaps I have asked of life more happi- 
 ness than it owes us. At a youthful age we are 
 only too easily led to wish that the ideal and the 
 positive should be in accord! My reflections, and 
 now I make them all alone, seated at the foot of a 
 rock in my park, have led me to think that love in 
 marriage is a chance on which it is impossible to 
 base the law which should govern all. My phil- 
 osopher of L'Aveyron is right to consider the family 
 as the sole possible social unity and to submit the 
 woman to it as she has been in all times. The 
 solution of this great question, almost terrible for 
 us, is in the first child which we have. Thus 
 would I wish to be a mother, were it only to give 
 food to the devouring activity of my soul. 
 
 Louis is always of an adorable goodness, his love 
 is active and my tenderness is abstract; he is 
 happy, he gathers for himself alone the flowers, with- 
 out concerning himself with the efforts of the earth 
 that produces them. Happy egotism! Whatever 
 it may cost me, I lend myself to his illusions, as a 
 mother, according to the ideas which I have of a
 
 136 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 mother, sacrifices herself to procure a pleasure for 
 her child. His joy is so profound that it closes his 
 eyes and throws its reflections even upon me. I 
 deceive him by the smile or by the look full of sat- 
 isfaction which the certainty of giving him happi- 
 ness causes me. Thus, the friendly appellation 
 which I give him in our home is "my child!" I 
 am waiting for the fruit of so many sacrifices which 
 shall be a secret between God, yourself and me. 
 Maternity is an undertaking for which I have opened 
 an enormous credit, it owes me too much to-day, I 
 fear I shall not be sufficiently paid: its charge is to 
 develop all my energy and to make my heart 
 greater, to recompense me for unlimited joys. O 
 my God, may I not be deceived! in it lies all my 
 future, and, a frightful thing to think, that of my 
 virtue. 
 
 XXI 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 June. 
 
 Dear married lamb, your letter came very apropos 
 to enable me to justify to myself a hardihood of 
 which I have been thinking night and day. There 
 is an unspeakable appetite in me for things un- 
 known, or, if you like, forbidden, which disquiets 
 me and reveals to me a combat within me between 
 the laws of the world and those of nature. I do not 
 know if nature is stronger within me than society, 
 but I surprised myself by concluding a transaction
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 137 
 
 between these two powers. In short, to speak 
 clearly, I wished to talk with Felipe, alone with 
 him, during an hour of the night, under the linden 
 trees, at the end of our garden. Assuredly this 
 wish is natural in a girl who deserves the name of 
 lively, clever gossip, which the duchess gives me 
 laughing and which my father confirms. Never- 
 theless, I find this fault prudent and wise. While 
 rewarding so many nights passed at the foot of my 
 wall, I wish to know what Felipe will think of my 
 escapade, and to judge him in such a moment; 
 make of him my dear husband if he deifies my fault; 
 or never see him again if he is not more respectful 
 and more trembling than when he bows to me in 
 passing on horseback in the Champs-Elysees. As 
 to the world, I risk less in seeing my lover thus 
 than in smiling upon him in the house of Madame 
 de Maufrigneuse or in that of the old Marquise de 
 Beauseant, where we are now surrounded by spies, 
 for God knows what looks follow a girl who is sus- 
 pected of paying attention to a monster like Macu- 
 mer. Oh! if you knew how much I am inwardly 
 agitated in thinking of this project, how much I am 
 occupied in seeing in advance how it will be re- 
 alized! I have regretted you, we would have 
 chatted during several little hours, lost in the laby- 
 rinths of uncertainty and experiencing in advance 
 all the good or evil fortunes of a first rendezvous at 
 night, in the shadow and in the silence, under the 
 fine linden trees of the H6tel de Chaulieu, pierced 
 by the thousand rays of the moon. I palpitated all
 
 138 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 alone in saying to myself: "Ah! Renee, where are 
 you?" Your letter then put fire to the powder, and 
 my last scruples vanished. I threw from my win- 
 dow to my stupefied adorer the exact design of a 
 key of the little gate at the end of the garden, with 
 this note : 
 
 "It is wished to prevent you from committing 
 foolish actions. By breaking your neck, you will 
 deprive of honor the person whom you say you love. 
 Are you worthy of a new proof of esteem and do you 
 wish that one should speak with you at the hour 
 when the moon leaves in shadow the linden trees at 
 the end of the garden?" 
 
 Yesterday morning, at one o'clock, at the momen 
 when Griffith was about to go to bed, I said to her : 
 
 "Get your shawl and accompany me, my dear; I 
 wish to go to the end of the garden without any one 
 knowing it!" 
 
 She did not say a word and followed me. What 
 sensations, my Renee ! for, after having waited for 
 him, a prey to a charming little anguish, I saw him 
 gliding along like a shadow. When we reached the 
 garden without any disturbance I said to Griffith : 
 
 "Do not be astonished, there is the Baron de 
 Macumer, and it is because of him that I have 
 brought you here." 
 
 She said nothing. 
 
 "What do you wish with me?" said Felipe to me 
 in a voice the emotion of which betrayed that the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 139 
 
 sound of our dresses in the silence of the night and 
 that of our feet on the sand, 1 ight as it was, had 
 made him beside himself. 
 
 "I wish to say to you what I did not know how to 
 write," I replied to him. 
 
 Griffith went away six steps from us. The night 
 was one of those balmy nights, fragrant with flowers ; 
 I experienced in this moment an intoxicating pleas- 
 ure at finding myself almost alone with him in the 
 soft darkness of the linden trees, beyond which the 
 garden glittered all the more that the facade of the 
 Hotel reflected the pale light of the moon. This 
 contrast offered a vague image of the mystery of our 
 love which should finish by the brilliant publicity 
 of marriage. After a moment given by both of us 
 to the pleasure of the situation, novel for both of us, 
 and in which we were both equally astonished, I 
 recovered the power of speech. 
 
 "Although I do not fear calumny, I do not wish 
 any longer that you should climb into that tree," I 
 said to him, indicating the elm, "nor on that wall. 
 We have done enough behaving, you like a school- 
 boy, and I like a boarding-school girl : let us elevate 
 our sentiments to the height of our destinies. If 
 you had been killed in your fall, I should have died 
 dishonored " 
 
 I looked at him, he was pale. 
 
 "And if you had been surprised thus, my mother 
 or 1, we would have been suspected " 
 
 "Forgive me," he said in a feeble voice. 
 
 "Pass along on the boulevard, I will hear your
 
 140 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 step, and when I wish to see you I will open my 
 window; but I will not make you run this risk and 
 I will not run it myself except on some serious oc- 
 casion. Why have you compelled me, by your im- 
 prudence, to expose myself to another and to give 
 you an unworthy opinion of me?" 
 
 I saw tears in his eyes which seemed to me the 
 finest reply in the world. 
 
 "You may believe," I said to him smiling, "that 
 my enterprise is excessively hazardous " 
 
 After one or two turns which we took in silence 
 under the trees, he found words to express himself. 
 
 "You must think me stupid; and I am so intoxi- 
 cated with happiness that I am without strength and 
 without wit; but know at least that in my eyes you 
 sanctify your actions by this alone that you permit 
 them to yourself. The respect which I have for you 
 can only be compared with that which 1 have for 
 God. Moreover, Miss Griffith is there." 
 
 "She is there for others and not for us, Felipe," I 
 said to him quickly. 
 
 This man, my dear, understood me. 
 
 "I know well," he answered, casting at me the 
 most humble glance, "that if she were not there, 
 everything would take place between us just as if 
 she saw us : if we are not before men we are always 
 in the presence of God, and we have as much need 
 of our own respect as of that of the world." 
 
 "Thanks, Felipe," I said to him, offering him 
 my hand with a gesture which you should have 
 seen. "A woman, and you may take me for a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 141 
 
 woman, is well disposed to love a man who compre- 
 hends her. Oh! only disposed," I added, placing 
 a finger upon my lips. "I do not wish that you 
 should have any more hope than I should wish to 
 give you. My heart will only belong to him who 
 will know how to read it and to know it thoroughly. 
 Our sentiments, without being absolutely the same, 
 should have the same breadth, should be at the same 
 elevation. I do not seek to make myself greater, 
 for those which I think to be good qualities include 
 doubtless some defects; but, if I did not have them, 
 I should be exceedingly sorry." 
 
 "After having accepted me for your servitor, you 
 have permitted me to love you," said he trembling 
 and watching me at each word: "I have more than 
 I at first desired." 
 
 "But," I replied to him quickly, "I find your lot 
 to be better than mine; I should not complain to 
 change them, and this change concerns you." 
 
 "It is for me now to thank you," he replied: "I 
 know the duties of a loyal lover. I should prove to 
 you that I am worthy of you, and you have the right 
 to put me to the proof as long as you please. You 
 can, my God! reject me if I betray your hope." 
 
 "I know that you love me," I answered. "Up 
 to the present" I cruelly accented this word "you 
 are the preferred, this is why you are here." 
 
 We then recommenced our little promenade still 
 talking, and I must avow to you that, when put at 
 his ease, my Spaniard displayed the veritable elo- 
 quence of the heart in expressing to me, not his
 
 142 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 passion, but his tenderness; for he was able to ex- 
 plain his sentiments to me by an adorable compari- 
 son with the divine love. His penetrating voice, 
 which lent a peculiar value to his thoughts so deli- 
 cate in themselves, resembled the notes of the 
 nightingale. He spoke in a low voice, in the full 
 medium tones of his delightful organ, and his 
 phrases followed each other with the precipitation 
 of a boiling over, his heart overflowed in them. 
 
 "Cease," I said to him, "I shall stay here longer 
 than I should." 
 
 And with a gesture I dismissed him. 
 
 "You are engaged, mademoiselle," said Griffith 
 to me. 
 
 "Perhaps so in England, but not in France," I 
 replied negligently. "I wish to make a marriage 
 of love and not to be deceived, that is all." 
 
 You see, my dear, love does not come to me, I 
 have done as Mohammed did with his mountain. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 I have seen my slave again : he has become fear- 
 ful, he has assumed a mysterious and devout air 
 which pleases me ; he appears to me to be pene- 
 trated with my glory and my puissance. But noth- 
 ing, neither in his looks, nor in his manners, would 
 permit any soothsayer in the world to suspect in 
 him that infinite love which I see. However, my 
 dear, I am not carried away, dominated, conquered; 
 on the contrary, I conquer, 1 dominate and I carry 
 away . In short, I reason. Ah! I should well like
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 14$ 
 
 to find again that fear which was awakened in me 
 by the fascination of the teacher of languages, of 
 the bourgeois to whom I refused myself. There are 
 two loves, that which commands and that which 
 obeys; they are distinct and give birth to two pas- 
 sions which are unlike; to have her full experience 
 of life, perhaps a woman should know both of these. 
 Can these two passions become confounded? A 
 man in whom we inspire love, will he inspire it in 
 us? Will Felipe be one day my master? Shall 1 
 tremble as he trembles? These questions make me 
 shudder. He is very blind! In his place, I should 
 have found Mademoiselle de Chaulieu under those 
 linden trees very coquettishly cold> formal, calcu- 
 lating. No, it is not loving, that, it is sporting 
 with fire. Felipe always pleases me, but I find 
 myself now calm and very much at my ease. No 
 more obstacles, what a terrible word. Everything 
 is quieting down within me, subsiding, and I am 
 afraid to interrogate myself. He was wrong to hide 
 from me the violence of his love, he has left me 
 mistress of myself. In short, I do not have the 
 benefits of this species of fault. Yes, dear, what- 
 ever pleasure is given me by the remembrance of 
 that half hour passed under the trees, I find this 
 pleasure very much inferior to the emotions which 
 I experienced in saying to myself: "Shall I go 
 there? Shall I not go there? Shall I write to him? 
 Shall I not write to him?" Will it be thus with 
 all our pleasures? Will it be better to postpone 
 them than to enjoy them? Will hope be better
 
 144 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 than possession? The rich, are they the poor? 
 Have we, both of us, given too much extent to the 
 feelings in developing beyond measure the forces of 
 our imagination ? There are moments in which this 
 idea chills me. Do you know why? I dream of 
 going again to the end of the garden without Griffith. 
 How far shall I go thus? The imagination has no 
 bounds, and the pleasures have. Tell me, dear 
 doctor in a corset, how to conciliate these two con- 
 clusions of a woman's existence? 
 
 XXII 
 LOUISE TO FELIPE 
 
 I am not satisfied with you. If you did not weep 
 in reading Racine's B'er'enice, and not find it the 
 most horrible of tragedies, you will not in the least 
 comprehend me, we shall never understand each 
 other: let us break off, let us see each other no 
 more, forget me; for, if you do not reply to me in 
 a satisfactory manner, I will forget you, you will 
 become Monsieur le Baron de Macumer for me, or, 
 rather, you will become to me nothing, you will be 
 for me as if you had never existed. Yesterday, at 
 the house of Madame d'Espard, you had an inexpli- 
 cable air of contentment which excessively dis- 
 pleased me. You appeared certain of being loved. 
 Finally, the freedom of your wit terrified me, and I 
 did not in the least recognize in you, at that 
 moment, the servitor which you professed yourself
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 145 
 
 in your first letter. Far from being completely 
 absorbed as should be the man who loves, you 
 found clever speeches to utter. This is not the 
 way that a true believer comports himself, he is 
 always crushed before the divinity. If I am not a 
 being superior to all other women, if you do not see 
 in me the source of your life, I am less than a 
 woman, because then I am simply a woman. You 
 have awakened my mistrust, Felipe: it has com- 
 plained so loudly as to overcome the voice of ten- 
 derness, and, when I consider our past, I find that I 
 have a right to be mistrustful. Know it well, Mon- 
 sieur the Constitutional Minister of all the Spains, 
 1 have profoundly reflected on the poor condition of 
 my sex. My innocence has held lighted torches in 
 her hands without burning herself. Listen atten- 
 tively to what my young experience has said to me 
 and which I repeat to you. In every other thing, 
 duplicity, the breaking of faith, the unfulfilled 
 promises find judges, and the judges inflict punish- 
 ments; but it is not so in love, which should be at 
 the same time the victim, the accuser, the advocate, 
 the tribunal and the executioner ; for the most atro- 
 cious perfidies, the most horrible crimes remain un- 
 known, are committed by one soul on another 
 without witnesses, and it is in the interests of the 
 assassinated one himself to keep silence. Love has 
 therefore its own code, its own vengeance : there is 
 nothing for the world to see in it Now, I have 
 resolved, for myself, to never pardon a crime, and 
 there is nothing superficial in the things of the
 
 146 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 heart. Yesterday, you had the air of a man certain 
 of being loved. You would be wrong not to have 
 this certainty, but you would be criminal in my 
 eyes if it deprived you of the ingenuous grace 
 which the anxieties of hope gave you formerly. I 
 do not wish to see you timid or stupid, I do not wish 
 that you should tremble to lose my affection, for 
 that would be an insult; but I do not wish any more 
 that security should permit you to carry your love 
 lightly. You should never be freer than I am my- 
 self. If you do not know the torture which one 
 thought of doubt inflicts on the soul, tremble lest I 
 should teach it to you. By a single glance, I have 
 delivered my soul to you, and you have read it. 
 You have had given to you the purest sentiments 
 which ever arose in the soul of a young girl. The 
 reflection, the meditation of which I have spoken to 
 you have only enriched the head; but, when the 
 injured heart shall ask for counsel from the intelli- 
 gence, believe me, the young girl will then partake 
 of the angel who knows and is capable of all. I 
 swear to you, Felipe, if you love me as I believe, 
 and if you should allow me to suspect the least en- 
 feebling of the sentiments of fear, of obedience, of 
 respectful waiting, of submissive desire which you 
 have declared; if I should perceive some day the 
 least diminution in that first and beautiful love 
 which from your soul came into mine, I would say 
 nothing to you, I would not weary you by a letter 
 more or less dignified, more or less proud or angry, 
 or only scolding like this one; I would say nothing,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 147 
 
 Felipe, you would see me sad like those who feel 
 the coming of death; but I should not die without 
 having inflicted upon you the most horrible dis- 
 credit, without having dishonored in the most 
 shameful manner the one whom you should love 
 and without planting in your heart eternal regrets, 
 for you would see me lost in this world in the eyes 
 of men and forever accursed in the other world. 
 
 Therefore, do not render me jealous of any other 
 happy Louise, of a Louise loved holily, of a Louise 
 whose soul should expand in a love without shadow, 
 and who would possess, as in Dante's sublime ex- 
 pression, 
 
 "Senza brama, sicura ricchezza!" * 
 
 Know that I have searched through his Inferno 
 to find the most sorrowful of tortures, a terrible 
 moral chastisement with which I shall associate the 
 eternal vengeance of God. 
 
 Yesterday, by your conduct, you pierced my heart 
 with the cold and cruel blade of suspicion. Do you 
 understand ? I doubted you, and I suffered so much 
 from it that I do not wish to doubt any more. If you 
 find my service too hard, leave it, I shall not want 
 you in the least Do I not know that you are a 
 man of character? Reserve all the flowers of your 
 soul for me, have only dull eyes for the world, never 
 place yourself in a position to receive a flattery, a 
 eulogy, a compliment from anyone whomsoever. 
 Come to see me overwhelmed with hatred, having 
 
 *To possess, without fear, riches which cannot be lost
 
 148 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 excited a thousand calumnies or crushed with con- 
 tempt, come to me to say that women do not under- 
 stand you, walk with you without seeing you, and 
 that not one of them will ever know how to love 
 you, you will then learn what there is for you in 
 the heart and in the love of Louise. Our treasures 
 should be so well buried, that the whole world 
 should trample them under their feet without sus- 
 pecting their existence. If you were handsome, I 
 should doubtless not have paid the least attention 
 to you and should not have discovered in you the 
 world of reasons which makes love bloom; and, 
 although we do know them no more than we know 
 how the sun makes the flowers bloom or the fruits 
 ripen, nevertheless, among these reasons, there is 
 one which 1 know and which charms me. Your 
 sublime visage has its character, its language, its 
 physiognomy only for me. I alone, I have the 
 power to transform you, to render you the most 
 adorable of all men; I do not wish then that your 
 spirit should escape from my possession, it should 
 no more reveal itself to others than your eyes, your 
 charming mouth and your features should speak to 
 them. To me alone belongs the power of illumin- 
 ating the splendors of your intelligence as I give 
 fire to your glances. Remain that sombre and cold, 
 that surly and disdainful grandee of Spain which 
 you were formerly. You were a savage dominion 
 destroyed, among the ruins of which no one ven- 
 tured, you were contemplated from a distance, and 
 now you are opening up pleasant roads for all the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 149 
 
 world to enter, and you are becoming an amiable 
 Parisian! Do you no longer remember my pro- 
 gramme? Your joys revealed a little too plainly 
 that you loved. It required my look to prevent 
 you from making known to the salon the most ob- 
 serving, the most mocking, the wittiest in Paris, 
 that Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu gave to 
 you your spirit I believe you too great to bring 
 the slightest ruse of politics into your love; but, if 
 you should not have with me the simplicity of a 
 child, I should complain of you; and, notwithstand- 
 ing this first fault, you are still the object of a pro- 
 found admiration for 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 FELIPE TO LOUISE 
 
 When God sees our faults, he sees also our repent- 
 ances: you are quite right, my dear mistress. I 
 felt that I had displeased you without being able to 
 penetrate the cause of your trouble; but you have 
 explained it to me, and you have given me new 
 reasons for adoring you. Your jealousy, after the 
 manner of that of the God of Israel, has filled me 
 with happiness. Nothing is more saintly nor more 
 sacred than jealousy. Oh, my beautiful guardian 
 angel, Jealousy is the sentinel who never sleeps; 
 it is to love what evil is to man, a veracious ad- 
 monition. Be jealous of your servitor, Louise: the
 
 I$0 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 more you strike him, the more will he kiss, sub- 
 missive, humble and unhappy, the rod which in- 
 forms him in striking him how much you are 
 attached to him. But alas! dear, if you have not 
 perceived them, is it then God who will keep an 
 account for me of so many efforts made to vanquish 
 my timidity, to overcome the sentiments which you 
 thought feeble in me? Yes, I took it seriously upon 
 myself to show myself to you as I was before I loved. 
 My conversation formerly gave some pleasure in 
 Madrid, and I wished to let you know for yourself 
 what I was worth. Is it a vanity? you have well 
 punished it. Your last look left me in a trembling 
 such as I have never before experienced, even when 
 I saw the French forces before Cadiz, 'and my life 
 held in suspense in a hypocritical phrase of my 
 master. I sought for the cause of your displeasure 
 without being able to find it, and I was filled with 
 despair at this want of accord in our souls, for I 
 should act by your will, think by your thoughts, 
 see by your eyes, enjoy in your pleasure and suffer 
 in your pain, as I feel the cold and the heat. For 
 myself, the crime and the anguish lie in this default 
 of simultaneousness in the life of our heart which 
 you have made so beautiful. "Displease her! " 
 I repeated to myself a thousand times since like a 
 fool. My noble and beautiful Louise, if anything 
 could increase my absolute devotion for you and my 
 unshakable belief in your holy conscience, it would 
 be your doctrine which has entered into my heart 
 like a new light. You have revealed to me my own
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 151 
 
 feelings, you have explained to me things which 
 were confused in my mind . Oh! if you think to 
 punish thus, what are then the recompenses ? But 
 to have accepted me for servitor suffices for all that 
 I wish. I draw from you an unhoped-for light: I 
 am devoted, my breath is not useless, my strength 
 has its employment, were it only to suffer for you. 
 I have said it to you, I repeat it to you, you will 
 always find me such as I was when I offered myself 
 as a humble and modest servitor ! Yes, were you dis- 
 honored and lost, as you said you might be, my 
 tenderness would augment with your voluntary 
 unhappiness ! I would dry the wounds, I would heal 
 them, I would convince God by my prayers that you 
 were not culpable and that your faults were the 
 crime of others . Have I not said to you that I 
 bear for you in my heart all those diverse senti- 
 ments which should belong to a father, a mother, a 
 sister and a brother ? that I am before everything a 
 family for you, everything and nothing, according 
 to your wishes ? But is it not you who have im- 
 prisoned so many hearts in the heart of a lover ? 
 Forgive me then for being from time to time more 
 lover than father and brother, and learn that there 
 is always a brother, a father behind the lover. If 
 you could read in my heart, when I see you beauti- 
 ful and radiant, serene and admired by all in the 
 corner of your carriage in the Champs-El ysees or in 
 your box in the theatre! Ah! if you knew how 
 little my pride is personal when I hear the praises 
 which the sight of your beauty compels, by your
 
 152 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 carriage, and how much I love the unknown persons 
 who admire you ! When by chance you have en- 
 riched my soul by a salutation, I am at the same time 
 humble and proud, I go away as if God had blessed 
 me, I return home joyous, and my joy leaves in me 
 a long, luminous trace, it shines in the wreaths of 
 the smoke of my cigarette, and I know all the more 
 because of it that the blood which boils in my veins 
 is all yours. Do you not then know how much you 
 are loved? After having seen you, I return into the 
 cabinet where glitters all the Saracenic magnifi- 
 cence, but where your portrait eclipses everything 
 else, when I have pressed the spring which renders 
 it invisible to all other eyes; and I then give my- 
 self up to the infinitude of this contemplation : I 
 make of it poems of happiness. From the height of 
 the heavens, I can perceive the course of a whole 
 life which I dare to hope. Have you sometimes 
 heard in the silence of the night, or, notwithstand- 
 ing the noise of the world, a voice sound in your 
 dear little adored ear? Are you ignorant of the 
 thousand prayers which are addressed to you? 
 Through long contemplation of you silently, I have 
 ended by discover ing the reason of all your features, 
 their correspondence with the perfection of your 
 soul ; I compose to you then, in Spanish, on this 
 accord of your two beautiful natures, sonnets which 
 you do not know, for my poesy is too much below 
 the subject, and I dare not send it to you. My heart 
 is so perfectly absorbed in yours that I do not pass 
 a moment without thinking of you; and, if you
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 153 
 
 should cease to thus animate my life, it would mean 
 suffering for me. Do you now understand, Louise, 
 what a torment it is for me to be, quite involun- 
 tarily, the cause of a displeasure to you and not to 
 be able to guess the reason? This beautiful double 
 life was arrested, and my heart felt a glacial cold. 
 Finally, in the possibility of explaining to myself 
 this want of accord, I thought that I was no longer 
 loved; I returned very sorrowfully, but happy still, 
 to my condition of servitor, when your letter arrived 
 and filled me with joy. Oh! scold me always thus. 
 A child who had fallen said to its mother: "For- 
 give me!" in rising and concealing from her its 
 hurt. Yes, forgiveness for having caused her an 
 anxiety. Well, this child, it is I: I have not 
 changed, I deliver to you the key to my character 
 with the submission of a slave; but, dear Louise, I 
 shall make no more false steps.. Endeavor to keep 
 the chain which attaches me to you and which you 
 hold, always sufficiently tightened so that a single 
 movement may communicate your least wishes to 
 him who will be always 
 
 Your slave, 
 
 FELIPE. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENE*E DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 October, 1825. 
 
 My dear friend, you who married yourself in 
 two months to a poor sufferer of whom you made
 
 154 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 yourself the mother, you know nothing of the fright- 
 ful and sudden changes of that drama which is played 
 in the depths of hearts and called love, in which 
 everything becomes tragical in a moment, in which 
 death is in a look, in a response lightly made. I 
 reserved for a last proof of Felipe a terrible but 
 decisive trial. I wished to know if I were loved 
 quandmeme! the great and sublime words of the 
 Royalists, and why not of the Catholics? He 
 walked with me all one night under the linden trees 
 at the end of our garden, and he did not have in 
 his soul even the shadow of a doubt. The next 
 day, I was more loved, and for him still quite as 
 chaste, quite as grand, quite as pure as the night 
 before ; he had not taken from it the least advantage. 
 Oh! he is indeed a Spaniard, indeed an Abencer- 
 rage. He scaled my wall to kiss the hand which I 
 offered to him in the shadow from the height of my 
 balcony; he risked falling; but how many young 
 people would do as much? All that is nothing, the 
 Christians endure frightful martyrdoms to attain 
 Heaven. Day before yesterday, in the evening, I 
 took to one side the future Ambassador of the King 
 at the Court of Spain, my very honored father, and 
 I said to him smiling: 
 
 "Monsieur, for a small number of friends, you 
 will marry to the nephew of an ambassador your 
 dear Armande, to whom this ambassador, desirous 
 of such an alliance and who has begged for it for a 
 sufficient length of time, assures in the marriage 
 contract his immense fortune and his titles after his
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 155 
 
 death, while giving, at the present moment, to the 
 married couple a hundred thousand francs' income 
 and acknowledging for the bride a dot of eight 
 hundred thousand francs. Your daughter weeps, 
 but she bows under the irresistible ascendency of 
 your majestic paternal authority. Some slanderers 
 assert that your daughter hides under her tears a 
 designing and ambitious soul. We are going this 
 evening to the Opera, in the gentleman's box, and 
 Monsieur le Baron de Macumer will come there." 
 
 "He is not going then?" replied my father smil- 
 ing and addressing me as an ambassadress. 
 
 "You take Clarissa Harlowe for Figaro!" I said 
 to him throwing upon him a look full of disdain and 
 of mockery. "When you have seen me with the 
 right hand ungloved you will deny this impertinent 
 story, and you will show that you are offended by it " 
 
 "I may be easy concerning^ your future, you 
 have no more the head of a young girl than Joan of 
 Arc had a woman's heart You will be happy, you 
 will love no one and you will allow yourself to be 
 loved!" 
 
 This time I burst into laughter. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, my little 
 coquette?" he said to me. 
 
 "I tremble for the interests of my country " 
 
 And, seeing that he did not understand me, I added : 
 
 "At Madrid!" 
 
 "You would not believe to what an extent, at the 
 end of a year, this nun makes fun of her father," 
 said he to the duchess.
 
 156 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "Armande makes fun of everything," replied my 
 mother looking at me. 
 
 "What do you wish to say?" I asked her. 
 
 "Why, you do not even fear the dampness of the 
 night which might give you rheumatism," she said, 
 giving me another look. 
 
 "The mornings," I replied, "are so warm!" 
 
 The duchess lowered her eyes. 
 
 "It is high time to marry her," said my father, 
 "and it will be, I hope, before my departure." 
 
 "Yes, if you wish it," I replied to him simply. 
 
 Two hours later, my mother and I, the Duchesse 
 de Maufrigneuse and Madame d'Espard, we were 
 like four roses in the front of the opera box. I had 
 placed myself at the side, presenting only a shoulder 
 to the public and being able to see everything with- 
 out being seen in that spacious box which occupies 
 one of the two panels of the wall at the end of the 
 auditorium, bet ween the columns. Macumer arrived, 
 planted himself on his legs and put his opera glasses 
 before his eyes so that he might contemplate me at 
 his ease. At the first entr'acte he came in whom 
 I called "the king of the ribalds," a young man of 
 feminine beauty. The Comte Henri de Marsay 
 made his appearance in the box with an epigram in 
 his eyes, a smile on his lips, a joyful air all over 
 his face. He made his compliments first to my 
 mother, then to Madame d'Espard, to the Duchesse 
 de Maufrigneuse, to the Comte d'Esgrignon and to 
 Monsieur de Canal is; then he said to me: 
 
 "I do not know if I shall be the first to
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 157 
 
 compliment you on an event which will render you 
 an object of envy." 
 
 "Ah, a marriage!" I said. "Is it for a young 
 person who has so recently come out of a convent to 
 instruct you that the marriages which are talked of 
 never take place?" 
 
 Monsieur de Marsay leaned over to the ear of 
 Macumer, and I perfectly understood, only through 
 the movement of his lips, that he said to him : 
 
 "Baron, you are perhaps in love with that little 
 coquette, who has made use of you ; but, as it is a 
 question of marriage and not of a passion, it is 
 always necessary to know what is going on." 
 
 Macumer threw upon the officious slanderer one 
 of those looks which, as I say, is a poem, and re- 
 plied to him something like, "I do not love any lit- 
 tle coquette !" with an air which delighted me so 
 that I took off my glove on , seeing my father. 
 Felipe had not had the slightest fear nor the slight- 
 est suspicion. He had abundantly realized all that 
 I expected of his character, he had faith only in 
 me, the world and its falsehoods did not reach him. 
 The Abencerrage had not frowned, the color of his 
 blue blood had not tinged his olive face. The two 
 young counts went out. I said then, laughing, to 
 Macumer : 
 
 "Monsieur de Marsay has made for you an epi- 
 gram on me." 
 
 "Much more than an epigram," he replied; "an 
 epithalamium. " 
 
 "You are speaking Greek to me," I said to him
 
 158 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 smiling and rewarding him with a certain look 
 which always makes him lose countenance. 
 
 "I hope so indeed!" exclaimed my father address- 
 ing Madame de Maufrigneuse. "There is some 
 infamous gossip about. As soon as a young girl 
 comes into society, there is a rage to marry her, and 
 all sorts of absurdities are invented ! 1 shall never 
 marry Armande against her will. I am going to 
 take a turn in the foyer, for it will be believed that 
 I am allowing this rumor to circulate so as to suggest 
 this marriage to the ambassador ; and the daughter 
 of Caesar should be even less suspected than his 
 wife, who should not be suspected at all." 
 
 The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame 
 d'Espard looked first at my mother, then at the 
 baron, with a sparkling, bantering, crafty air, full 
 of restrained interrogations. These fine adders had 
 ended by suspecting something. Of all the secret 
 things, love is the most public, and women exhale 
 it, I believe. Thus, to conceal it well, a woman 
 should be a monster. Our eyes are even more talk- 
 ative than our tongues. After having enjoyed the 
 delicious pleasure of finding Felipe as grand as I 
 wished him to be, I naturally desired something 
 more. I accordingly made to him a signal agreed 
 upon to tell him to come to my window by the dan- 
 gerous road which you know of. Some hours later, 
 I found him straight as a statue, flattened against 
 the side of the wall, his hands supported on the 
 balcony of my window, studying the reflections of 
 the light in my apartment
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 159 
 
 "My dear Felipe," I said to him, "you did well 
 this evening, you conducted yourself as I would 
 have behaved myself if I had heard that you were 
 about to be married." 
 
 "I thought that you would have informed me be- 
 fore all the world," he replied. 
 
 "And what is your right to this privilege?" 
 
 "That of a devoted servitor." 
 
 "Are you really one?" 
 
 "Yes," said he; "and I shall never change." 
 
 "Well, if this marriage were necessary, if I 
 should resign myself " 
 
 The soft light of the moon was as it were lit up 
 by the two glances which he threw first on me, then 
 on the sort of abyss which the wall made between 
 us. Judging from the lightning-like glance which 
 illumined his face and darted from his eyes, he 
 appeared to ask himself if we ,could die together, 
 crushed, but this sentiment was repressed by a force 
 superior to that of passion. 
 
 "The Arab has only one word," he said in a 
 choking voice,"! am your servitor and belong to 
 you: I will live all my life for you." 
 
 The hand which held the balcony seemed to me to 
 slacken its grasp, I placed my own on it saying to 
 him: 
 
 "Felipe, my friend, I am by my own will your 
 wife from this instant Go and demand me to-mor- 
 row morning from my father. He wishes to keep 
 my fortune; but you will engage yourself to ac- 
 knowledge it in the contract for me without having
 
 160 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 received it, and you will doubtless come to an 
 agreement. I am no longer Armande de Chaulieu; 
 descend promptly, Louise de Macumer does not wish 
 to commit the slightest imprudence." 
 
 He turned pale, his legs gave way, he threw him- 
 self from a height of about ten feet to the ground 
 without doing himself the least injury; but, after 
 having caused me the most horrible emotion, he 
 saluted me with his hand and disappeared. "I am 
 then beloved," I said to myself, "as a woman never 
 was!" And I fell asleep with a childish satisfac- 
 tion ; my fate was forever fixed. About two o'clock 
 the next day, my father sent for me in his cabinet, 
 where I found the duchess and Macumer. The com- 
 pliments were graciously exchanged. I replied 
 quite simply that, if Monsieur Henarez had come to 
 an agreement with my father, I had no reason for 
 opposing their wishes. Thereupon my mother re- 
 tained the baron for dinner; after which, we all 
 four went for a promenade in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 I looked very mockingly at Monsieur de Marsay 
 when he passed on horseback, for he noticed Macu- 
 mer and my father on the front seat of the carriage. 
 
 My adorable Felipe has changed his card to this : 
 
 HENAREZ, 
 DES Dues DE SORIA, BARON DE MACUMER 
 
 Every morning he brings me himself a bouquet of 
 a delicious magnificence, in the midst of which I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES l6l 
 
 find always a letter which contains a Spanish son- 
 net in my praise written by him during the night 
 
 Not to make this package too heavy, I send you 
 as a specimen the first and the last of these sonnets, 
 which I have translated for you word by word in 
 arranging them for you verse by verse. 
 
 FIRST SONNET 
 
 More than once, covered with a thin vest of silk, 
 the sword high without my heart's beating one 
 pulsation the more, I have waited for the assault 
 of the furious bull and his horn sharper than the 
 crescent of Phoebe. 
 
 I have mounted, humming an Andalusian segui- 
 dilla, the slope of a redoubt under a rain of iron; 
 I have thrown my life on the green cloth of 
 chance without thinking more of it than of a quad- 
 ruple of gold. 
 
 I would have taken with my hand the balls from 
 the throat of the cannon; but I believe that I have 
 become more timid than a hare on the watch, than 
 an infant who sees a spectre in the folds of his 
 window. 
 
 For, when thou lookest at me with thy gentle 
 glance, an icy sweat covers my forehead, my knees 
 give way under me, I tremble, I recoil, I no longer 
 have any courage. 
 
 SECOND SONNET 
 
 This night, I wished to sleep that I might dream 
 of thee; but the jealous slumber fled my eyelids;
 
 162 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 I placed myself on the balcony and I looked at the 
 sky: when I think of thee, my eyes always turn 
 heavenward. 
 
 Strange phenomena, which love alone can ex- 
 plain, the firmament had lost its color of sapphire: 
 the stars, diamonds extinguished in their mount- 
 ing of gold, launched only dying glances, perishing 
 rays. 
 
 The moon, deprived of her adornment of silver 
 and of lily, rolled sorrowfully on the dull horizon, 
 for thou hast robbed the sky of all its splendors. 
 
 The whiteness of the moon shines on thy charm- 
 ing forehead, all the azure of the sky is concen- 
 trated in thy eyeballs, and thy lashes are formed by 
 the rays of the stars. 
 
 Could one prove more gracefully to a young girl 
 that one is occupied only with her? What do you 
 say to this love which expresses itself by lavishing 
 the flowers of intelligence and the flowers of the 
 earth? Within the last ten days I have known 
 what it is, this Spanish gallantry so famous formerly. 
 
 Ah now! dear, what is going on at La Crampade, 
 where I walk about so often examining the progress 
 of our agriculture ? Have you nothing to say to me 
 of our mulberry trees, of our plantations, of last 
 Winter ? Is everything succeeding according to 
 your wishes ? Have the flowers bloomed out in thy 
 heart of a spouse at the same time as those of our 
 shrubbery ? I dare not say of our borders. Does 
 Louis continue his system of madrigals ? Do you
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 163 
 
 understand each other well ? The gentle murmur of 
 thy stream of conjugal tenderness, is it worth more 
 than the turbulence of the torrents of my love ? My 
 gentle doctor in petticoats, is she vexed? I would 
 not know how to believe it, and I would send Felipe 
 as a courier to place himself at your knees and to 
 bring back to me your head or my forgiveness if it 
 were so. I am leading a beautiful life here, dear 
 love, and I would like to know how is going on that 
 of Provence. We are going to increase our family 
 by a Spaniard the color of a Havana cigar, and I am 
 still waiting for your congratulations. 
 
 Truly, my beautiful Renee, I am anxious, I am 
 afraid that you are concealing some suffering so as 
 not to sadden my joys, wicked one! Write me 
 promptly some pages in which you will describe to 
 me your life in its smallest trifles, and tell me truly 
 if you still resist, if your freewill is on its two feet, 
 or on its knees, or solidly seated, which would be 
 grave. Do you think that the events of your mar- 
 riage do not preoccupy me ? All which you have 
 written to me makes me sometimes thoughtful. 
 Often, when at the Opera I seem to be looking at 
 the danseuses making pirouettes I say to myself: 
 "It is half-past nine o'clock, she is going to bed 
 perhaps. What is she doing ? Is she happy ? Is 
 she alone with her free will ? or has her free will 
 gone where go the wills that are no longer thought 
 of?" 
 
 A thousand tendernesses.
 
 164 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 XXV 
 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU 
 
 October. 
 
 Impertinent! why should I have written to you? 
 what should I have said to you? During that life 
 animated by fetes, by the anguishes of love, by its 
 angers and by its flowers which you depict for me, 
 and in which I am interested as in a theatrical piece 
 very well played, I lead a life monotonous and reg- 
 ulated after the manner of the life of a convent. 
 We are always in bed at nine o'clock and up at 
 daybreak. Our repasts are always served with a 
 distracting exactitude. Not the very slightest inci- 
 dent. I have become accustomed to this division of 
 time, and without too much trouble. Perhaps it is 
 natural, what would life be without this subjec- 
 tion to fixed rules which, according to the astrono- 
 mers and Louis' assertion, govern the world. 
 Order does not weary. Moreover, I have imposed 
 upon myself certain obligations of the toilet which 
 take my time between rising and the dejeuner, I 
 intend to appear at it charming, through obedience 
 to my duties as a woman, I experience contentment 
 from it, and I give a very lively one to the good old 
 man and to Louis. We take a walk after the 
 dejeuner. When the newspapers arrive, I disappear 
 to attend to my household affairs or to read, for I 
 read a great deal, or to write to you. I come back 
 an hour before the dinner, and after that we have
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 165 
 
 cards, we receive visits or we pay them. I pass 
 my days thus between a happy old man, without 
 desires, and a man for whom I am happiness. Louis 
 is so content, that his joy has ended by warming 
 my soul. Happiness, for us, doubtless should not 
 be pleasure. Sometimes, in the evening, when I 
 am not necessary to the party, when I am ensconced 
 in the depths of the sofa, my imagination is suffi- 
 ciently powerful to enable me to enter into you, I 
 take up then your beautiful life so fertile, so shaded, 
 so violently agitated, and I ask myself to what you 
 will conduct these turbulent prefaces; will they not 
 kill the book? You can have the illusions of love, 
 you, dear mignonne; but I, I have only the realities 
 of housekeeping. Yes, your loves seem to me like 
 a dream! Thus I had trouble in understanding why 
 you render them so romantic. You wish a man who 
 should have more of soul than of senses, more of 
 grandeur and of virtue than of love; you wish that 
 the dream of young girls at their entry into life 
 should take a bodily form ; you demand sacrifices 
 in order to reward them; you submit your Felipe 
 to trials, in order to know if desire, if hope, if curi- 
 osity, will be durable. But, child, behind your 
 fantastic decorations rises an altar where is being 
 prepared an eternal bond. The day after the mar- 
 riage, the terrible fact which changes the young 
 girl into a wife and the lover into a husband can 
 overthrow the elegant scaffoldings of your subtle 
 precautions. Know then, finally, that two lovers, 
 quite as much so as two married persons as were
 
 166 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Louis and I, go to seek under the joys of a wedding, 
 accepting Rabelais's word, a grand Perhaps! I do 
 not blame you, although that might be considered a 
 little light-minded, for talking with Don Felipe at 
 the end of the garden, for interrogating him, for 
 passing a night on your balcony, he on the wall; 
 but you play with life, child, and I am afraid that 
 life will play with you. I do not dare to advise 
 you what experience suggests to me for your happi- 
 ness; but let me repeat to you again from the bot- 
 tom of my valley, that the viaticum of marriage is 
 in these words, resignation and devotion ! For, I 
 see, notwithstanding all your proofs, notwithstand- 
 ing your coquetries and your observations, you will 
 marry absolutely as I did. In extending desire, 
 the ditch is dug a little bit deeper, that is all. 
 
 Oh! how I should like to see the Baron de Macu- 
 mer and talk to him for some hours, so much do I 
 desire your happiness ! 
 
 XXVI 
 
 LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 March, 1825. 
 
 As Felipe complied, with the generosity of a 
 Saracen, with the plans of my father and my mother, 
 by acknowledging the receipt of my fortune without 
 having received it, the duchess became still more 
 friendly with me than she had been before. She 
 called me a "sly little thing," a "sharp little one," 
 she found that I had a "shrewd tongue."
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 167 
 
 "But, dear mamma," I said to her the day before 
 the signing of the contract, "you attribute to policy, 
 to craftiness, to skill, what are really the effects of 
 the truest love, the most ingenuous, the most disin- 
 terested, the most entire that ever was! I would 
 like you to know that I am not the 'shrewd one' 
 which you do me the honor to take me to be." 
 
 "Well then, Armande," she said to me, taking 
 me by the neck, drawing me toward her, kissing me 
 on the forehead, "you did not wish to return to the 
 convent, you did not wish to remain unmarried, and, 
 a grand, a true Chaulieu that you are, you felt 
 the necessity of elevating your father's house" If 
 you knew, Renee, how much flattery there was in 
 this speech for the duke, who was listening to us 
 "I have seen you during a whole winter thrusting 
 your little nose into all the quadrilles, sitting in 
 judgment on all the men and taking the measure of 
 the actual world here in France. Thus you were 
 clever enough to discover the only Spaniard who 
 was capable of giving you the fine life of a woman 
 who is mistress in her own household. My dear 
 little one, you have treated him as Tullia treats 
 your brother. 
 
 "What a fine school is my sister's convent!" cried 
 my father. 
 
 I threw upon my father a look which cut him 
 short in his speech ; then I turned towards the duch- 
 ess again and said to her : 
 
 "Madame, I love my intended, Felipe de Soria, 
 with all the powers of my soul. Although this
 
 168 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 love was quite involuntary and very much struggled 
 against when it rose in my heart, I swear to you 
 that I only abandoned myself to it from the moment 
 in which I recognized in the Baron de Macumer a 
 soul worthy of my own, a heart in which the deli- 
 cacies, the generosities, the devotion, the character 
 and the sentiments were conformable to my own." 
 
 "But my dear," she resumed, interrupting me, 
 "he is as ugly as " 
 
 "As anything you wish," I said quickly, "but I 
 love his ugliness." 
 
 "Come, Armande, " said my father to me, "if 
 you love him and if you have had the strength to 
 master your love, you need not risk your happiness. 
 Now, happiness depends a great deal on the first 
 days of marriage " 
 
 "And why not say to her on the first nights?" 
 cried my mother. "Let us alone, monsieur," added 
 the duchess looking at my father. 
 
 "You are going to be married in three days, my 
 dear little one," said my mother in my ear; "I 
 should therefore make to you now, without any 
 bourgeois whimperings, the serious recommenda- 
 tion which all mothers make to their daughters. 
 You are going to marry a man whom you love, 
 thus I have nothing to complain of for you, nor to 
 complain of myself. I have only seen you for the 
 space of a year, if this has been enough to make 
 me love you, it has not necessarily been long 
 enough for me to melt into tears because of the loss 
 of your company. Your wit has surpassed your
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 169 
 
 beauty; you have flattered me in my maternal self- 
 love, and you have conducted yourself like a good 
 and affectionate daughter. Thus you will always 
 find me an excellent mother. You smile! Alas! 
 very frequently, in situations in which the mother 
 and the daughter would have lived together well, 
 the two women fall out. I wish you to be happy. 
 Listen to me then. The love which you feel is a 
 young girl's love, the love natural to all women 
 who are born for the purpose of attaching themselves 
 to a man; but alas! my little one, there is only one 
 man in the world for us, there are not two! and 
 that one whom we should prefer to cherish is not 
 always that one whom we have chosen for a hus- 
 band, even when believing that we loved him. 
 However singular my words may appear to you, 
 think upon them. If we do not love the one whom 
 we have chosen, the fault of it js in us and in him, 
 sometimes in circumstances for which neither we 
 nor he are responsible; and nevertheless nothing 
 prevents him from being the man to whom our fam- 
 ily has given us, the man to whom our heart turns, 
 who should be the man loved. The barriers which 
 later arise between him and us are often owing to a 
 sudden defect of perseverance on our part and that 
 of our husband. To make of her husband her lover 
 is a task as delicate as that of making of her lover 
 her husband, and you have acquitted yourself of 
 yours marvelously. Well, I repeat it to you, I wish 
 to see you happy. Reflect then that from the 
 present time during the first three months of your
 
 170 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 marriage you may become unhappy if, on your side, 
 you do not submit to marriage with the obedience, 
 the tenderness and the spirit which you have dis- 
 played in your love-making. For, my little sly 
 one, you have allowed yourself to take all the inno- 
 cent happinesses of a clandestine love. If happy 
 love should commence for you by disenchantments, 
 by displeasures, by sorrows even, well then, come 
 and see me. Do not hope too much at first of mar- 
 riage, it will give you perhaps more pains than joys. 
 Your happiness will require as much careful culture 
 as love requires. Finally, if by chance you should 
 lose the lover, you may find in his place the father 
 of your children. There, my dear child, is the 
 whole of social life. Sacrifice everything to the 
 man whose name is yours, whose honor, whose 
 consideration, cannot receive the slightest dispar- 
 agement without its causing to you the most fright- 
 ful injury. To sacrifice everything to her husband 
 is not only an absolute duty for the women of our 
 rank, it is still more, the most politic conduct. The 
 very finest attribute of the great principles of 
 morality, is to be true and beneficial, from which- 
 ever side they are studied. Well, this is enough 
 for you. At present, I think you are inclined to 
 jealousy; and I, my dear, I am jealous also! but I 
 would not have you stupidly jealous. Listen, 
 jealousy which shows itself is like that policy 
 which plays with its cards on the table. To show 
 yourself jealous, to let it be seen, is not that to 
 show your own play? We shall then know nothing
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 171 
 
 of the play of our adversary. In every case, we 
 should know how to suffer in silence. I will have, 
 moreover, a serious interview with Macumer con- 
 cerning you the day before your marriage." 
 
 I took my mother's beautiful arm and kissed her 
 hand, dropping upon it a tear which the accent of 
 her voice had drawn from my eyes. I had recog- 
 nized in this high morality, worthy of herself and 
 of me, the most profound wisdom, a tenderness with- 
 out social bigotry, and above all a true estimate of 
 my character. In these simple words, she had put 
 the summing up of the instruction which her life 
 and her experience had perhaps sold to her dearly. 
 She was touched and said to me looking at me : 
 
 "Dear little girl, you are entering on a terrible 
 passage. And the greater number of women, igno- 
 rant or undeceived, are capable of imitating the 
 Count of Westmoreland!" 
 
 We commenced to laugh. To explain to you this 
 pleasantry, I must say to you that at the table, the 
 day before, a Russian princess had related to us the 
 story of the Count of Westmoreland who, having 
 suffered dreadfully from sea-sickness during the 
 passage of the Channel and intending to go to Italy, 
 turned round and went home when he heard of the 
 passage of the Alps, "I have had enough of pas- 
 sages like that!" said he. You understand Renee, 
 that your sombre philosophy and my mother's lec- 
 ture were of a nature to re-awaken the fears which 
 agitated us at Blois. The nearer the marriage 
 approached, the more I gathered up within me my
 
 172 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 strength, my will, my sentiments to enable me to 
 make the terrible passage from the state of a young 
 girl to the state of a wife. All our conversations 
 returned to my mind, I re-read your letters, and 1 
 discovered in them I know not what hidden melan- 
 choly. These apprehensions have had the merit of 
 making me appear just like the commonplace fiancee 
 of popular engravings and of the public. Thus the 
 world found me charming and very much as I should 
 be the day of the signing of the contract. This 
 morning, at the Mayor's office, where we went 
 without ceremony, there were only the witnesses. 
 I am finishing this scrap of letter while they are 
 getting ready my toilet for the dinner. We will be 
 married at the church of Sainte-Valere, this evening 
 at midnight, after a brilliant soiree. I admit that 
 my fears give me the air of a victim and a false 
 modesty which secure for me admirations which I 
 do not in the least understand. I am delighted to 
 see my poor Felipe quite as much of a young girl 
 as I am; the world hurts him, he is like a bat in a 
 glass box. 
 
 "Happily this day has a to-morrow!" he said to 
 me in my ear without meaning any malice. 
 
 He would not wish to see anyone, so timid and 
 shamefaced is he. When he came to sign our con- 
 tract, the Ambassador of Sardinia took me aside to 
 offer me a necklace of pearls attached by six mag- 
 nificent diamonds. It is the gift of my sister-in- 
 law, the Duchesse de Soria. This necklace is 
 accompanied by a bracelet of sapphires under which
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 173 
 
 is engraved: I love you without knowing you. Two 
 charming letters enclosed these gifts, which I did 
 not wish to accept without knowing if Felipe would 
 permit me. 
 
 "For," I said to him, "I would only wish you to 
 see that which came from me." 
 
 He kissed my hand, much moved, and replied to 
 me: 
 
 "Wear them because of the inscription, and of 
 these tokens of tenderness which are sincere " 
 
 Saturday evening. 
 
 Here then, my poor Renee, are the last lines of a 
 young girl. After the midnight mass, we will set 
 out for an estate which Felipe, with a delicate at- 
 tention, has purchased in Nivernais, on the road to 
 Provence. I call myself already Louise de Macu- 
 mer, but I leave Paris in a few hours as Louise de 
 Chaulieu. In whatever fashion I call myself, there 
 will never be anything for you but 
 
 LOUISE. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 October, 1825. ' 
 
 I have written you nothing more, dear, since the 
 civil marriage, and here it will be soon eight 
 months. As for you, not a word ! This is horrible, 
 madame.
 
 174 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Well, we then departed in post carriages for the 
 Chateau de Chantepleurs, the estate bought by 
 Macumer in Nivernais, on the banks of the Loire, 
 sixty leagues from Paris. Our servants, with the 
 exception of my femme de chambre, were already 
 there, waiting for us, and we arrived there with great 
 promptness the evening of the next day. I slept 
 from Paris to beyond Montargis. The only license 
 which my lord and master had taken had been to 
 support me by the waist, holding my head on his 
 shoulder, on which he had disposed several hand- 
 kerchiefs. This almost maternal attention which 
 caused him to overcome slumber gave me an in- 
 describable emotion. Put to sleep under the fire 
 of his black eyes, I awakened under their flame, 
 the same ardor, the same love ; but thousands of 
 thoughts had passed that way ! He had kissed me 
 twice on the forehead. 
 
 We breakfasted in our carriage at Briare. The 
 evening of the next day, at half-past seven, after 
 having talked as I used to talk with you at Blois, 
 admiring that Loire which we used to admire, we 
 entered the long and handsome avenue of linden 
 trees, of acacias, of sycamores and of larch trees, 
 which conducts to Chantepleurs. At eight o'clock 
 we dined; at ten o'clock, we were in a charming 
 Gothic chamber embellished with all the inventions 
 of modern luxury. My Felipe, whom all the world 
 thinks ugly, seemed to me very beautiful, beautiful 
 with goodness, with grace, with tenderness, with 
 exquisite delicacy. Of the desires of love, I did
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 175 
 
 not see the slightest trace. During the journey, he 
 had conducted himself as though he were a friend 
 whom I had known for fifteen years. He had painted 
 for me, as he knows how to paint he always ex- 
 presses his first thoughts the frightful storms which 
 had raged within him and the traces of which had 
 disappeared from his countenance. 
 
 "Up to the present, there is nothing very fright- 
 ful in marriage," I said going to the window and 
 looking out in the superb moonlight over a delight- 
 ful park from which rose penetrating odors. 
 
 He came close to me, took me round the waist 
 again and said to me : 
 
 "And why be frightened? Have I belied by a 
 gesture, by a look, my promises? Shall I belie 
 them some day?" 
 
 Never had a voice, never had a look, such a 
 power: the voice thrilled me through all the finest 
 fibres of my body and stirred all the feelings; the 
 look had a strength like the sun's. 
 
 "Oh!" I said to him, "how much of Moorish per- 
 fidy is there not in your perpetual slavery!" 
 
 My dear, he understood me. 
 
 Therefore, beautiful lamb, if I have not written 
 to you for some months, you will now understand 
 why. I am compelled to recall to myself the 
 strange past of the young girl in order to explain to 
 you the wife. Renee, I understand you to-day. It 
 is neither to an intimate friend, nor to her mother, 
 nor perhaps to herself, that the happy young bride 
 can speak of her happy marriage. We must leave
 
 176 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 this memory in our souls as one sentiment the more 
 which belongs to us in ourselves and for which 
 there is no name. How! the graceful follies of the 
 heart and the irresistible drawing of desire have been 
 called a duty. And why? What horrible power 
 has then conceived the idea of obliging us to trample 
 under our feet the delicacies of taste, the thousand 
 modesties of the woman, by converting these de- 
 lights into a duty. How can one owe these flowers 
 of the soul, these roses of life, these poems of ex- 
 alted sensibility, to a being whom one does not 
 love? Rights in such sensations as these! but they 
 are born and they expand in the sunshine of love, 
 or their germs are destroyed under the coldness of 
 repugnance and aversion. It is for love alone to 
 entertain such enchantments! Oh, my sublime 
 Renee, now I know that you are very great ! I bow 
 the knee before you, I am astonished at your depth 
 and at your perspicacity. Yes, the woman who has 
 not, as I have, made a secret marriage of love con- 
 cealed under the legal and public wedding ceremo- 
 nies should throw herself into maternity as a soul for 
 whom the world fails should throw itself into 
 Heaven! From all that which you have written to 
 me there is deduced a cruel principle, it is only 
 the superior men who know how to love. To-day 
 I know why. Man obeys two principles. There 
 are to be met with in him need and feeling. The 
 inferior or feeble beings take the need for the feel- 
 ing; while the superior souls cover up the need 
 under the admirable appearances of the feeling:
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 177 
 
 feeling communicates to them by its violence an 
 excessive reserve, and inspires them to the admira- 
 tion of the woman. Evidently the sensibility is in 
 proportion to the power of the interior organization, 
 and the man of genius is therefore the only one 
 who can approach our delicacy, he hears, divines, 
 comprehends the woman; he lifts himself on the 
 wings of his desire restrained by the timidities of 
 feeling. Thus when the intelligence, the heart and 
 the senses, all equally intoxicated, carry us away, 
 is it not again on the earth that we fall ; one is lifted 
 into the celestial spheres, and unfortunately one 
 does not remain there long enough. Such is, my 
 dear soul, the philosophy of the first three months 
 of my marriage. Felipe is an angel. I can think 
 aloud with him. Without any rhetorical figure, he 
 is another myself. His grandeur is inexplicable: 
 he attaches himself still more strongly by posses- 
 sion, and discovers in happiness new reasons for 
 loving. I am for him the finest part of himself. I 
 see it, the years of marriage, far from altering the 
 object of his delights, will augment his confidence, 
 will develop new sensibilities and will strengthen 
 our union. What a happy delirium ! My soul is so 
 constituted that pleasures leave in me strong lights, 
 they impart to me a glow, they renew themselves 
 in my interior being: the interval which separates 
 them is like the short night of the long day. The 
 sun which has gilded their summits at its setting 
 finds them still almost warm at his rising. By 
 what happy chance was this so promptly provided 
 
 12
 
 178 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 for me ? My mother had awakened in me a thou- 
 sand fears; her forebodings, which seemed to me 
 full of jealousy, although without the slightest 
 bourgeois littleness, have been deceived by the 
 result, for your fears and hers, mine, all have been 
 dissipated! We remained at Chantepleurs seven 
 months and a half, like two lovers, one of whom 
 has carried off the other, and who have fled from 
 angry parents. The roses of pleasure have crowned 
 our love, they deck our double life. Through a sud- 
 den return to my former self, one morning when I 
 was more fully happy, I thought of my Renee and 
 of her marriage of convenience, and I divined your 
 life, I have penetrated it! Oh my angel, why do 
 we speak a different language? Your marriage 
 purely social and my marriage which is only a 
 happy love are two worlds which can no more com- 
 prehend each other than the finite can comprehend 
 the infinite. You remain on the earth, I am in 
 heaven ! You are in the human sphere, and I am in 
 the divine sphere. I reign by love, you reign by 
 design and by duty. I am so high, that, if there 
 should be a fall, I should be broken into a thousand 
 crumbs. In short I should keep silent, for 1 am 
 ashamed to depict to you the splendor, the richness, 
 the glittering joys of such a springtime of love. 
 
 We have been at Paris for the last ten days, in 
 the charming hotel, in the Rue du Bac, constructed 
 by the architect to whom Felipe has given a com- 
 mission to alter Chantepleurs. I have just heard, 
 with my soul expanded by the permitted pleasures
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 179 
 
 of a happy marriage, the celestial music of Rossini 
 which I had heard with my soul disquieted, tor- 
 mented unknown to myself by the curiosities of 
 love. I am generally considered to be looking bet- 
 ter, and I am like a child when I hear myself called 
 madame. 
 
 Friday morning. 
 
 Renee, my beautiful saint, my happiness brings 
 me back ceaselessly to you. I feel myself better 
 for you than I have ever been ; I am so devoted to 
 you! I have so profoundly studied your conjugal 
 life by the commencement of mine, and I see you so 
 grand, so noble, so magnificently virtuous, that I 
 constitute myself here your inferior, your sincere 
 admirer at the same time as your friend. In seeing 
 what my marriage is, it is nearly proven to me that 
 I should have died if it had bee-n otherwise. And 
 you live? by what sentiment, tell it to me? But I 
 will not permit myself the slightest pleasantry at 
 your expense. Alas! pleasantry, my angel, is the 
 daughter of ignorance : we mock at that of which 
 we know nothing. "Where the recruits commence 
 to laugh, the old soldiers are grave," said to me the 
 Comte de Chaulieu, a poor captain of cavalry who 
 has not yet been farther than from Paris to Fontaine- 
 bleau and from Fontainebleau to Paris. Thus, my 
 dear beloved, I see clearly that you have not told 
 me all. Yes, you have hidden from me some 
 wounds. You suffer, I feel it I have made for 
 myself apropos of you certain romances of ideas
 
 180 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 while wishing at a distance, and through the little 
 which you have said to me of yourself, to discover 
 the reasons of your conduct. She has only tried 
 marriage, I thought one evening, and that which is 
 happiness for me has only been suffering for her. 
 She has had of it only her sacrifices, and wishes to 
 limit their number. She has disguised her griefs 
 under the pompous axioms of social morality. Ah, 
 Renee, there is in this something admirable, a 
 pleasure has no need of religion, of display, nor of 
 great words, it is everything for itself; whilst, to 
 justify the atrocious combination of our slavery and 
 of our vassalage, men have accumulated theories 
 and maxims. If your immolations are beautiful, 
 are sublime, my happiness, sheltered under the 
 white and gold canopy of the church and signed and 
 witnessed by the dullest of mayors, must be then a 
 monstrosity! For the honor of the laws, for you, 
 but above all to render my own pleasures complete, 
 I would wish you to be happy, my Renee. Oh! 
 tell me that you feel coming into your heart a little 
 love for that Louis who adores you ? Tell me that 
 the symbolic and solemn torch of Hymen has not 
 served you only to light up shadows? for love, my 
 angel, is quite exactly for the moral nature what 
 the sun is for the earth. I am always coming back 
 to speak to you of that light which enlightens me 
 and which, as I fear, will consume me. Dear Renee, 
 you who used to say in your ecstasies of friendship, 
 under the vine arbor at the back of the convent, 
 "I love you so much, Louise, that, if God should
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES l8l 
 
 manifest himself, I would ask of him all the pain 
 and for you all the joys of life. Yes, I have the 
 passion of suffering!" Well my dear, to-day I do 
 the same for you, and demand of God with great 
 cries that we should share my pleasures between 
 us. 
 
 Listen: I have guessed that you have become 
 ambitious yourself under the name of Louis de 
 1'Estorade; well, at the coming election, have him 
 named deputy, for he will be nearly forty, and as 
 the Chamber will not assemble till six months after 
 the election, he will find himself precisely at the 
 age required for a man to enter political life. You 
 will come to Paris, I say only that to you. My 
 father and the friends whom I am making for myself 
 will appreciate you, and if your old father-in-law 
 will secure a majorat we will obtain the title of 
 count for Louis. It will be that already ! Finally 
 we shall be together. 
 
 XXVIII 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER 
 
 December, 1825. 
 
 My very happy Louise, you have bedazzled me. 
 I have been holding for some moments your letter 
 on which some of my tears shone in the light of the 
 setting sun, my arms weary, alone under a little 
 arid rock at the base of which I have caused a bench 
 to be put In the distance, like a steel blade,
 
 182 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 shines the Mediterranean. Some odoriferous trees 
 shade this bench where I have caused to be trans- 
 planted an enormous jasmine, honeysuckles and 
 some Spanish genistas. Some day the rock will be 
 entirely covered with climbing plants. There is 
 already much of the creeper that was planted here. 
 But winter has come and all this verdure has become 
 like an old tapestry. When I am here, no one comes 
 to trouble me, it is known that I wish to be alone. 
 This bench is called Louise's bench. Does not that 
 say to you that I am not alone, although alone? 
 
 If I relate to you these details, so slight for you, 
 if I depict for you this verdant hope which, in antic- 
 ipation, clothes this bare and frowning rock, on the 
 top of which the chance of vegetation has placed 
 one of the very finest umbelliferous pines, it is that 
 I have found here images to which I am attached. 
 
 In enjoying your happy marriage and why should 
 I not avow to you all ? in envying it with all my 
 strength, I felt the first movement of my child who 
 from the depths of my life has reacted on the depths 
 of my soul. This dumb sensation, at once a notice, 
 a pleasure, a sorrow, a promise, a reality; this hap- 
 piness which is mine only in the world and which 
 remains a secret between God and myself; this 
 mystery has said to me that the rock will be one 
 day covered with flowers, that the joyous laughter 
 of a family will re-echo from it, that my entrails 
 are finally blessed and will give life to multitudes. 
 I felt that I was born to be a mother ! Therefore 
 the first certainty which I have had of carrying
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 183 
 
 within me another life has given me beneficent con- 
 solations. An immense joy has crowned all these 
 long days of devotion which have already made the 
 joy of Louis. 
 
 Devotion! I said to myself, art thou not more 
 than love? art thou not the most profound delight, 
 because thou art an abstract delight, the generating 
 delight? Art thou not, O Devotion, the quality 
 which is superior to the effect produced ? art thou 
 not the mysterious indefatigable divinity hidden 
 under the innumerable spheres in an unknown 
 centre by which all the worlds pass alternately? 
 Devotion, alone in its secret, full of pleasures tasted 
 in silence on which no profane eye is cast and which 
 no one suspects, Devotion, a jealous and over- 
 whelming God, a God vanquishing and strong, in- 
 exhaustible because it has relations with the very 
 nature of things and that it is thus always equal to 
 itself, notwithstanding the distribution of its forces, 
 Devotion, this is then the seal of my life! 
 
 Love, Louise, is an effort of Felipe on yourself ; but 
 the radiation of my life upon the family will produce 
 an incessant reaction of this little world on myself! 
 Your pretty golden harvest is transient; but mine, 
 for being delayed, will it not be all the more dura- 
 ble? It will renew itself from moment to moment 
 Love is the prettiest larceny which Society has 
 been able to perpetrate on Nature ; but maternity, 
 is not that Nature in her joy? A smile has dried 
 my tears. Love has rendered my Louis happy; 
 but marriage has made me mother and I wish to be
 
 1 84 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 happy also! Then I came back with slow steps to 
 my white country house with green blinds to write 
 you this. 
 
 Then, dear, the fact the most natural and the most 
 surprising that we can have has been established 
 within me for the last five months ; but I can confide 
 it to you that it does not trouble in any way, either 
 my heart or my intelligence. I see them all happy 
 the future grandfather encroaches upon the rights 
 of his grandson, he has become like an infant; the 
 father assumes grave and unquiet airs; they are all 
 full of little cares for me, all speaking of the happi- 
 ness of being mother. Alas! I alone feel nothing, 
 and do not dare to tell of the state of perfect insen- 
 sibility in which I am. I lie a little not to sadden 
 their joy. As it is permitted to me to be frank 
 with you, I avow to you that, in the crisis in which 
 I find myself, maternity only commences in imagi- 
 nation. Louis was as much surprised as I myself to 
 learn of my pregnancy. Is this not to say to you 
 that this infant has come of his own accord, with- 
 out having been summoned otherwise than by the 
 impatiently expressed wishes of his father ? Chance, 
 my dear, is the god of maternity. Although, ac- 
 cording to our physician, these hazards are in har- 
 mony with the will of nature, he has not denied to 
 me that the children which are called so gracefully 
 "love children" should be handsome and clever; 
 that their life is often as it were protected by the 
 happiness which had radiated, brilliant star! at 
 their conception. Perhaps then, my Louise, you
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 185 
 
 will have in your maternity joys of which I should 
 be ignorant in mine. Perhaps it will be better 
 loved, the child of a man adored as you adore Felipe, 
 than that of a husband whom one has married through 
 reason, to whom one has given one's self through 
 duty, and, in short, merely to be a wife! These 
 thoughts, guarded in the bottom of my heart, add to 
 my gravity of mother in hope. But, as there is no 
 family life without a child, my desire would be to 
 hasten the moment in which will commence for me 
 the pleasures of a family, which should be my sole 
 existence. At this moment, my life is a life of 
 waiting and of mysteries, in which the most nau- 
 seating suffering doubtless accustoms the woman to 
 other sufferings. I watch myself. Notwithstand- 
 ing the efforts of Louis, whose love envelops me in 
 cares, gentlenesses, in tendernesses, I have vague 
 anxieties with which are mingled the disgusts, the 
 troubles, the singular appetites of pregnancy. If 
 I must relate to you things as they are, at the risk 
 of causing you some aversion to the occupation, I 
 avow to you that I cannot understand the whim 
 which I have taken for certain oranges, a grotesque 
 taste and one which I find quite natural. My hus- 
 band goes to seek for me in Marseilles the finest 
 oranges in the world; he orders them from Malta, 
 from Portugal, from Corsica ; but with these oranges 
 I will have nothing to do. I hasten to Marseilles 
 sometimes on foot, to devour there bad oranges at 
 a Hard apiece, almost rotten, in a little street which 
 descends to the port, at two steps from the H6tel de
 
 1 86 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Ville; and their bluish or greenish mouldiness glit- 
 ters in my eyes like diamonds, I see in it flowers 
 as it were, I have no consciousness of their cadaver- 
 ous odor and find in them an irritating savor, a 
 vinous warmth, delicious taste. Well, my angel, 
 here you have the first amorous sensations of my 
 life. These frightful oranges are my loves. You 
 do not desire Felipe as much as I wish for one of 
 these half-rotten fruits. In short, I steal out some- 
 times furtively, I gallop to Marseilles with a light 
 foot, and I am seized with voluptuous shiverings 
 when I approach the street, I fear that the mer- 
 chant may have no more rotten oranges, I throw 
 myself upon them, I eat them, I devour them in the 
 open street It seems to me that these fruits come 
 from Paradise and contain the most delicious nour- 
 ishment I have seen Louis turn his head not to 
 smell their bad odor. I remember that atrocious 
 phrase of Obermann, sombre elegy which I repent 
 having read: "The roots nourish themselves in a 
 fetid water !" Since I have been eating these fruits, 
 I have had no more heart troubles and my health 
 has become re-established. These depravations 
 have a reason, since they are a natural effect and 
 since half the women experience these desires, 
 monstrous sometimes. When my pregnancy be- 
 comes very visible, I will no longer go outside of 
 LaCrampade, I should not like to be seen in that 
 condition. 
 
 I am excessively curious to know at what moment 
 of the life maternity commences. I very much fear
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 187 
 
 that it will only be in the midst of frightful suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Adieu, my happy one ! adieu, you in whom I am 
 born again and by whom I picture to myself these 
 beautiful loves, these jealousies because of a look, 
 these words whispered in the ear and these pleas- 
 ures which envelop us like another atmosphere, 
 another blood, another light, another life! Ah, 
 mignonne, I also, I comprehend love. Do not cease 
 to tell me everything. Let us keep to our conven- 
 tion. For myself, I will spare you nothing. Thus 
 I will say to you, to finish this letter gravely, that 
 in re-reading it a profound and invincible terror has 
 seized me. It seemed to me that this splendid love 
 defied God. The sovereign master of the world, 
 Misfortune, will he not be angry not to have his part 
 in your festival ? What superb fortunes has he not 
 overthrown ! Ah Louise, do not forget, in the midst of 
 your happiness, to pray to God. Do good, be char- 
 itable and benevolent; in short conjure the adver- 
 sities by your modesty. For myself, I have become 
 still more pious since my marriage than I was at 
 the convent You do not say anything to me of 
 religion in Paris. In adoring Felipe, it seems to 
 me that you address yourself, contrary to the proverb, 
 more to the saint than to God. But my terror is 
 excessive friendship. You go together to the church, 
 and you practise your charities in secret, do you not? 
 You will find me perhaps very provincial in this 
 end of the letter; but think that my fears conceal 
 an excessive friendship, friendship as La Fontaine
 
 188 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 understood it, that which disquiets itself and alarms 
 itself at a dream, at a shadowy idea. You deserve 
 to be happy, because you think of me in your 
 happiness, as I think of you in my monotonous 
 life, somewhat grave but full, sober but productive: 
 be then blessed! 
 
 XXIX 
 
 MONSIEUR DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE 
 
 MACUMER 
 
 December, 1825. 
 
 My wife has not wished that you should learn 
 through the common formal notification of an event 
 which fills us with joy. She has just been deliv- 
 ered of a fine boy, and we are postponing his bap- 
 tism until you shall return to your estate at Chante- 
 pleurs. We hope, Renee and I, that you will come 
 as far as La Crampade and that you will be the 
 godmother of our firstborn. In this hope, I have 
 inscribed him on the civil registers under the names 
 of Armand-Louis de 1'Estorade. Our dear Renee 
 suffered very much, but with an angelic patience. 
 As you know, she has been sustained in this first 
 trial of a mother's estate by the certainty of the 
 happiness which she gave to us all. Without 
 yielding to the somewhat ridiculous exaggerations 
 of the fathers who are fathers for the first time, I 
 can assure you that the little Armand is very hand- 
 some; but you will readily believe it when I tell
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 189 
 
 you that he has the features and the eyes of Renee. 
 That is to have had wit already. Now that the 
 physician and the accoucheur have assured us that 
 Renee has not the least danger to run, for she 
 nurses, the infant has taken the breast very well, 
 the milk is abundant, the nature is so rich in her! 
 we can, my father and I, abandon ourselves to our 
 joy. Madame, this joy is so great, so strong, so 
 full, it animates so much the whole household, it 
 has changed so much the existence of my dear wife, 
 that I desire for your happiness that it will be thus 
 very soon for you. Renee has caused to be pre- 
 pared an apartment which I should wish to render 
 worthy of our guest, but in which you will be re- 
 ceived at least with a fraternal cordiality, if not 
 with luxury. 
 
 Renee has communicated to me, madame, your 
 intentions concerning us, and I embrace all the more 
 this occasion to thank you in that nothing is more 
 seasonable. The birth of my son has determined 
 my father to make some sacrifices to which the old 
 men bring themselves with difficulty, he has ac- 
 quired two domains. La Crampade is now an 
 estate which brings in thirty thousand francs. My 
 father is going to solicit from the king the permis- 
 sion to erect it into an entailed estate; but obtain 
 for him the title of which you spoke in your last 
 letter, and you will already have done something 
 for your godson. 
 
 As for myself, I will follow your counsel solely 
 that you may be reunited to Renee during the
 
 ICp MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Sessions. I am studying with ardor and endeavoring 
 to become what is called a special man. But noth- 
 ing will give me more courage than to know you 
 the protectress of my little Armand. Promise us 
 then to come to play here, you so beautiful and so 
 gracious, so grand and so spiritual, the role of a 
 fairy for my eldest son. You will have thus, ma- 
 dame, augmented with an eternal gratitude the sen- 
 timents of respectful affection with which I have 
 the honor to be 
 
 Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 
 LOUIS DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 XXX 
 
 LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 January, 1826. 
 
 Macumer has just awakened me with your hus- 
 band's letter, my angel. I commence by saying 
 yes. We will go toward the end of April to Chante- 
 pleurs. It will be for me pleasure upon pleasure 
 to travel, to see you and to be the godmother of your 
 first child; but I wish to have Macumer for god- 
 father. A Catholic alliance with another sponsor 
 would be odious to me. Ah ! if you could have seen 
 the expression on his face at the moment when I 
 said this to him, you would have known how much 
 this angel loves me. 
 
 "I wish all the more that we should go together to 
 La Crampade, Felipe," I said to him "that there we,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES IQI 
 
 perhaps, may have a child. I also, I wish to be a 
 mother, although however I should be well divided 
 between a child and you. In the first place, if I 
 should see you preferring some creature to me, were 
 it my son, I do not know what would happen. 
 Medea was pretty nearly right: there was some 
 wisdom among the ancients!" 
 
 He commenced to laugh. Thus, dear lamb, you 
 have the fruit without having had the flowers, and 
 I, I have the flowers without the fruit The con- 
 trast of our destinies continues. We are sufficiently 
 philosophical to endeavor to find some day the sig- 
 nificance and the moral of it. Bah! I have only 
 been married ten months, you must admit, there has 
 not been any time lost 
 
 We lead the dissipated and yet busy life, of happy 
 people. The days seem to us always too short 
 The world, which has seen me again disguised as a 
 wife, has found the Baronne de Macumer much 
 prettier than Louise de Chaulieu: happy love has 
 its own embellishments. When, in the fine sun- 
 light and the beautiful January frost, when the 
 trees of the Champs-lysees are flowery with 
 bunches of white stars, we pass, Felipe and I, in 
 our coupe before all Paris, reunited there where we 
 were separated last year, there come to me thoughts 
 by thousands, I am afraid of being a little too inso- 
 lent, as you foresaw in your last letter. 
 
 If I am ignorant of the joys of maternity, you will 
 tell them to me, and I shall be mother through you; 
 but there is, according to my opinion, nothing
 
 IQ2 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 comparable to the delights of love. You will find me 
 very ridiculous, but within ten times in ten months 
 I have surprised myself by wishing to die at thirty, 
 in all the splendor of life, in the roses of love, in 
 the midst of delights, to go away satiated, without 
 any deduction, having lived in the sun, fully in the 
 ether, and even a little wearied by love, having 
 lost nothing of my crown, not even a leaf, and keep- 
 ing all my illusions. Think then what it is to have 
 a young heart in an old body, to find the faces 
 silent, cold, there where all the world, even the in- 
 different, smiled on us, to be in short merely a 
 respectable woman . But it is an anticipated hell. 
 
 We have had, Felipe and I, our first quarrel on 
 this subject. I desired that he should have the 
 strength to kill me when I had reached thirty, dur- 
 ing my sleep, without any warning, so that I should 
 pass from one dream into another. The monster 
 did not wish to do it I threatened to leave him 
 alone in the world, and he turned pale, the poor 
 child! This great minister has become, my dear, a 
 perfect baby. It is incredible all that he conceals 
 of youthful ness and simplicity. Now that I think 
 aloud with him as with you, that I have brought 
 him to this regime of confidence, we astonish each 
 other. 
 
 My dear, the two lovers, Felipe and Louise, wish 
 to send a present to the young mother. We would 
 wish to give you something which would please 
 you. Therefore, tell me frankly what you would 
 like to have, for we do not give surprises after the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 193 
 
 manner of the bourgeois. We wish, then, to recall 
 ourselves constantly to your memory by some 
 friendly souvenir, by a thing which will be of use 
 to you every day, and will not wear out in the usage. 
 Our gayest repast, the most intimate, the most ani- 
 mated, for we are then alone, is for us the dejeuner ; 
 I have then thought of sending you a special service 
 called dejeuner, the ornaments of which shall be 
 children. If you approve of this, answer me 
 promptly. To bring it to you it will be necessary 
 to order it, and the artists of Paris are like the 
 Sluggard Kings. This will be my offering to 
 Lucina. 
 
 Farewell, dear nurse, I wish you all the pleasures 
 of mothers, and I am waiting with impatience for the 
 first letter in which you will certainly tell me all, 
 will you not? That accoucheur made me shiver. 
 That word in your husband's letter leaped, not at 
 my eyes, but at my heart Poor Renee, a child 
 costs dear, does it not? I will tell it how much it 
 should love you, this godson. A thousand tender- 
 nesses, my angel. 
 
 XXXI 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER 
 
 Here it will soon be five months since my baby 
 
 was born, and I have not found, my dear soul, one 
 
 solitary little moment in which to write to you. 
 
 When you are a mother, you will excuse me more 
 
 13
 
 194 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 completely than you have done, for you have pun- 
 ished me a little by making your letters more rare. 
 Write to me, my dear mignonrie! Tell me all your 
 pleasures, paint your happiness for me in full 
 colors, put in all the azure hues without fear of 
 afflicting me, for I am happy and more happy than 
 you will ever imagine. 
 
 I have been to the parish church to hear a mass 
 for my churching, in great state, as is the custom 
 in our old families of Provence. The two grand- 
 fathers, the father of Louis and mine, gave me their 
 arms. Ah ! never have I knelt before God in such 
 overwhelming gratitude. I have so many things to 
 say to you, so many sentiments to depict to you, 
 that I do not know where to commence ; but, amidst 
 all this confusion, there rises a radiant memory, 
 that of my prayer in the church ! 
 
 When, in that place where, as a young girl, I 
 doubted concerning my life and my future, I found 
 myself again transformed into a happy mother, I 
 thought I saw the Virgin of the altar inclining her 
 head and showing to me the Divine Infant who 
 seemed to smile upon me ! With what holy effusion 
 of celestial love did I present our little Armand for 
 the benediction of the Cure, who sprinkled him 
 while waiting for the baptism. But you shall see 
 us together, Armand and I. 
 
 My child, you see that I call you my child! but 
 this is in truth the sweetest word that there is in 
 the heart, in the intelligence, and on the lips when 
 one is a mother: well then, my dear child, I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 195 
 
 dragged myself, during the last two months, lan- 
 guidly enough through our gardens, fatigued, over- 
 come by the weariness of this burden which I did 
 not know to be so dear and so sweet notwithstand- 
 ing all the trials of those two months. I had such 
 apprehensions, forebodings so deathly sinister that 
 my curiosity was not stronger: I reasoned with my- 
 self, I said to myself that nothing which nature 
 ordained is to be feared, I promised myself that I 
 would be a mother. Alas ! my heart was not touched 
 at all, even while thinking of this infant who gave 
 me sufficient pretty kicks with his feet; and, my 
 dear, one may like to receive these kicks when 
 one has had children before; but for the first time 
 these struggles of an unknown life bring more as- 
 tonishment than pleasure. I speak to you of my- 
 self, who am neither false nor theatrical, and of 
 whom the fruit comes rather fronvGod, for it is God 
 who gives the children, than from a man beloved. 
 Let us leave these past sorrows which will never 
 return again I believe. 
 
 When the crisis came, I assembled in myself the 
 elements for such a resistance, I was expecting 
 such agonies, that I supported marvelously, they 
 say, this horrible torture. There was, my mignonne, 
 about an hour during which I abandoned myself to 
 an annihilation the effects of which were those of a 
 dream. I felt myself to be double, an envelope 
 torn with pincers, rent, tortured; and a placid soul. 
 In this curious state, suffering flowered like a crown 
 over my head. It seemed to me that an immense
 
 196 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 rose issued from my skull, enlarged and enveloped 
 me. The red color of this bloody-seeming flower 
 was in the air. I saw everything red. Thus ar- 
 rived at the point where the separation seemed 
 about to take place between the soul and the body, 
 a pain, which made me think that death was im- 
 mediate, tore me. I uttered horrible cries, and I 
 found new strength against new pains. This fright- 
 ful concert of clamors was suddenly overcome in me 
 by the delicious strains of the silvery first cries of 
 this little being. No, nothing can paint this 
 moment for you : it seemed to me that the whole 
 world cried with me, that everything was agony or 
 clamor, and that everything was, as it were, ex- 
 tinguished by this feeble cry of the child. I was put 
 back in my big bed, into which I entered as into a 
 paradise, although I was of an excessive feebleness. 
 Three or four joyful faces, with tearful eyes, then 
 showed me the baby. My dear, I cried in affright: 
 
 "What a little monkey!" I said. "Are you sure 
 that it is a child?" I asked. 
 
 I turned over on my side, sufficiently over- 
 whelmed not to feel myself any more of a mother 
 than that. 
 
 "Do not torment yourself, my dear," said to me 
 my mother, who had constituted herself my nurse, 
 "you have made the prettiest baby in the world. 
 Do not trouble your imagination, it is best for you 
 to devote all your attention to becoming stupid, to 
 do exactly like the cow who grazes that she may 
 have milk."
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 197 
 
 I accordingly went to sleep with the firm inten- 
 tion of letting myself go in the way of nature. Ah, 
 my angel, the awakening from all these pains, from 
 these confused sensations, from these first days in 
 which everything was obscure, painful and unde- 
 cided, was divine. These shadows were animated 
 by a sensation, the delights of which surpassed 
 those of the first cry of my child. My heart, my 
 soul, my being, an unknown I, was awakened in 
 its shell, gray and suffering up to this time, as a 
 flower bursts forth from its seed at the brilliant 
 summons of the sun. The little monster took my 
 breast and sucked : here was the Fiat lux ! I sud- 
 denly became mother. This is the happiness, the 
 joy, the ineffable joy, although it is not without 
 some pains. O my beautiful jealous one, how 
 much you will appreciate a pleasure which is only 
 between us, the infant and God., This little being 
 knows absolutely nothing but our breast. There is 
 for him only this one brilliant point in the world, 
 he loves it with all his strength, he thinks only of 
 this fountain of life, he comes to it and goes away to 
 sleep, he awakens to return to it. His lips have an 
 inexpressible love, and, when they fasten to it, they 
 communicate to it at once a pain and a pleasure, a 
 pleasure which goes as far as pain, or a pain which 
 ends by a pleasure; I would not know how to ex- 
 plain to you a sensation which from the breast radi- 
 ates through me to the very sources of life, for it 
 seems as though this were a centre from which issue 
 a thousand rays which rejoice the heart and the
 
 198 . MEMOIRS OF 
 
 soul. To give birth, that is nothing; but to nurse, 
 that is to give birth at every hour. Oh! Louise, 
 there are no lover's caresses which can equal those 
 of these little pink hands which wander about so 
 softly, and seek to take hold of life. What looks a 
 child throws alternately from our breast to our 
 eyes! What dreams one has in seeing him sus- 
 pended by his lips to his treasure! He appeals not 
 less to all the forces of the mind than to all those of 
 the body, he employs both the blood and the intel- 
 ligence, he satisfies beyond all desires. This ador- 
 able sensation of his first cry, which was for me 
 that which the first ray of the sun was for the earth, 
 I found it again in feeling my milk fill his mouth; 
 I experienced it again in receiving his first look, I 
 have just experienced it again in appreciating in 
 his first smile his first thought. He laughed, my 
 dear. This laugh, this look, this biting, this cry, 
 these four enjoyments are infinite: they go all the 
 way to the bottom of the heart, they touch there 
 chords which they alone can touch! The worlds 
 should attach themselves to God as an infant at- 
 taches himself to all the fibres of his mother: God, 
 he is the great heart of a mother. There is nothing 
 visible, nor perceptible in conception, nor even in 
 pregnancy; but to nurse, my Louise, it is a happi- 
 ness at every moment. One sees what becomes of 
 the milk, it makes flesh, it flowers at the end of 
 those delicate fingers which resemble flowers and 
 which have the delicacy of them ; it enlarges in fine 
 and transparent nails, it spins itself into hair, it
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 199 
 
 agitates itself with the feet Oh! the feet of a 
 baby, why, they are a complete language. The 
 infant commences to express himself with them. 
 To nurse, Louise! it is a transformation which one 
 follows from hour to hour and with a dazed eye. The 
 cries, you do not hear them with the ears, but by 
 the heart; the smiles of the eyes and of the lips, or 
 the agitations of the feet, you understand them as if 
 God wrote for you the characters in letters of fire in 
 space! There is no longer anything in the world 
 which interests you, the father? he would be 
 killed if he proposed to awaken the baby. One is, 
 one's self, the entire world for this infant, as the 
 infant is the world for us! One is so certain that 
 one's life is shared, one is so amply recompensed 
 for the pains which one gives one's self and for the 
 sufferings which one endures, for there are suffer- 
 ings God forbid that you should have a crack in 
 the breast! this wound which opens under the rosy 
 lips, which is cured with so much difficulty and 
 which causes torture sufficient to drive you crazy, 
 if it were not for the joy of seeing the mouth of the 
 infant smeared with milk, is one of the most fright- 
 ful punishments of beauty. My Louise, think of it, 
 this only happens to a fine and delicate skin. 
 
 My young monkey has become, in five months, 
 the prettiest creature that ever a mother bathed 
 with her happy tears, washed, brushed, combed, 
 decked out; for God knows with what an indefati- 
 gable ardor these little flowers are decked out, clothed, 
 brushed, washed, changed, kissed! Well then, my
 
 200 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 monkey is no longer a monkey, but a baby, as my 
 English nurse says, a pink and white baby ; and, as 
 he feels himself loved, he does not cry too much; 
 but, in truth, I scarcely ever leave him and I en- 
 deavor to penetrate him with my soul. 
 
 Dear, I have now in my heart for Louis a senti- 
 ment which is not love, but one which should in a 
 loving woman, complete love. I do not know if 
 this tenderness, if this recognition disengaged from 
 all interest, does not go beyond love. From all that 
 you have said to me concerning it, love has some- 
 thing in it frightfully terrestrial, whilst there is an 
 ineffable, religious and divine emotion in the affec- 
 tion which a happy mother bears to him from whom 
 proceed these long, these eternal joys. The joy of 
 a mother is a light which is thrown even on the 
 future and lightens it up, but which is reflected on 
 the past to give it the charm of souvenirs. 
 
 The old L'Estorade and his son have, moreover, 
 redoubled their goodness to me, I am like a new 
 person for them, their words, their looks, go to 
 my soul, for they fete me anew every time they see 
 me and speak to me. The old grandfather has be- 
 come a child, I think; he looks at me with admira- 
 tion. The first time that I came down to dejeuner 
 and that he saw me eating and nursing his grand- 
 son he wept. That tear in those dry eyes in which 
 there scarcely ever gleam any other thoughts than 
 those of money caused to me an inexpressible 
 solace ; it seemed to me that the good man compre- 
 hended my joys. As to Louis, he would have told
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 2OI 
 
 to the trees and to the pebbles of the highroad that 
 he had a son. He passes entire hours in looking at 
 your sleeping godson. He does not know, he says, 
 when he will become accustomed to it These ex- 
 cessive demonstrations of joy have revealed to me the 
 extent of their apprehensions and of their fears. 
 Louis has ended by avowing to me that he doubted 
 himself, and believed himself condemned to never 
 have any children. My poor Louis has suddenly 
 changed for the better, he studies more than in the 
 past This infant has doubled the ambition of the 
 father. As for myself, my dear soul, I am from 
 moment to moment more happy. Each hour brings 
 a new bond between a mother and her infant That 
 which I feel within me proves that this sentiment is 
 imperishable, natural, for every moment; whilst I 
 suspect love, for example, to have its intermit- 
 tences. One does not love in the same manner at 
 every moment, there is not embroidered upon this 
 stuff of life flowers that are always brilliant, in 
 short, love can and should cease; but maternity has 
 no decline to fear, it grows with the needs of the 
 infant, it develops itself with him. Is it not at the 
 same time a passion, a need, a sentiment, a duty, a 
 necessity, happiness? Yes, mignonne, this is the 
 peculiar life of woman. Our yearning for devotion 
 is here satisfied, and we do not find the troubles of 
 jealousy. Thus perhaps is it for us the only point 
 in which Nature and Society are in accord. In this, 
 Society thinks that it has enriched Nature, it has 
 augmented the maternal sentiment by the spirit of
 
 202 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the family, by the continuity of the name, of the 
 blood, of the fortune. With what love should a 
 woman not surround the dear being who the first 
 has enabled her to know such joys, who for her has 
 caused to be displayed the strength of her soul and 
 has taught to her the great art of maternity? The 
 institution of birthright, which in antiquity was 
 intimately connected with the right of the eldest in 
 the world and contributed to the origin of the vari- 
 ous societies, it seems to me should not be taken 
 into consideration. Ah ! how many things an infant 
 teaches its mother. There are so many promises 
 made between us and virtue in that incessant pro- 
 tection due to a feeble being, that the woman is only 
 in her true sphere when she is a mother; it is only 
 then that she displays all her forces, she practises 
 the duties of her life, she has of it all the happi- 
 nesses and all the pleasures. A woman who is not 
 a mother is a being incomplete and who has failed. 
 Hurry then to be a mother, my angel ! You will 
 multiply your actual happiness by all my delights. 
 
 23d. 
 
 I left you when I heard monsieur, your godson, 
 cry, and this cry I heard from the end of the garden. 
 I do not wish to send off this letter without saying 
 to you a farewell word; 1 have just re-read it, and 
 am frightened at the commonness of the sentiment 
 which it contains. That which 1 feel, alas ! it seems 
 to me that all mothers have experienced it like
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 203 
 
 myself, should express it in the same manner, and 
 that you will laugh at me, as people laugh at the 
 simplicity of all those fathers who relate to you the 
 cleverness and the beauty of their children, finding 
 in them always something particular. Finally, 
 dear mignonne, the great word of this letter is this, 
 I repeat it to you, I am as happy now as I was un- 
 happy formerly. This country house, which more- 
 over is going to become an estate, a majorat, is for 
 me the promised land. I have ended by crossing 
 my desert. A thousand tendernesses, dear mig- 
 nonne. Write to me, I can to-day read without 
 weeping the description of your happiness and of 
 your love. Adieu. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 MADAME DE MACUMER TO MADAME DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 March, 1826. 
 
 What, my dear, more than three months since I 
 wrote to you and since I have received any letters 
 from you! I am the more culpable of the two, I 
 have not replied to you; but you are not sensitive, 
 that I know. Your silence has been taken by Ma- 
 cumer and myself as an agreement to the dejeuner 
 service decorated with child figures, and these 
 charming objects will be sent off this morning to 
 Marseilles; the artists have taken six months to ex- 
 ecute them. Thus I suddenly came to myself with 
 a start when Felipe proposed to me to go and see
 
 204 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the service before the goldsmith packed it up. It 
 suddenly occurred to me that we had written noth- 
 ing to each other since the letter in which 1 felt 
 myself a mother with you. 
 
 My angel, the terrible Paris, that is my excuse 
 for myself; I am waiting for yours. Oh the world, 
 what a gulf! Have I not already said to you that 
 one can only be a Parisienne in Paris? The world 
 here destroys all the feelings, it occupies all your 
 hours, it will devour your heart if you do not take 
 care. What an astonishing masterpiece is that 
 creation of Celimene in Le Misanthrope by Moliere! 
 It is the woman of the world of the time of Louis 
 XIV. as of that of our time, in short, a woman of the 
 world of every epoch. Where should I be in it all 
 were it not for my >gis, without my love for Felipe ? 
 Thus I said to him this morning while making these 
 reflections, that he is my savior. If my evenings 
 are filled by the fetes, by the balls, by the concerts, 
 and by the theatres, I find again on my return the 
 joys of love and its follies which expand my heart, 
 which efface in it the injuries caused by the world. 
 I only dine at home on the days on which we have 
 people who are called friends, and I do not remain 
 at home excepting for my days. I have my day, 
 Wednesday, on which I receive. I have engaged 
 in a struggle with Mesdames d'Espard and De Mau- 
 frigneuse, with the old Duchesse de Lenoncourt 
 My house has the reputation of being an entertain- 
 ing one. I have let myself be carried away by the 
 current of the world in seeing my Felipe happy in
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 205 
 
 my success. I give to him the mornings; for, from 
 four o'clock up to two o'clock in the morning, I be- 
 long to Paris. Macumer is an admirable master of 
 the house, he is so acute and so grave, so truly 
 grand and of such perfect grace, that he would make 
 himself loved by a woman who had married him 
 conventionally. My father and my mother have 
 gone to Madrid, Louis XVIII. being dead, the 
 duchess readily secured from our good Charles X. 
 the appointment of her charming poet, whom she 
 carried off with her in his quality of attache. My 
 brother, the Due de Rhetore, deigns to regard me as 
 a superior being. As to the Comte de Chaulieu, 
 this fancy soldier should owe me an eternal grati- 
 tude, my fortune was employed, before my father's 
 departure, in constituting for him in lands amajorat 
 of forty thousand francs of income, and his marriage 
 with Mademoiselle de Mortsauf, a rich heiress of 
 Touraine, is all arranged. The king, in order that 
 the names and the titles of the houses of Lenoncourt 
 and of Givry should not be extinguished, has 
 authorized my brother by an ordinance to succeed 
 to the name, titles and arms of the Lenoncourt- 
 Givrys. How, in fact, could these fine names and 
 the sublime device: Faciem semper monstramus, be 
 allowed to perish! Mademoiselle de Mortsauf, 
 granddaughter and only heiress of the Due de 
 Lenoncourt-Givry, reunites in her own right it is 
 said more than a hundred thousand francs income. 
 My father only demanded that the arms of the 
 Chaulieus should be placed in the centre of those of
 
 206 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the Lenoncourts. Thus my brother will be Due de 
 Lenoncourt The young De Mortsauf, to whom all 
 this fortune should go, is in the last stage of con- 
 sumption; his death is expected momentarily. 
 Next winter, after the mourning, the marriage will 
 take place. I shall have, they say, for sister-in-law 
 a charming person in Madeleine de Mortsauf. Thus 
 as you see, my father was right in his reasoning. 
 This result has procured me the admiration of a 
 great many persons, and my marriage is accounted 
 for. Through affection for my grandmother, the 
 Prince de Talleyrand praises Macumer, so that our 
 success is complete. After having commenced by 
 blaming me, society now highly approves of me. I 
 reign finally, then, in that Paris in which I was of 
 so small account nearly two years ago. Macumer 
 sees his happiness envied by all the world, for I am 
 the cleverest woman in Paris. You know that there 
 are twenty "cleverest women in Paris" in Paris. 
 The men coo to me phrases of love or content them- 
 selves with expressing them in envious regards. 
 Truly, there is in this concert of desires and of ad- 
 miration a so constant satisfaction of the vanity, 
 that now I comprehend the excessive outlay made 
 by women to enjoy these frail and passing advan- 
 tages. This triumph intoxicates the pride, the 
 vanity, the self-love, in short all the sentiments of 
 the /. This perpetual deification intoxicates so 
 violently that I am no longer astonished to see the 
 women becoming egotistical, forgetful and frivolous 
 in the midst of this festival. The world flies to the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 207 
 
 head. One squanders the flowers of one's wit and 
 of one's soul, one's most precious time, one's most 
 generous efforts, upon people who pay you in jeal- 
 ousy and in smiles, who sell to you the counterfeit 
 money of their phrases, of their compliments and of 
 their adulation against the golden ingots of your 
 courage, of your sacrifices, of your inventions for 
 being beautiful, well dressed, clever, affable and 
 agreeable to all. You know how costly is this com- 
 merce, you know that you are robbed, but you give 
 yourself up to it all the same Ah, my beautiful 
 lamb, how much one has need of the heart of a 
 friend, how precious are the love and the devotion 
 of Felipe! how much I love you! With what hap- 
 piness are the preparations for a journey made to go 
 and seek at Chantepleurs rest from the comedies of 
 the Rue du Bac and of all the salons of Paris! In 
 short, I who have just re-read your last letter, I shall 
 have painted for you this infernal paradise of Paris 
 in telling you that it is impossible for a woman of 
 society to be a mother. 
 
 Good-bye for a short time, dearest; we will only 
 stop for a week at the most at Chantepleurs and we 
 will be with you about the tenth of May. We are 
 then going to see each other again after more than 
 two years! And what changes! We are both 
 wives, 1 the most happy of mistresses, you, the 
 most happy of mothers. If I have not written to 
 you, my dear love, 1 have not forgotten you. And 
 my godson, that monkey, is he still pretty? does he 
 do me honor ? He will be more than nine months
 
 208 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 old. I wish to assist at his first steps in the world ; 
 but Macumer tells me that precocious children 
 scarcely walk at ten months. We will then have 
 our little gossip, in the manner of the Blesois. I 
 will see if, as is said, child-bearing spoils the 
 figure. 
 
 P. S. If you answer, sublime mother, address 
 your letter to Chantepleurs, I am setting out 
 
 XXXIII 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME DE MACUMER 
 
 Eh ! my child, if ever you become a mother, you 
 will know if one can write letters during the first 
 two months of nursing. Mary, my English nurse, 
 and I, we are fagged out It is true that I did not 
 tell you that I insist upon doing everything myself. 
 Before the event, I sewed and embroidered with my 
 own fingers all the baby linen, trimmed the caps 
 myself. I am a slave, my mignonne, a slave day 
 and night And in the first place, Armand-Louis 
 sucks whenever he wants to, and he wants to all the 
 time; then it is necessary to change him so often, 
 to clean him, to clothe him ; the mother loves so 
 much to look at him when he is asleep, to sing 
 songs to him, to promenade him when it is pleasant 
 holding him in her arms, that she has no time in 
 which to take care of herself. In short, you have 
 the world, I have my child, our child ! What a rich
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 209 
 
 and full life! Oh my dear, I am waiting for you, 
 you will see ! But I fear that teething time is about 
 to commence, and that you will find him very noisy, 
 very weeping. He has not cried much as yet, for I 
 am always on hand. Babies only cry because they 
 have wants which one does not know how to find 
 out, and I know the indications of all his. Oh my 
 angel, how my heart has enlarged while you have 
 been shriveling yours in putting it at the service of 
 the world! I am waiting for you with the impa- 
 tience of a solitary. I wish to know your opinion 
 of L'Estorade, as you doubtless wish to have mine 
 on Macumer. Write me your last sleeping place. 
 My men wish to go to meet our illustrious guests. 
 Come, queen of Paris, come to our poor country 
 house, where you will be loved! 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 MADAME DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 April, 1826. 
 
 The address of my letter will announce to you, 
 my dear, the success of my efforts. Your father- 
 in-law is now Comte de 1'Estorade. I did not wish 
 to leave Paris without having obtained for you that 
 which you desired, and 1 am writing to you in the 
 presence of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal who 
 has come to tell me that the ordinance is signed. 
 Good-bye, hoping to see you very soon. 
 14
 
 210 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 XXXV 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 Marseilles, July. 
 
 My sudden departure must have astonished you, 
 I am ashamed of it; but, as before all I am truthful 
 and as I love you always as much as ever, I am go- 
 ing to tell you frankly the whole in four words, I 
 am horribly jealous. Felipe looked at you too much. 
 You had together at the foot of your rock little con- 
 versations which put me to the torture, rendered me 
 evil and changed all my character. Your beauty, 
 truly Spanish, must have recalled to him his country 
 and that Marie Heredia of whom I am jealous, for I 
 am jealous of the past. Your magnificent black 
 hair, your beautiful brown eyes, that forehead on 
 which the joys of maternity brought into relief your 
 eloquent past sorrows, which are like the shadows 
 of a radiant light; that freshness of the meridional 
 skin, whiter than my whiteness of the blonde; that 
 strength and fulness of form, that breast which 
 shone among the laces like a delicious fruit to which 
 was suspended my beautiful godson; all that 
 wounded my eyes and my heart. It was all very 
 well for me at one time to put blue corn flowers in 
 my bunchy hair, at another time to relieve the in- 
 sipidity of my blonde tresses by cherry ribbons, it 
 all paled before a Renee whom I did not expect to 
 find in this oasis of La Crampade. 
 
 Felipe envied also too much that child, whom I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 211 
 
 took to hating. Yes, this insolent life which filled 
 all your household, which animated it, which cried 
 there, which laughed there, I wished it for myself. 
 I read regrets in the eyes of Macumer, I wept be- 
 cause of it during two nights, unknown to him. I 
 was in torment in your house. You are too beauti- 
 ful a woman and too happy a mother for me to be 
 able to remain near you. Ah, hypocrite, you com- 
 plain! In the first place, your L'Estorade is very 
 fine, he talks agreeably; his black hairs mingled 
 with white are handsome ; he has fine eyes, and his 
 meridional ways have that I do not know what which 
 pleases. From what I have seen, he will sooner or 
 later be made deputy from the Bouches-du-Rh6ne ; 
 he will make his way in the Chamber, for I am 
 always at your service in all that concerns your 
 ambition. The sufferings of exile have given him 
 that calm and regulated air which seems to me to 
 be the half of politics. According to me, my dear, 
 the whole political science consists in a grave ap- 
 pearance. Thus I have said to Macumer that he 
 should be a very great statesman. 
 
 In short, after having acquired the certainty of 
 your happiness, I am going in full flight, content, 
 to my dear Chantepleurs, where Felipe will pre- 
 pare to be a father ; I do not wish to receive you 
 there unless I have at my breast a beautiful infant 
 like yours. I deserve all the names that you would 
 wish to give me, I am ridiculous, disgraceful, with- 
 out sense. Alas! one is all that when one is jeal- 
 ous. 1 do not wish to quarrel with you, but I was
 
 212 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 suffering, and you will forgive me for having 
 escaped from such suffering. In two days more I 
 should have committed some stupidity. Yes, I 
 should have been in very bad taste. Notwithstand- 
 ing these rages which gnaw at my heart, I am happy 
 at having come, happy to have seen you, a mother, 
 so beautiful and so fruitful, still my friend in the 
 midst of your maternal joys, as I remain always 
 yours in the midst of my love. Behold, at Mar- 
 seilles, at a few steps from you, I am already proud 
 of you, proud of that great mother of a family 
 which you will be. With what judgment did you 
 divine your vocation ! For you seem to me born to 
 be rather mother than lover, as I I am born rather 
 for love than for maternity. Certain women can be 
 neither mothers nor lovers, they are either too ugly 
 or too stupid. A good mother and a mistress-wife 
 should have under all circumstances wit, judgment, 
 and know, whatever might arise, how to display the 
 most exquisite qualities of a woman. Oh! I ob- 
 served you closely; is that not the same as saying, 
 my kitten, that I admired you? Yes, your children 
 will be happy and well brought up, they will be 
 bathed in the effusions of your tendernesses, caressed 
 by the light of your soul. 
 
 Tell the truth concerning my departure to your 
 Louis, but color it with a reasonable pretext for the 
 eyes of your father-in-law, who seems to be your 
 intendant, and above all for the eyes of your family, 
 a true family Harlowe, plus the Provencal spirit. 
 Felipe does not know yet why I left, he will never
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 213 
 
 know it If he asks, I will find for him some pre- 
 text or other. I will say to him probably that you 
 were jealous of me. Bear me out in this little 
 friendly falsehood. Adieu; I am writing to you 
 hurriedly so that you may have this letter at the 
 hour of your dejeuner, and the postilion who has 
 orders that this shall be done is here drinking while 
 he waits. Kiss well my dear little godson for me. 
 Come to Chantepleurs in the month of October, I 
 shall be there alone during all the time that Macu- 
 mer is going to pass in Sardinia, where he wishes 
 to make great alterations in his domains. At least 
 such is the project of the moment, and it is his own 
 foolishness to think that he has a project, he thinks 
 himself independent, thus he is always uneasy in 
 communicating his plans to me. Adieu! 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BA- 
 RONNE DE MACUMER 
 
 My dear, we all of us were inexpressibly aston- 
 ished when, at dejeuner, they told us that you had 
 departed, and above all when the postilion whom 
 you had carried off to Marseilles handed me your 
 crazy letter. But, wicked one, there was no discus- 
 sion of anything but of your happiness in those 
 conversations at the foot of the rock, on "Louise's 
 bench," and you were very wrong to take offense 
 at them. Ingrata ! I condemn you to return here
 
 214 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 at my first summons. In that odious letter scrawled 
 on the hotel paper, you have not told me where you 
 would stop; lam therefore obliged to address my 
 reply to you at Chantepleurs. 
 
 Listen to me, dear sister of election, and know 
 before all that I wish you happiness. Your husband, 
 my Louise, has a fathomless depth of soul and of 
 thought which is imposing as much as his natural 
 gravity and his noble countenance are imposing; 
 then there is in his ugliness which is so spiritual, 
 in that velvet glance, a truly majestic power; it 
 therefore required some time for me to establish 
 that familiarity without which it is difficult to 
 closely observe. Finally, this man has been prime 
 minister, and he adores you as he adores God, 
 therefore, he should be able to dissimulate thor- 
 oughly; and in order to fish out the secrets from the 
 depths of this diplomat, under the rocks of his heart, 
 I had to display as much skilful ness as shrewdness; 
 but I ended, without our man thinking of it, by dis- 
 covering a great many things of which my mign- 
 onne has no suspicions. Of us two, I represent 
 somewhat Reason as you are Imagination; I am the 
 great Duty, as you are the foolish Love. This con- 
 trast of spirit which existed only for us two, fate 
 has been pleased to continue in our destinies. I am 
 a humble rural viscountess, excessively ambitious, 
 who should conduct her family in the way of pros- 
 perity; whilst all the world knows Macumer, ex- 
 duke of Soria, and that, duchess by right, you reign 
 over that Paris where it is difficult for anyone
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 215 
 
 whatever, even for the kings, to reign. You have a 
 fine fortune which Macumer will double, if he real- 
 izes his projects of improvements for his immense 
 domain of Sardinia, the resources of which are well 
 known in Marseilles. Admit that, if either of us 
 should have been jealous, it was I. But let us ren- 
 der thanks to God that we have each of us a heart 
 sufficiently elevated to place our friendship above 
 vulgar pettinesses. I know you, you are ashamed 
 of having left me. Notwithstanding your flight, I 
 shall not spare you a single one of the words which 
 I was going to say to you to-day under the rock. 
 Read this then with attention, I entreat you, for it 
 is much more a question of you than of Macumer, 
 although he counts for a good deal in my morality. 
 In the first place, my mignonne, you do not love 
 him. In less than two years you will be wearied 
 of this adoration. You will never see in Felipe a 
 husband, but rather a lover with whom you will 
 play carelessly, as all women do with a lover. No, 
 he does not overawe you, you have not for him that 
 profound respect, that tenderness full of fear which 
 a true loving woman has for him in whom she sees 
 a god. Oh! I have well studied love, my angel, 
 and I have more than once sounded the depths of 
 my heart After having well examined you, I can 
 say to you: "you do not love." Yes, dear queen of 
 Paris, just like the queens, you will desire to be 
 treated like a grisette, you will wish to be domi- 
 nated, carried away by a strong man who, instead 
 of adoring you, will know how to crush your arm
 
 216 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in seizing you in the midst of a scene of jealousy. 
 Macumer loves you too much to be able ever either 
 to reprimand you or to resist you. One of your 
 looks only, one only of your cajoling words, would 
 dissolve the strongest of his wishes. Sooner or 
 later, you will despise him for this, that he loves 
 you too much. Alas! he spoils you, as I spoiled 
 you when we were at the convent, for you are one 
 of the most seductive women and one of the most 
 enchanting spirits that can be imagined. You are 
 true above all, and often the world exacts, for our 
 own happiness, falsehoods to which you will never 
 descend. Thus, the world demands that a wife 
 shall never let the empire which she exercises over 
 her husband appear. Socially speaking, a husband 
 should no more appear to be the lover of his wife 
 when he loves her as a lover, than a wife should 
 play the role of a mistress. Now, you both of you 
 fail in this law. My child, in the first place, that 
 which the world pardons the least, judging from 
 what you have told me about it, is happiness, it 
 should be hidden from it; but this is nothing. 
 There exists between lovers an equality which can 
 never, in my opinion, appear between a wife and 
 her husband, under penalty of a social overturning 
 and without irreparable misfortunes. A man null 
 is something frightful ; but there is something worse, 
 it is a man annulled. Within a certain length of 
 time, you will have reduced Macumer to the state 
 of being only the shadow of a man : he will no 
 longer have his will, he will no longer be himself,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 217 
 
 but a thing fashioned to your usage; you will have 
 him so well assimilated that instead of being two, 
 there will no longer be but one person in your 
 household, and this being will be necessarily in- 
 complete; you will suffer for it, and the evil will 
 be without remedy when you deign to open your 
 eyes. We may do what we will, our sex will never 
 be endowed with the qualities which distinguish 
 the man; and these qualities are more than neces- 
 sary, they are indispensable to the Family. At 
 this moment, notwithstanding his blindness, Macu- 
 mer has glimpses of this future, he feels himself 
 diminished by his love. His journey to Sardinia 
 proves to me that he is going to endeavor to recover 
 himself by this momentary separation. You do not 
 hesitate to exercise the power with which love en- 
 dows you. Your authority is shown in a gesture, 
 in the look, in the accent Oh, dear, you are, as 
 your mother said to you, an extravagant courtesan. 
 Certainly it is evident to you, I think, that I am 
 much superior to Louis ; but have you ever seen me 
 contradicting him ? am I not in public a wife who 
 respects him as the head of the family ? Hypocrisy ! 
 do you say. In the first place, the counsel which 
 I think it advisable to give him, my advice, my 
 ideas, I never submit them to him but in the shadow 
 and the silence of the bedchamber ; but I can swear 
 to you, my angel, that even then I do not affect any 
 superiority to him. If I did not keep up every ap- 
 pearance of being his dutiful wife, he would not 
 believe in himself. My dear, the perfection of
 
 218 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 benevolence consists in effacing itself so completely 
 that the favored one does not think himself inferior 
 to him who favors him ; and this concealed devotion 
 admits of infinite contentment. Thus, my glory has 
 been to deceive you yourself, and you have compli- 
 mented me on Louis. Prosperity, happiness, hope, 
 have moreover permitted him to regain within the 
 last two years all that misfortune, misery, abandon- 
 ment and doubt had made him lose. At this 
 moment, then, according to my observations, I find 
 that you love Felipe for yourself and not for him- 
 self. There is truth in that which your father said 
 to you, your egotism of the great lady is only dis- 
 guised under the spring flowers of your love. Ah, 
 my child, it is necessary to love you well to tell you 
 such cruel truths. Let me repeat to you, under the 
 condition of never breathing the least word of this 
 to the baron, the end of one of our conversations. 
 We had been singing your praises in all tones, for 
 he saw clearly that I loved you like a beloved sis- 
 ter; and after having led him, without his being 
 aware of it, to confidences : 
 
 "Louise," I said to him, "has not yet had any 
 struggles with life, she is treated like a spoiled child 
 by fate, and perhaps she will be unhappy if you 
 should not be a father for her as you are a lover." 
 
 "Eh! can I?" he said. 
 
 He stopped short, like a man who sees the preci- 
 pice over which he will fall. This exclamation 
 sufficed for me. If you had not departed, he would 
 have said more to me a few days later.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 219 
 
 My angel, when this man shall be without 
 strength, when he shall have found satiety in pleas- 
 ures; when he shall feel, I will not say debased, but 
 without his dignity, before you, the reproaches 
 which his conscience will make him, will give him 
 a sort of remorse, wounding for you also through the 
 very fact that you shall feel yourself culpable. In 
 short, you will finish by holding in contempt the 
 one whom you have not been in the habit of re- 
 specting. Think of it: contempt with a woman is 
 the first manifestation of her hate. As you are 
 noble of heart, you will always remember the sac- 
 rifices which Felipe will have made for you; but he 
 will have no more to make to you after having in 
 some sort served up himself in this first festival, 
 and woe to the man as to the woman who leaves 
 nothing to wish for ! All is said. To our shame or 
 to our glory, I cannot decide this delicate point, we 
 are exacting only for the man who loves us! 
 
 O Louise, change, it is yet time. You can, in 
 your conduct with Macumer as I do with L'Estorade, 
 arouse the lion hidden in this truly superior man. 
 It might almost be said that you wish to avenge 
 yourself of his superiority. Will you not then be 
 proud to exercise your power otherwise than for 
 your own profit, to make a man of genius out of a 
 great man, as I make a superior man out of an ordi- 
 nary man ? 
 
 If you had remained in the country, I would still 
 have written you this letter; I would have feared 
 your petulance and your wit in a conversation,
 
 220 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 while I know that you will reflect on your future 
 when you read this. Dear soul, you have every- 
 thing necessary to make you happy, do not spoil 
 your happiness, and return in the month of Novem- 
 ber to Paris. The cares and the enticements of the 
 world of which I complained are diversions neces- 
 sary to your existence, which is perhaps a little too 
 intimate. A married woman should have her little 
 coquetry. The mother of a family who does not 
 make her presence desired by making herself rare 
 in the bosom of the family runs the risk of bringing 
 satiety into it If I have several children, which I 
 wish for my happiness, I swear to you that as soon 
 as they arrive at a certain age I shall reserve for 
 myself hours during which I shall be alone; for it 
 is necessary to make yourself asked for by all the 
 world, even by your children. Adieu, dear jealous 
 one ! Do you know that a common woman would 
 be flattered to have occasioned you this jealousy ? 
 Alas! 1 can only distress myself over it, for there 
 is in me only a mother and a sincere friend. A 
 thousand tendernesses. Do whatever you like to 
 excuse your departure: if you are not sure of Felipe, 
 I am sure of Louis. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 Genoa. 
 
 My beautiful dear, I have had a fancy to see a 
 little of Italy, and I am delighted to have carried off
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 221 
 
 Macumer, whose projects concerning his Sardinia 
 estates are postponed. 
 
 This country enchants me and fills me with de- 
 light Here the churches and above all the chapels, 
 have an amorous and coquettish air which should 
 make a Protestant desire to turn Catholic. Macu- 
 mer has been fe"ted, and much rejoicing has been 
 expressed over the acquisition of such a subject If 
 I should desire it, Felipe would be the Ambassador 
 of Sardinia at Paris; for the Court is quite devoted 
 to me. If you write to me, address your letters to 
 Florence. I have not too much time to write to you 
 in detail, I will relate my journey to you on your 
 first visit to Paris. We will remain here only a 
 week. Then we will go to Florence by Leghorn, 
 we will stop a month in Tuscany and a month in 
 Naples, so as to be in Rome in November. We 
 will come back by Venice, where we will stay the 
 first two weeks in December ; then we will arrive 
 by way of Milan and Turin in Paris for the month 
 of January. We are traveling as lovers, the 
 novelty of the localities renews our wedding days. 
 Macumer does not know Italy, and we commenced 
 by that magnificent road of the Corniche, which 
 seems to have been built by the fairies. Adieu, 
 dearest Do not complain of me if I do not write to 
 you; it is impossible for me to find a moment to 
 myself while travel ing; I have only the time to see, 
 to feel, and to appreciate my impressions. But, to 
 tell you about them, I shall wait until they have 
 taken the tints of memories.
 
 222 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BA- 
 RONNE DE MACUMER 
 
 September. 
 
 My dear, there is for you at Chantepleurs a suffi- 
 ciently long answer to the letter which you wrote 
 me from Marseilles. This journey made as lovers 
 is so far from diminishing the fears which I ex- 
 pressed to you in it, that I entreat you to write to 
 Nivernais to have my letter sent to you. 
 
 The Ministry has resolved, it is said, to dissolve 
 the Chamber. If this is unfortunate for the Crown, 
 which should employ the last session of this de- 
 voted Legislature to secure the laws necessary to 
 the consolidation of power, it is so for us also, 
 Louis will not be forty until the end of 1827. For- 
 tunately, my father, who consents to become a dep- 
 uty, will give in his resignation in time. 
 
 Your godson has taken his first steps without his 
 godmother; he is, moreover, quite admirable and 
 begins to make to me those graceful little gestures 
 which say to me that this is no longer only an organ 
 which takes the breast, an animal life, but a soul : 
 his smiles are full of thoughts. I am so favored in 
 my trade of nurse, that I shall wean our Armand in 
 December. A year of milk is sufficient The 
 children who nurse too much become stupid. I be- 
 lieve in the popular sayings. You should have a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 223 
 
 wild success in Italy, my beautiful blonde. A 
 thousand tendernesses. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 Rome, December. 
 
 I have your infamous letter, which at my request, 
 my administrator has sent to me here from Chante- 
 pleurs. Oh Renee . But I spare you all that my 
 indignation could suggest to me. I will only relate 
 to you the effects produced by your letter. On our 
 return from the charming fete which had been given 
 us by the ambassador, and where I shone with all 
 my splendor, from which Macumer returned intoxi- 
 cated with his admiration for me to such a degree 
 that I should not know how to describe it, I read to 
 him your horrible answer, and I read it to him weep- 
 ing at the risk of appearing ugly to him. My dear 
 Abencerrage fell at my feet, declaring that you were 
 as one in her dotage: he led me out on the balcony 
 of the palace where we are and from which we can 
 see a part of Rome, there his language was worthy 
 of the scene which offered itself to our eyes; for 
 there was a superb moonlight As we already 
 speak Italian, his love, expressed in this language 
 so soft and so suitable for passion, appeared to me 
 sublime. He said to me that, even if you should be 
 a true prophet, he would prefer a happy night, or
 
 224 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 one of our delicious mornings, to a whole life. By 
 this counting, he had already lived a thousand 
 years. He wished that I should remain his mis- 
 tress, and desired no other title than that of my 
 lover. He is so proud and so happy to see himself 
 every day the preferred one, that, if God should ap- 
 pear to him and give him the choice of living thirty 
 years longer according to your doctrine and having 
 five children, or of having only five years more of 
 life continuing our dear and flowery loves, his choice 
 would be made, he would prefer to be loved as I 
 love him and to die. These protestations said in 
 my ear, my head on his shoulder, his arm around 
 my waist, were troubled at that moment by the 
 cries of some bat which a screech owl had surprised. 
 This death-cry made so cruel an impression upon 
 me that Felipe carried me off, half-fainting, to my 
 bed. But you may reassure yourself! although 
 this evil omen resounded in my soul, this morning I 
 am very well. When I rose, I placed myself on my 
 knees before Felipe, and my eyes on his, his hands 
 taken in mine, 1 said to him : 
 
 "My angel, I am a child and Renee may be right: 
 it is perhaps only love which I love in you; but at 
 least know that there is no other sentiment in my 
 heart, and that I love you then in my own way. 
 Truly, if in my manners, if in the least things of 
 my life and of my soul, there has been anything 
 whatever contrary to that which you wish or hope 
 of me, tell it to me! let me know it! I shall have 
 pleasure in listening to you and in conducting
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 22$ 
 
 myself only by the light of your eyes. Renee has 
 frightened me, she loves me so much!" 
 
 Macumer had no voice with which to answer me, 
 he melted into tears. Now, I thank you, my Renee; 
 I did not know how much I was loved by my splen- 
 did, by my royal, Macumer. Rome is the city in 
 which one loves. When one has a passion, it is 
 there that you should go to enjoy it: you will have 
 all the arts and God for confederates. We will 
 meet at Venice the Duke and the Duchess of Soria. 
 If you write to me, write to me now at Paris, for 
 we leave Rome in three days. The fte of the am- 
 bassador was a farewell one. 
 
 P. S. Dear imbecile, your letter shows that you 
 only know love theoretically. Know then that love 
 is a principle, all the effects of which are so dissim- 
 ilar that no one theory would know how to embrace 
 them all nor to teach them all. This is for my 
 little doctor in a corset 
 
 XL 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE 
 DE MACUMER 
 
 January, 1827. 
 
 My father is appointed, my father-in-law is dead, 
 and I am again about to undergo the sufferings of 
 maternity, these are the events which mark the 
 15
 
 226 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 end of this year. I tell them to you immediately, 
 so that the impression which my black seal may 
 make upon you may be immediately removed. 
 
 My mignonne, your letter from Rome has made 
 me shudder. You are two children. Felipe is 
 either a diplomat who has dissimulated, or a man 
 who loves you as he would love a courtesan to 
 whom he would abandon his fortune while knowing 
 that she betrayed him. But there is quite enough 
 of this. You take me for one in her dotage, I will 
 say no more. But permit me to say to you that in 
 studying our two destinies I draw from them a cruel 
 principle: Do you wish to be loved, do not love. 
 
 Louis, my dear, has received the cross of the 
 Legion of Honor when he was made member of the 
 Council General. Now, as it is nearly three years 
 that he has been with the Council, and that my 
 father, whom you will doubtless see at Paris during 
 the Session, has asked for his son-in-law the grade 
 of officer, do me the pleasure to approach the func- 
 tionary, whoever he may be, who has charge of 
 this nomination, and to watch over this little affair. 
 Above all, do not interest yourself in the affairs of 
 my very honored father, the Comte de Maucombe, 
 who wishes to obtain the title of marquis; keep 
 your favors for me. When Louis shall be a deputy, 
 that is to say, next winter, we will come to Paris, 
 and we will then move heaven and earth there in 
 order to secure for him some office of general direc- 
 tion so that we may be able to save all our income 
 by living on the salary of the office. My father
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 227 
 
 sits between the Centre and the Right, he asks only 
 a title ; our family was already celebrated under the 
 King Rene, the King Charles X. will not refuse a 
 Maucombe ; but I am afraid that my father may take 
 it into his head to demand some favor for my 
 younger brother; and, by putting the sugar-plum of 
 the marquisate a little too high, he may be able to 
 think only of himself. 
 
 January i$th. 
 
 Ah! Louise, I have come out of Hell ! If I have 
 the courage to speak to you of my sufferings it is 
 because you seem to me my other self. Still I do 
 not know if I shall ever let my thoughts return to 
 these five fatal days! The one word "convul- 
 sions" gives me a shiver in the very soul. It is 
 not five days which have just passed, but five cen- 
 turies of anguish. So long as 'a mother has not 
 suffered this martyrdom, she will remain ignorant 
 of the meaning of the word suffering. I thought 
 you happy not to have any children, you may judge 
 by this of my want of reason ! 
 
 The evening of the terrible day, the weather 
 which had been heavy and almost hot, seemed to 
 me to have worried my little Armand. He, so gen- 
 tle and so caressing, he was peevish and cross; he 
 cried at everything, he wished to play and broke 
 his toys. Perhaps all sicknesses announce them- 
 selves in children by changes of temper. Watchful 
 of this singular wickedness, I observed in Armand 
 flushes and palings which I attributed to the coming
 
 228 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of four large teeth which he was cutting at once. 
 Therefore I took him to bed with me, waking from 
 time to time. During the night he had a little 
 fever which did not disquiet me, I ascribed it all 
 to the teeth. Towards morning he said to me: 
 "Mama!" asking for a drink with a gesture, but 
 with a tone in his voice, with a convulsive move- 
 ment in the gesture, which froze my blood. I leaped 
 out of bed to prepare for him his sugared water. 
 Judge of my fright when, in presenting the cup to 
 him, I did not see him make any movement; he 
 repeated only: "Mama!" in that voice which was 
 no longer his voice, which was even not any longer 
 a voice. I took his hand, but it no longer responded, 
 it stiffened. I put the cup to his lips; the poor 
 little one drank in a frightful manner, with three or 
 four convulsive swallows, and the water made a 
 singular noise in his throat. Finally he grasped 
 me desperately and I saw his eyes, drawn by an in- 
 terior force, become white, his limbs lose their sup- 
 pleness. I uttered frightened cries. Louis came. 
 
 "A doctor! a doctor! he is dying!" I cried to 
 him. 
 
 Louis disappeared, and my poor Armand said 
 again: "Mama! Mama!" clinging to me. This was 
 the last moment that he knew that he had a mother. 
 The pretty blood-vessels of his forehead became 
 congested, and the convulsions commenced. An 
 hour before the arrival of the doctors, I held this 
 infant so lively, so white and so pink, this flower 
 which made my pride and my joy, stiff as a piece
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 229 
 
 of wood ; and what eyes ! I shudder in remembering 
 them. Black, contracted, misshapen, mute, my 
 gentle Armand was a mummy. A doctor, two doc- 
 tors, brought from Marseilles by Louis, stood there 
 planted on their legs like two birds of evil augury, 
 they made me shiver. The one spoke of cerebral 
 fever, the other saw convulsions, such as children 
 have. The doctor of our canton seemed to me the 
 most reliable, because he prescribed nothing. "It 
 is the teeth," said the second. "It is a fever," 
 said the first Finally, they agreed to put leeches 
 on the neck and ice on the head. I felt myself dying. 
 To be there, to see a corpse blue or black, not a cry, 
 not a movement, in place of a creature so noisy and 
 so full of life! There was a moment when my 
 mind wandered, and when I had something like a 
 fit of nervous laughter in seeing this pretty neck, 
 which I had so often kissed, bitten by the leeches, 
 and this charming head under a cap of ice. My 
 dear, it was necessary to cut off that pretty hair 
 which we admired so much, and which you have 
 caressed, to be able to put on the ice. Every ten 
 minutes, as in my childbirth pains, the convulsions 
 returned, and the poor little thing twisted himself, 
 sometimes pale and sometimes violet When they 
 struck against each other, his limbs, so flexible, 
 made a sound as if they were of wood. This in- 
 sensible creature had smiled at me, had spoken to 
 me, had called me but so short a time before, 
 "Mama!" With these thoughts, waves of sorrow 
 traversed my soul, agitating it as the storms agitate
 
 230 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the sea, and I felt all the bonds by which a child is 
 attached to our heart loosened. My mother, who 
 perhaps might have helped me, advised or consoled 
 me, is in Paris. The mothers know more about 
 convulsions than the doctors, I believe. After four 
 days and four nights passed in intermissions and 
 ^'m fears which almost killed me, the doctors were 
 all of them resolved to apply a frightful pomade to 
 make wounds! Oh! wounds on my Armand who 
 was playing five days before, who smiled, who tried 
 to say: "Godmother!" I refused to consent, wish- 
 ing to trust to nature. Louis scolded me, he be- 
 lieved in the doctors. A man is always a man. 
 But there are in these terrible maladies moments 
 when they take the form of death ; and during one 
 of these moments, this remedy, which I abominated, 
 appeared to me to be the salvation of Armand. My 
 Louise, his skin was so dry, so rough, and without 
 feeling, that the ointment did not take. I threw 
 myself in tears on the bed, weeping so that the side 
 of the bed was all wet The doctors were dining! 
 they were! Seeing myself alone, I took off my 
 child all the doctors' local applications, I took him, 
 almost mad, in my arms, I pressed him against my 
 chest, 1 leaned my forehead on his forehead praying 
 God to give him my life, all the while endeavoring 
 to communicate it to him. 1 held him in this man- 
 ner for several minutes, wishing to die with him so 
 as not to be separated from him, neither in life nor 
 in death. My dear, I felt his members relax; the 
 convulsions had yielded, my child had moved, the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 231 
 
 sinister and horrible colors had disappeared! I 
 cried out as I had done when he fell ill, the doctors 
 came upstairs, I showed to them Armand. 
 
 "He is saved !" cried the oldest of the physicians. 
 
 Oh! what a word! what music! The heavens 
 opened. In fact, two hours later Armand came to 
 life again; but I was extinguished, I should have 
 fallen ill of some malady had it not been for the 
 balm of joy. Oh, my God! by what sorrows do 
 you attach the child to its mother! what nails you 
 drive into the heart so that he may cling to them! 
 Was I not then enough of a mother already, I whom 
 the stammerings and the first steps of this infant 
 had caused to weep for joy ! I who had studied him 
 through entire hours so that I might thoroughly 
 fulfill my duties, and instruct myself in the sweet 
 business of a mother! Was it necessary to cause 
 these terrors, to offer these frightful images to her 
 who makes of her child an idol ? At this moment 
 when I am writing to you, our Armand is playing, 
 he cries, he laughs. I am endeavoring to find out 
 the causes of this horrible sickness of children, 
 remembering that I am pregnant Is it the growth 
 of the teeth? is it some peculiar operation which 
 takes place in the head? Have the children who 
 suffer from convulsions an imperfection in the nerv- 
 ous system ? All these ideas disquiet me as much 
 for the present as for the future. Our country doc- 
 tor believes in a nervous excitation caused by the 
 teeth. I would give all mine to have those of our 
 little Armand all complete. When I see one of those
 
 232 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 white pearls showing itself in the middle of his 
 inflamed gums, it now gives me cold sweats. The 
 heroism with which this dear angel suffers shows 
 me that he will have all my character; he gives me 
 looks which might melt the heart. The science of 
 medicine does not know much about this species of 
 tetanus which ends as rapidly as it begins, which 
 can neither be foreseen nor cured. I repeat it to 
 you, one thing alone is certain, to see her child in 
 convulsions, that is the Hell of mothers. With 
 what rage I embrace him! Oh! how long I keep 
 him on my arm in walking him up and down! To 
 have had this anguish when I must again give birth 
 to an infant in six weeks, this was a horrible 
 aggravation of martyrdom, I was afraid for the other ! 
 Adieu, my dear and well beloved Louise; do not 
 wish to have any children, this is my last word. 
 
 XLI 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Poor angel, Macumer and I, we have forgiven 
 your badnesses in learning how you have been tor- 
 mented. I shuddered, I suffered in reading the de- 
 tails of that double torture, and I am now less 
 distressed at not being a mother. I hasten to an- 
 nounce to you the nomination of Louis, who may 
 now wear the rosette of an officer. You desire a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 233 
 
 little girl; probably you will have one, happy 
 Renee! The marriage of my brother and Made- 
 moiselle de Mortsauf was celebrated on our return. 
 Our charming king, who certainly is of an admira- 
 ble goodness, has given to my brother the reversion 
 of the office of First Gentleman of the Chamber 
 which is filled by his father-in-law. 
 
 "The office should go with the titles," he said to 
 the Due de Lenoncourt-Givry. 
 
 Only, he desired that the arms of Mortsauf should 
 be united to those of Lenoncourt. 
 
 My father was right a hundred times. Had it not 
 been for my fortune, nothing of all this would have 
 taken place. My father and my mother have come 
 from Madrid for this marriage and return there after 
 the fete which I give to-morrow to the newly mar- 
 ried couple. The carnival will be very brilliant 
 The Duke and the Duchess of Soria are in Paris ; 
 their presence disquiets me a little. Marie Heredia 
 is certainly one of the most beautiful women of 
 Europe, I do not like the manner in which Felipe 
 looks at her. Thus, I redouble my love and my 
 tenderness. "She would never have loved you 
 thus!" is a speech which I am very careful not to 
 make, but which is written in all my looks, in all 
 my movements. God knows if I am elegant and 
 coquettish. Yesterday, Madame de Maufrigneuse 
 said to me : 
 
 "Dear child, we have to lay down our arms to 
 you!" 
 
 In short, I amuse Felipe so much that he should
 
 234 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 find his sister-in-law as stupid as a Spanish cow. I 
 have so much the less regret at not making a little 
 Abencerrage, that the duchess will doubtless have 
 her baby in Paris, she is going to become ugly; if 
 she has a boy, he will be named Felipe in honor of 
 the banished one. A malicious chance will cause 
 me to be godmother again. Adieu, dear. I shall 
 go early this year to Chantepleurs, for our journey 
 costs exorbitant sums; I shall depart about the end 
 of March in order to go and live economically in 
 Nivernais. Paris wearies me, moreover. Felipe 
 sighs as much as I for the beautiful solitude of our 
 park, our fresh meadows and our Loire spangled 
 with its sands, and which no other river resembles. 
 Chantepleurs will appear to me delightful after the 
 pomps and the vanities of Italy; for, after all, mag- 
 nificence is tiresome, and the regard of a lover is 
 more beautiful than a capo d' opera, than a bel quadro ! 
 We shall expect you there; I shall no longer be 
 jealous of you. You may sound at your leisure the 
 heart of my Macumer, fish in it for interjections, 
 bring out of it scruples, I deliver it to you with a 
 superb confidence. Since the scene in Rome, Felipe 
 loves me still more; he said tome yesterday he is 
 looking over my shoulder that his sister-in-law, 
 the Marie of his youth, his former fiancee, the Prin- 
 cess Heredia, his first dream, was stupid. Oh! 
 dear, 1 am worse than a dancer at the Opera, this 
 insult caused me pleasure. 1 have caused Felipe to 
 remark that she does not speak French correctly, 
 she pronounces esemple for exemple, sain for cinq,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 235 
 
 cheu for/0; in short, she is beautiful but she has no 
 grace, she has not the least vivacity of spirit 
 When you address a compliment to her she looks at 
 you like a woman who is not accustomed to receiv- 
 ing them. With the character which he has, he 
 would have left Marie after two months of marriage. 
 The Due de Soria, Don Fernand, is very well 
 matched with her ; he is generous but he is a spoiled 
 child, that is to be seen. I could be wicked and 
 make you laugh ; but I am sticking to the truth. A 
 thousand tendernesses, my angel. 
 
 XLII 
 RENEE TO LOUISE 
 
 My little girl is two months old: my mother was 
 the godmother, and an old grand-uncle of Louis, the 
 godfather of this little one, who is named Jeanne- 
 Athenais. 
 
 As soon as I shall be able, I shall set out to come 
 and see you at Chantepleurs, since a nurse does not 
 frighten you. Your godson says your name, he 
 pronounces itMatoumer! for he cannot say the "C" 
 any other way; you will dote on him; he has all 
 his teeth; he eats meat now like a big boy, he runs 
 and trots like a rat; but I follow him everywhere 
 with anxious glances and I am in despair at not 
 being able to keep him near me during my confine- 
 ment, which requires more than forty days in my 
 room, because of some precautions ordered by the
 
 236 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 doctors. Alas! my child, one does not get into the 
 habit of bearing children ! The same pains and the 
 same apprehensions return. Nevertheless do not 
 show my letter to Felipe I count for something in 
 the making of this little girl, who may perhaps 
 wrong your Armand. 
 
 My father found Felipe grown thinner, and my 
 dear mignonne a little thinner also. However, the 
 Duke and the Duchess of Soria have departed, 
 there is no longer the least occasion for jealousy! 
 Are you hiding from me some grief? Your letter 
 was neither as long nor as affectionately conceived 
 as the others. Is it only a caprice of my dear 
 capricious one? 
 
 This is already too much, my nurse scolds me for 
 writing to you, and Mademoiselle Athenais de 
 1'Estorade wishes to dine. Farewell then; write 
 me good long letters. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 MADAME DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 For the first time in my life, my dear Renee, I 
 have wept alone under a willow on a wooden bench 
 on the shores of my long pond of Chantepleurs, a 
 delightful view which you are coming to embellish, 
 for there is wanting to it only joyful children. Your 
 fruitful ness has caused me to turn my thoughts upon 
 myself, who have no children after nearly three
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 237 
 
 years of married life. "Oh!" I thought, "though 
 I should suffer a hundred times more than Renee 
 suffered in giving birth to my godson, though I 
 should see my child in convulsions, grant, my God, 
 that I should have an angelic creature like that little 
 Athenais whom I see from here as beautiful as the 
 day!" for you have said nothing to me about her! 
 I have recognized in that my Renee. It seems that 
 you guess my sufferings. Each time that my hopes 
 are disappointed I am for several days given up to 
 a dark grief. I can then only make sombre elegies. 
 When shall I embroider little caps? when shall I 
 select the linen of a baby's wardrobe? when shall I 
 sew pretty laces to envelop a little head? Shall I 
 then never hear one of these charming creatures call 
 me "mama," hold me by my dress, tyrannize over 
 me ? Shall I then never see on the sand the tracks of 
 a little baby-carriage? Shall I never pick up the 
 broken playthings in my courtyard? Shall I not go, 
 like so many mothers whom I have seen, into the 
 toyshops to buy sabres, dolls, little households? 
 Shall I never see developing that life and that angel 
 who would be another Felipe even more loved? I 
 would wish to have a son in order to know how you 
 could love your lover more than he is, in another 
 himself. My park, the chateau, seem to me 
 deserted and cold. A woman without children is a 
 monstrosity; we are only made to be mothers. 
 Oh! doctor in a corset that you are, you have truly 
 seen life. Barrenness, moreover, is horrible in 
 everything. My life resembles a little too much
 
 238 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 those pastorals of Gessner and of Florian, in which 
 Rivarol said that wolves were wanted. I wish to 
 be devoted also, I! 1 am conscious in myself of 
 forces which Felipe neglects; and, if I am not a 
 mother, it will be necessary that I should be satisfied 
 with the fancy of some unhappiness. This is what 
 I have said to my scion of the Moors, for whom 
 these words brought tears to his eyes ; he was let off 
 by being called a sublime animal, you cannot jest 
 with him on his love. 
 
 At moments I am taken with a desire to do some 
 novenas, to go and ask for fruitful ness of certain 
 Madonnas or of certain waters. Next winter I will 
 consult the physicians. I am too furious against 
 myself to say more about it. Adieu. 
 
 XLIV 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME 
 
 Paris, 1829. 
 
 How, my dear, a year without any letter? I am 
 a little vexed. Do you think that your Louis, who 
 comes to see me almost every other day, takes your 
 place? It is not sufficient for me to know that you 
 are not sick and that your affairs are all going well ; 
 I wish to have your sentiments and your ideas as I 
 send you mine, at the risk of being scolded, or 
 blamed, or misunderstood, for I love you. Your 
 silence and your retreat in the country, when you 
 could enjoy here the parliamentary triumph of the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 239 
 
 Comte de 1'Estorade, whose gift of speech and 
 whose devotion have acquired for him an influence, 
 and who doubtless will fill a very high position 
 after the session, fills me with grave disquietude. 
 Are you then passing your life, in writing in- 
 structions to him? Numa was not so far from 
 his Egeria. Why have you not seized the occasion 
 to see Paris? I should have been enjoying you for 
 the last four months. Louis said to me yesterday 
 that you would come to get him and to have your third 
 child in Paris, frightful mother Gigone that you are! 
 After many questions, exclamations and complaints, 
 Louis, diplomat though he is, ended by telling me 
 that his great-uncle, the godfather of Athenais, was 
 very ill. Now, I suppose you capable, as a good 
 mother of a family, of making use of the glory and 
 of the discourses of the deputy to obtain a desirable 
 legacy from the last maternal relative of your hus- 
 band. You may rest easy, my Renee, the Lenon- 
 courts, the Chaulieus, the salon of Madame de 
 Macumer, are working for Louis. Martignac will 
 put him without doubt in the Cour des Comptes. 
 But, if you do not tell me why you remain in the 
 provinces, I shall be vexed. Is it so as not to have 
 the air of being in yourself all the politics of the 
 house of De 1'Estorade? is it for the inheritance of 
 the uncle? are you afraid of being less a mother in 
 Paris? Oh! how I should like to know if it is to 
 prevent your being seen for the first time in your 
 state of pregnancy, coquette ! Adieu.
 
 240 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 XLV 
 RENEE TO LOUISE 
 
 You complain of my silence, you forget then these 
 two little brown heads which I govern and which 
 govern me ? You have, moreover, found some of the 
 reasons which I have for keeping the house. Not 
 to consider the condition of our precious uncle, 1 have 
 not wished to drag to Paris a boy of about four years 
 and a little girl of nearly three, while I am still 
 enceinte. I have not wished to embarrass your life 
 and your house with such a household, I have not 
 wished to appear to my disadvantage in the brill- 
 iant world where you reign, and 1 hold furnished 
 apartments, the life of hotels, in horror. The great- 
 uncle of Louis, on hearing of the nomination of his 
 great-nephew, presented me with the half of his 
 savings, two hundred thousand francs, to buy a 
 house in Paris, and Louis is charged with finding 
 one in your quarter. My mother gives me thirty 
 thousand francs for the furniture. When I shall 
 establish myself for the session in Paris, I shall go 
 to my own house. Finally, I shall endeavor to be 
 worthy of my dear sister of election, be it said 
 without playing on words. 
 
 I thank you for having placed Louis as well at 
 Court as he is; but, notwithstanding the esteem in 
 which he is held by Messieurs Bourmont and De 
 Polignac, who wish to have him in their ministry, I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 241 
 
 do not wish him at all to be so prominent, one is 
 then too much compromised. I prefer the Cour des 
 Comptes because of its permanency. Our affairs 
 here are in very good hands and when once our 
 superintendent has got things well in shape, I will 
 come to second Louis, you may be sure. 
 
 As to writing long letters now, can I do it? This 
 one, in which I would wish to depict for you the 
 ordinary events of my days, will remain on my 
 table for a week. Perhaps Armand will make of it 
 little paper cocks for his regiments drawn up on my 
 carpet, or ships for the fleets which navigate in his 
 bath. One of my days will be sufficient for you, 
 moreover, they are all alike and they reduce them- 
 selves to two events, the children are sick or the 
 children are not sick. Literally, for me in this sol- 
 itary country house, the minutes are hours or the 
 hours are minutes, according to the state the children 
 are in. If I have some delicious hours, it is during 
 their sleep, when I am not rocking one and telling 
 stories to the other to put them to sleep. When I 
 have them both asleep near me, I say to myself: 
 "I have nothing more to fear." 
 
 In fact, my dear, during the daytime all mothers 
 invent dangers as soon as the children are no longer 
 under their eyes. It is some stolen razors with 
 which Armand wished to play, the fire which kindles 
 his jacket, a snake which may bite him, a fall 
 while running which may cause an abscess in his 
 head, or fountain basins, in which he may drown 
 himself. As you see, maternity includes a series 
 16
 
 242 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of poesies sweet or terrible. Not an hour which 
 has not its joys and its fears. But, in the evening 
 in my chamber, comes the hour of waking dreams 
 during which I arrange their destinies. Their life 
 is then lit up by the smile of the angels which I see 
 at their bedside. Sometimes Armand calls me in his 
 sleep, I come to kiss unknown to him his forehead 
 or the feet of his sister, contemplating them both in 
 their beauty. These are my festivals ! Yesterday, 
 our guardian angel, I think, made me go in the mid- 
 dle of the night in great apprehension to the cradle 
 of Athenais who had her head too low, and I found 
 our Armand all uncovered, his feet blue with cold. 
 
 "Oh! little mother!" he said to me waking and 
 embracing me. 
 
 This is, my dear, a scene of the night 
 How useful it is to a mother to have her children 
 at her side ! Is there any nurse, however good she 
 may be, who can take them, reassure them and put 
 them to sleep again when some horrible nightmare 
 has awakened them ? for they have their dreams, 
 and to explain to them one of these terrible dreams 
 is a task so much the more difficult that a child 
 listens to its mother then with an eye at once sleepy, 
 frightened, intelligent and silly. It is a difficult 
 and elegant point of music executed between two 
 sleeps. Thus my sleep has become so light that I 
 see my two little ones and hear them through the 
 gauze of my eyelids. I awake at a sigh, at a move- 
 ment. The monster of the convulsions is for me 
 forever crouched at the foot of their beds.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 243 
 
 In the morning, the prattle of my two children 
 commences with the first songs of the birds. Through 
 the veils of their last sleep, their gibberish resembles 
 the chirpings of the morning, the disputes of the 
 swallows, little cries joyful or plaintive, which I 
 hear less with the ears than with the heart. While 
 Nais endeavors to reach me by undertaking the 
 journey from her cradle to my bed, drawing her- 
 self by her hands and making uncertain steps, Ar- 
 mand climbs with the skill of a monkey and 
 embraces me. These two little ones make then of 
 my bed the theatre of their plays, where the mother 
 is at their discretion. The little one pulls my 
 hair, always wants to nurse, and Armand defends 
 my breast as if it were his personal property. I do 
 not resist certain attitudes, little laughs which go 
 off like rockets and which end by driving away all 
 sleep. Then there is the play of the ogress, and 
 mother ogress devours with caresses this young 
 flesh, so bright and so soft; she kisses outrageously 
 those eyes so coquettish in their malice, those rosy 
 shoulders, and little jealousies are excited which 
 are charming. There are days in which I endeavor 
 to put on my stockings at eight o'clock and when I 
 have not yet got one on at nine o'clock. 
 
 Finally, my dear, everyone gets up. The toilets 
 commence. 1 put on my dressing-gown, I roll up 
 my sleeves, and put on an oil-cloth apron; I bathe 
 and cleanse then my two little flowers, assisted by 
 Mary. I alone, I am the judge of the degree of heat 
 or of the tepidness of the water, for the temperature
 
 244 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of the baths to me counts for the half in the cries, 
 in the tears of the children. Then there come up 
 paper fleets, little ducks in glass. It is necessary to 
 amuse the children in order to be able to clean them 
 well. If you knew all that it was necessary to in- 
 vent in the way of pleasures for these absolute 
 kings in order to be able to pass soft sponges into 
 the least corners, you would be frightened at the 
 address and the wit which are required to fulfill 
 gloriously the duty of a mother. You supplicate, 
 you scold, you promise, you practise a humbugging 
 all the more superior that it has to be admirably 
 concealed. One would not know how to succeed if 
 to the shrewdness of the child God had not opposed 
 the shrewdness of the mother. An infant is a great 
 politician, of whom one secures the mastery as of 
 the great politician by his passions. Happily, 
 these angels laugh at everything, a brush which 
 falls, a cake of soap which slips, then there are out- 
 bursts of joy! Finally, if the triumphs are dearly 
 purchased, there are at least triumphs. But God 
 alone, for the father himself knows nothing of this, 
 God, yourself or the angels, you alone could then 
 comprehend the looks which I exchange with Mary 
 when, after having finished dressing our two little 
 creatures we see them clean in the midst of the 
 soaps, the sponges, the combs, the basins, the blot- 
 ting-paper, the flannels, the thousand details of a 
 veritable nursery. I have become English in this 
 regard, I am convinced that the women of that 
 country have the genius of nursing. Although they
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 245 
 
 consider the infant only from the point of view of 
 material and physical well-being, they are justified 
 in their improvements. Thus my children will 
 always have their feet in flannel and their legs 
 naked. They will be neither bandaged nor com- 
 pressed, but also they will never be alone. The 
 confinement of the French child in his little band- 
 ages means the freedom of the nurse, this is the 
 whole truth. A true mother is not free, this is 
 why I do not write to you, having on my hands the 
 administration of the domain and two children to 
 bring up. The science of the mother requires 
 silent merits unknown of all, without parade, a vir- 
 tue in detail, a devotion of every hour. It is neces- 
 sary to keep a watch on the soups which are making 
 before the fire. Do you think me the woman to 
 neglect a duty ? In the least care there is affection 
 to be gathered. Oh ! it is so pretty, the smile of 
 an infant who finds his little repast excellent. 
 Armand has small shakings of the head which are 
 worth a whole life of love. How leave to another 
 woman the right, the care, the pleasure, to blow on 
 a spoonful of soup which Nals would find too hot, 
 she whom I weaned seven months ago and who is 
 still always thinking of the breast? When the 
 nurse has burned the tongue and the lips of a child 
 with something too hot she says to the mother who 
 comes hastily that it is hunger which made it cry. 
 But how can a mother sleep in peace with the 
 thought that impure breaths can pass over the 
 spoonfuls swallowed by her child, she to whom
 
 246 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 nature has not permitted to have any intermediary 
 between her breast and the lips of her nursling! 
 To cut up the cutlet of Nais who is getting her last 
 teeth and to mix this meat, cooked just to the right 
 turn, with the potatoes, is a work of patience, and 
 truly there is no one but a mother who would know 
 how in certain cases to cause the entire meal to be 
 eaten by a child who is impatient Neither numer- 
 ous domestics nor an English nurse can then dis- 
 pense for a mother with the duty of being personally 
 present on the field of battle where gentleness 
 should contend with the little griefs of childhood, 
 with its sorrows. Truly, Louise, it is necessary to 
 care for these dear innocents with the soul ; it is 
 necessary to believe only in one's eyes, only in the 
 trial by hand for the toilet, for the nursing and for 
 the putting to bed. This may be accepted as a 
 principle, an infant's cry is an absolute demonstra- 
 tion of proof that the mother or the nurse is in the 
 wrong when the cry is not occasioned by some 
 natural suffering. Since I have two and will soon 
 have three to take care of, I have nothing in my 
 soul but my children; and yourself, whom I love so 
 much, you are only in the state of a memory. I am 
 not always completely dressed at two o'clock in the 
 afternoon. Thus I have no faith in those mothers 
 who have the apartments all in order and the collars, 
 the dresses, everything, carefully put away. Yes- 
 terday, in the first days of April, the weather was 
 fine, I wished to take them for a walk before my 
 lying-in, the hour of which is at hand, well, for a
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 247 
 
 mother, an excursion like this is a whole poem, and 
 one promises it to one's self the evening before for 
 the next day. Armand was to put on for the first time 
 a jacket of black velvet, a new collarette which I 
 had embroidered, a Scotch cap with the colors of 
 the Stuarts and with cock feathers ; Nais was to go 
 in white and pink with the delicious bonnets of the 
 babies, for she is still a baby ; she is going to lose 
 this pretty name when the little one comes who is 
 now giving me kicks and whom I call "my beggar," 
 for he will be the youngest. I have already seen 
 my child in a dream and know that I shall have a 
 boy. Bonnets, collarettes, jackets, the little stock- 
 ings, the fine shoes, the little pink bandages for the 
 legs, the dress in muslin embroidered in designs in 
 silk, everything was spread out on my bed. When 
 these two little birds so gay, and who comprehend 
 so well, had had their brown hair curled for one of 
 them, prettily brought down on the forehead around 
 the edges of the white and pink bonnet for the other ; 
 when the shoes had been fastened ; when these little 
 bare legs, these feet so well shod, had trotted about 
 in the nursery ; when these two faces deanes, as 
 Mary says in her limpid French: when these spark- 
 ling eyes said: "Let us go!" I palpitated. Oh! 
 to see these children adorned by our own hands, to 
 see their skin so fresh in which the blue veins 
 shine; when one has bathed them, fomented them, 
 sponged them one's self, set them off with the lively 
 colors of velvet or of silk, why it is better than a 
 poem ! With what passion, scarcely to be satisfied,
 
 248 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 one calls them back to kiss again these necks which 
 a simple collarette renders prettier than that of the 
 most beautiful woman ? Those pictures, before the 
 most stupid colored lithographic copies of which all 
 mothers stop to look, I, I make them every day ! 
 
 Once out of doors, enjoying the result of my 
 labors, admiring this little Armand who had the air 
 of a son of a prince and who made the baby walk 
 along that little road which you know, a carriage 
 came up, I wished to draw them to one side, the two 
 infants rolled in a mud puddle and there were my 
 masterpieces ruined! It was necessary to bring 
 them home again and put other clothes on them. I 
 took my little one in my arms, without seeing that 
 I ruined my dress, Mary took up Armand, and we 
 came back in this condition. When baby cries and 
 an infant is wet or soiled everything is said, a 
 mother no longer thinks of herself, she is absorbed. 
 
 When the dinner hour arrives, it most frequently 
 happens that I have nothing done ; and how can I 
 suffice to serve them both, to put on the napkins, to 
 roll up their sleeves and to make them eat? this is a 
 problem which I solve twice a day. In the midst 
 of these perpetual cares, of these ftes or of these 
 disasters, I am the only one forgotten in the house. 
 It often happens to me to go in curl-papers all day 
 when the children have been naughty. My toilet 
 depends upon their humor. To have a moment to 
 myself, in order to write you these six pages, it is 
 necessary that they should cut up the pictures in 
 my novels, that they should build houses with
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 249 
 
 books, with chess-men or with mother-of-pearl 
 counters; that Nais should take to pieces my silks 
 or my woolens in her own manner, which, I assure 
 you, is so complicated that she brings all her little 
 intelligence to the work and does not utter a word. 
 
 After all, I have nothing to complain of, my two 
 children are strong, free, and they amuse themselves 
 at less expense than would be thought They are 
 happy with everything, they require rather a free- 
 dom that is watched over than playthings. Some 
 red, yellow, blue or black pebbles, little shells, the 
 wonders of the sand, make all their happiness. To 
 possess a great many little things, that is their 
 riches. 1 watch Armand, he talks to the flowers, to 
 the flies, to the chickens, he imitates them; he 
 comes to an understanding with the insects, which 
 fill him with admiration. Everything which is little 
 interests him. Armand commences to ask the why of 
 everything; he has just come to see what I was say- 
 ing to his godmother; he takes you moreover for a 
 fairy, you see how the children are always right! 
 
 Alas! my angel, I do not wish to sadden you by 
 relating to you these happinesses. This may serve 
 to describe to you your godson. The other day a 
 poor man followed us, for the poor know that no 
 mother accompanied by her child will ever refuse a 
 charity. Armand does not yet know that one can 
 want for bread, he is ignorant of what money is ; 
 but as he had just wanted a trumpet which 1 had 
 bought for him, he offered it with a royal air to the 
 old man, saying to him:
 
 250 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "Here, take this!" 
 
 "Will you let me keep it?" said the poor man to 
 me. 
 
 What is there on the earth that can be put in the 
 balance with the joys of such a moment? 
 
 "I also, madame, I have had children," said the 
 old man to me, taking what I gave him without 
 paying attention to it. 
 
 When I think that it will be necessary to put in 
 a college a child like Armand, that I have only 
 three years and a half more to keep him, I shudder. 
 The Public Instruction will reap the flowers of this 
 childhood blessed every hour, will denaturalize 
 these graces and these adorable franknesses! 
 They will cut off these pretty curls which I have so 
 tended, washed and kissed! What will they do 
 with the soul of Armand ? 
 
 And you, what has become of you ? You have 
 said nothing to me of your life. Do you still love 
 Felipe? for I am not anxious about the Saracen. 
 Adieu; Nais has just fallen down, and if I wished 
 to continue, this letter would make a volume. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 MADAME DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 1829. 
 
 The newspapers will have informed you, my 
 good and tender Renee, of the horrible misfortune
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 25 1 
 
 which has overwhelmed me; I was not able to write 
 you a single word, I remained at his bedside for 
 twenty days and nights, I received his last sigh, 1 
 closed his eyes, I watched over him piously with 
 the priests and I repeated the prayers for the dead. 
 I inflicted upon myself the chastisement of these 
 frightful sorrows, and, nevertheless, in seeing on 
 his serene lips the smile which he gave me before 
 dying, 1 have not been able to believe that my love 
 killed him! Finally, heisnomore, and I, lam! To 
 you who have known us both so well, what can I 
 say more? everything is in those two phrases. Oh! 
 if someone could say to me that he could be recalled 
 to life, I would give my share of Heaven to hear 
 this promise, for that would be to see him again! 
 And to hold him again, were it only for two seconds, 
 that would be to breathe with the dagger no longer 
 in the heart! Will you not come to me very soon 
 and tell me this? do you not love me enough to 
 deceive me ? But no ! you said to me in the begin- 
 ning that 1 would wound him deeply . Is it true? 
 No, I did not deserve his love, you were right, I 
 stole it. Happiness, I strangled it in my frantic 
 embraces! Oh! as I am writing to you, I am no 
 longer mad, but I feel that I am alone! Lord, what 
 is there more in Thy hell than this word. 
 
 When they raised me up, I took to the same bed, 
 hoping to die, for there was only one door between 
 us, I believed myself still strong enough to open it! 
 But alas! I was too young, and after a convales- 
 cence of forty days, during which they nursed me
 
 252 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 with a frightful art with all the inventions of a mel- 
 ancholy science, I found myself in the country, 
 seated at my window in the midst of the beautiful 
 flowers which he had had taken care of for me, en- 
 joying that magnificent view over which his looks 
 had so many times wandered, which he congratu- 
 lated himself so much for having discovered, since 
 it pleased me. Ah! dear, when the heart is dead 
 the sorrow of changing places is indescribable. The 
 damp earth of my garden made me shiver, the earth 
 is like a great tomb and I thought I was walking on 
 him ! The first time I went out, I was afraid and 
 remained motionless. It is indeed mournful to see 
 his flowers without him. 
 
 My mother and my father are in Spain, you know 
 my brothers, and you, you are compelled to remain 
 in the country; but do not be uneasy two angels 
 have flown to me. The Duke and the Duchess of 
 Soria, those two charming beings, hastened to their 
 brother. The last night saw our three sorrows calm 
 and silent around that bed on which was dying one 
 of those men truly noble and truly grand, who are 
 so rare, and who are then superior to us in all 
 things. The patience of my Felipe was divine. 
 The sight of his brother and of Marie for a moment 
 refreshed his soul and soothed his pain. 
 
 "Dear," said he tome with the simplicity which 
 he put in everything, "I was about to die forgetting 
 to give to Fernand the barony of Macumer, it will 
 be necessary to alter my will. My brother will 
 forgive me, he who knows what it is to love!"
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 253 
 
 I owe my life to the cares of my brother-in-law 
 and of his wife; they wish to take me with them to 
 Spain! 
 
 Ah Renee, this disaster, to you only can I tell 
 the extent of it The consciousness of my faults 
 overwhelms me, and it is a bitter consolation to con- 
 fide them to you, poor unheeded Cassandra. I 
 killed him by my unreasonable demands, by my 
 unfounded jealousies, by my continual bickerings. 
 My love was all the more terrible that we had the 
 same exquisite sensitiveness, we spoke the same 
 language, he comprehended everything admirably, 
 and often my jesting, without my suspecting it, 
 went to the bottom of his heart You would not 
 know how to imagine to what an extent this dear 
 slave carried his obedience: I said to him some- 
 times to go away and to leave me alone, he went 
 off without discussing a whim from which perhaps 
 he suffered. Up to his last breath he blessed me, 
 repeating to me that one morning only alone with 
 me, was worth more to him than a long life with 
 another loved woman, were it Marie Heredia. I 
 am weeping as I write these words to you. 
 
 Now, I rise at noon, I go to bed at seven o'clock 
 in the evening, I sit at my meals a ridiculous length 
 of time, I walk slowly, I remain an hour before a 
 plant, I look at the leaves, I occupy myself with 
 method and gravity concerning nothings, I adore 
 shadows, the silence and the night; in short, I 
 struggle with the hours and add them with a sombre 
 pleasure to the past The peaceful ness of my park
 
 254 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 is the only company which I wish; I find in every- 
 thing in it the sublime images of my extinguished 
 happiness, invisible for all, eloquent and living for 
 me. 
 
 My sister-in-law threw herself into my arms one 
 morning when I said to her: 
 
 "You are insupportable to me! The Spaniards 
 have greater souls than we have!" 
 
 Ah ! Renee, if I am not dead, it is that God doubt- 
 less proportions the sentiment of sorrow to the 
 strength of the afflicted. It is only we women who 
 should know the extent of our losses when we lose 
 a love without any hypocrisy, a love which has 
 been chosen, a durable passion, the pleasures of 
 which satisfy at once nature and the soul. When 
 shall we meet a man so full of fine qualities that 
 we can love him without lowering ourselves? To 
 meet him is the greatest happiness which can come 
 to us, and we could not hope to meet him twice. 
 Men truly strong and great, in whom virtue is hid- 
 den under a poetical feeling, whose souls possess 
 a lofty charm, made to be adored, guard yourselves 
 from loving, you will cause the unhappiness of the 
 woman and your own! This is what 1 cry in the 
 alleys of my forest! And no child of his! That 
 inexhaustible love which smiled upon me always, 
 which had only flowers and joys to pour upon me, 
 that love was sterile. lam an accursed creature! 
 Love pure and violent as it is when it is absolute, 
 can it then be as unfruitful as aversion, in the same 
 way that the extreme heat of the sand of the desert
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 255 
 
 and the extreme cold of the pole destroy all life? 
 Is it necessary to marry a Louis de 1'Estorade in 
 order to have a family? Can God be jealous of 
 love? I am raving. 
 
 I think that you are the only person whom I can 
 suffer near me; come then, you alone should be 
 with a Louise in mourning. What a horrible day 
 was that on which I put on the widow's bonnet! 
 When I saw myself in black, I fell in a chair and I 
 wept till the night, and I am still weeping in speak- 
 ing to you of that terrible moment. Farewell, writ- 
 ing to you fatigues me; I have too much of my 
 thoughts, I do not longer wish to express them. 
 Bring your chidren, you can nurse the last one here, 
 I shall no longer be jealous , he is here no longer, 
 and it will give me pleasure to see my godson; for 
 Felipe wished for a child who should resemble this 
 little Armand. Do come, and take your share in 
 my sorrows ! 
 
 XLVII 
 
 RENE TO LOUISE 
 
 1829. 
 
 My dearest, when you hold this letter in your 
 hands I shall not be far away, for I set out a few 
 moments after having sent it to you. We shall be 
 alone. Louis is obliged to remain in Provence be- 
 cause of the elections which are about to take place ; 
 he wishes to be re-elected, and there are already 
 intrigues against him, set on foot by the Liberals.
 
 256 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 I am not coming to console you, I am only bring- 
 ing you my heart to keep company with yours and 
 to aid you to live. I am coming to command you 
 to weep : it is necessary to purchase thus the hap- 
 piness of rejoining him some day, for he is only 
 journeying toward God ; you will not take one step 
 the more which will not conduct you toward him. 
 Each duty accomplished will break one link of the 
 chain which separates you. Come, my Louise, you 
 will raise yourself again in my arms and you will 
 go to him pure, noble, forgiven for your involuntary 
 faults, and accompanied by the works which you 
 will do here below in his name. 
 
 I trace these lines hastily in the midst of my 
 preparations, of my children, and of Armand who 
 cries to me: "Godmother! Godmother! let us go to 
 see her!" in a way to render me jealous, he is 
 almost your son!
 
 LOUISE AND HER ARCHITECT 
 
 When, day before yesterday, I ivent to see if 
 my last fancies had been comprehended, I felt the 
 tears come into my eyes, and I endorsed on the 
 architect's statement, to his very great surprise, 
 To be paid. 
 
 " Your man of business will not pay this, Ma- 
 dame," he said to me, " it is a question of three 
 hundred thousand francs" 
 
 I added, Without dispute! like a true Chaulieu 
 of the seventeenth century.
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 October 15, 1833. 
 
 Well, yes, Renee, it is so, they have told you 
 truly. I have sold my hotel, I have sold Chante- 
 pleurs and the farms of Seine-et-Marne ; but that I 
 am crazy and ruined, that is an exaggeration. Let 
 us count up! Everything included, there remained 
 to me of the fortune of my poor Macumer about 
 twelve hundred thousand francs. I am going to 
 render you a faithful account, like a well brought 
 up sister. I put a million in the three per cents, 
 when they were at fifty francs, and I thus secured 
 myself sixty thousand francs of income in the place 
 of thirty which I had in lands. To go to spend six 
 months of the year in the provinces, to draw up 
 leases there, to listen there to the complaints of the 
 farmers, who pay when they want to, to bore one's 
 self there like a hunter in rainy weather, to have 
 produce to sell and to dispose of it at a loss; to live 
 in Paris in a h6tel which represents ten thousand 
 17 (257)
 
 258 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 francs income, to place funds in the hands of the 
 notaries, to wait for the interest, to be obliged to 
 pursue people to get your repayments, to study the 
 legislation on mortgages; in short, to have affairs in 
 Nivernais, in Seine-et-Marne, in Paris, what a bur- 
 den, what wearinesses, what erroneous accounts 
 and what losses for a widow of twenty-seven ! Now, 
 my fortune is mortgaged on the budget. Instead of 
 paying contributions to the State, I receive from it, 
 myself, without deductions, thirty thousand francs 
 every six months, at the Treasury, from a pretty 
 little employe who gives me thirty notes of a thou- 
 sand francs each and who smiles on seeing me. If 
 France should go into bankruptcy? you will say to 
 me. In the first place, 
 
 " I am not able to foresee misfortune so distant." 
 
 But France would then take away from me at the 
 most the half of my revenue; I would still be as 
 rich as I was before my investment; then, between 
 now and the catastrophe, I would have received the 
 double of my former revenue. As the catastrophe 
 only happens from century to century, one has the 
 time necessary to supply a capital by economizing. 
 Finally, the Comte de 1'Estorade, is he not a peer 
 of the semi-republican France of July? one of 
 the supporters of the crown offered by the people to 
 the King of the French? Should I have any fears 
 when I have for friend a president of the chamber 
 of the Cour des Comptes, a great financier ? Would
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 259 
 
 you dare to say that I was crazy? 1 calculate 
 almost as well as your citizen king. Do you know 
 what it is that can give this algebraic sagacity to a 
 woman? Love! Alas! the moment has come to 
 explain to you the mysteries of my conduct, the 
 reasons for which would escape your perspicacity, 
 your tender curiosity and your shrewdness. I am 
 to be married secretly in a village near Paris. I 
 love, I am loved. As. much as a woman can love 
 who knows well what love is, do I love. I am 
 loved as much as a man should love the woman by 
 whom he is adored. Forgive me, Renee, for having 
 kept this secret from you, from all the world. If 
 your Louise should deceive all eyes, should baffle 
 all curiosities, admit that my passion for my poor 
 Macumer rendered this deceit necessary. L'Esto- 
 rade and you, you would have assassinated me with 
 doubts, deafened me with remonstrances. Circum- 
 stances, moreover, would have come to your aid. 
 You alone know to what an extent I am jealous, and 
 you would have uselessly tormented me. That 
 which you will call my folly, my Renee, I wish to 
 carry it out myself in my head, in my heart, like 
 the young girl who deceives the watchfulness of 
 her parents. My lover has for his whole fortune 
 thirty thousand francs of debts which I have paid. 
 What a subject on which to make observations! 
 You would have wished to prove to me that Gaston 
 is an intriguer and your husband would have set 
 spies on this child. I prefer to study him myself. 
 It is now twenty-two months that he has been
 
 260 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 courting me; I am twenty-seven years old, he is 
 twenty-three. Between a woman and a man, this 
 difference in the age is enormous. Another source 
 of misfortune! Finally he is a poet, and lives by 
 his work; that is enough to say to you that he lives 
 on excessively little. This dear lizard of a poet is 
 more often in the sun employed in building castles 
 in Spain than in the shade of his den working on 
 poems. Now, the writers, the artists, those who 
 exist only for thoughts, are generally often enough 
 taxed with inconstancy by the positive people. 
 They espouse and conceive so many caprices that it 
 is natural to believe that the head reacts on the 
 heart. Notwithstanding the debts paid, notwith- 
 standing the difference of ages, notwithstanding the 
 poesy, after nine months of noble defense and with- 
 out having permitted him to kiss my hand, after the 
 most chaste and the most delicious love making, in 
 a few days, I shall not deliver myself, as, eight 
 years ago, inexperienced, ignorant and curious; I 
 give myself, and am waited for with a so great sub- 
 mission that I could postpone my marriage for a 
 year; but there is not the least servility in this, 
 there is servitude and not submission. Never was 
 there to be met with a more noble heart, nor more 
 spirit in the tenderness, nor more soul in the love, 
 than in my intended. Alas! my angel, he is not 
 wanting in relatives of some importance ! You shall 
 know his story in two words. 
 
 My friend has no other names than those of Marie 
 Gaston. He is the son, not natural, but adulterine,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 26 1 
 
 of that beautiful Lady Brandon of whom you have 
 heard, and whom, through vengeance, Lady Dudley 
 caused to die of grief; a horrible story of which this 
 dear child is ignorant Marie Gaston was placed 
 by his brother, Louis Gaston, in the College of 
 Tours, which he left in 1827. The brother went to 
 sea a few days after having placed him there, going 
 to seek his fortune, as he was told by an old woman 
 who was his own peculiar providence. This brother, 
 become a sailor, has written to him from time to 
 time letters truly paternal, and which came from a 
 fine soul ; but he always remained abroad. In his 
 last letter he announced to Marie Gaston his nomi- 
 nation to the grade of captain of a vessel in some 
 remote American Republic, bidding him hope. 
 Alas! for the last three years, my poor lizard has 
 received no more letters, and he loves this brother 
 so much, that he wished to take,ship to search for 
 him. Our great writer, Daniel d'Arthez, prevented 
 this folly and interested himself nobly in Marie 
 Gaston, to whom he has often "given," as the poet 
 says to me in his energetic language, "a bone and a 
 kennel." In fact, you may judge the distress of 
 this infant, he believed that genius finds the most 
 rapid road to fortune ! is not that enough to make 
 you laugh for twenty-four hours? From 1828 up to 
 1833 he then endeavored to make himself a name in 
 letters and naturally he led the most frightful life 
 of distresses, of hopes, of work and of privations 
 that can be imagined. Led on by an excessive am- 
 bition and in spite of the good counsels of D'Arthez,
 
 262 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 he succeeded only in constantly increasing the snow- 
 ball of his debts. His name had commenced to be 
 known when I met him in the house of the Marquise 
 d'Espard. There, without his being aware of it, I 
 felt myself sympathetically attracted toward him at 
 first sight How is it that he has not yet been 
 loved? how is it that they have left him for me? 
 Oh! he has genius and wit, heart and pride; the 
 women are always frightened before these complete 
 grandeurs. Did it not require a hundred victories 
 to enable Josephine to perceive Napoleon in the lit- 
 tle Bonaparte, her husband ? The innocent creature 
 believes that he knows how much I love him ! Poor 
 Gaston ! he has no thought of it ; but to you I am going 
 to tell it, it is necessary that you should know it, for 
 there is, Renee, something of the last will and tes- 
 tament in this letter. Meditate well on my words. 
 
 In this moment, I have the certainty of being 
 loved as much as a woman can be loved on this 
 earth, and I have faith in this adorable conjugal life 
 to which I bring a love that I did not know. Yes, 
 I experience finally the pleasure of passion returned. 
 That which all women ask to-day of love, marriage 
 gives to me. I feel in myself for Gaston the adora- 
 tion which I inspired in my poor Felipe! I am not 
 my own mistress, I tremble before this child as the 
 Abencerrage trembled before me. In short, I love 
 more than I am loved; I am afraid of everything, I 
 have the most ridiculous terrors, I am afraid to be 
 forsaken, I tremble lest I should be old and ugly 
 when Gaston will still be young and handsome, I
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 263 
 
 tremble lest I should not please him enough ! How- 
 ever, I think that I possess the faculties, the devo- 
 tion, the spirit necessary not to maintain, but to 
 make greater this love far from the world and in 
 solitude. If 1 should fail, if the magnificent poem of 
 this secret love should have an end, what do I say, an 
 end ! if Gaston should love me one day less than the 
 day before, if I should perceive it, Renee, know it, it 
 is not with him, it is with myself that I shall have 
 to settle. This would not be his fault, it would be 
 mine. I know myself, I am more lover than mother. 
 Thus I say it to you in advance, I should die even 
 though I should have children. Before making this 
 contract with myself, my Renee, I entreat you then, 
 if this misfortune should overtake me, to be as 
 a mother to my children, I shall have left them to 
 you. Your fanaticism for duty, your precious qual- 
 ities, your love for children, your tenderness for 
 me, all that I know of you will render death less 
 bitter to me, I dare not say sweet. This contract 
 taken with myself adds an unspeakable terror to 
 the solemnity of this marriage: thus I do not want 
 any witnesses who know me; thus my marriage 
 will be celebrated secretly. I can tremble at my 
 ease, I shall not see in your dear eyes an anxiety, 
 and I alone shall know that in signing a new mar- 
 riage contract I may have signed my death-warrant. 
 I shall not return again to this compact made be- 
 tween myself and the self which I am going to be- 
 come ; I confide it to you that you may know the 
 extent of your duties. I shall marry though with
 
 264 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 my property separated from my husband's, and, 
 while knowing that I am sufficiently rich to enable 
 us to live comfortably, Gaston is ignorant of the 
 amount of my fortune. In twenty-four hours I shall 
 divide my fortune as I please. As I do not wish to 
 have anything mortifying, I have caused twelve 
 thousand francs' income to be put in his name ; he 
 will find them in his secretary the evening before 
 our marriage; and if he does not accept them, I will 
 suspend everything. It required the menace of not 
 marrying him to obtain the right to pay his debts. 
 I am tired with having written you these avowals; 
 day after to-morrow I will tell you more, for I am 
 obliged to go into the country to-morrow for the 
 whole day. 
 
 October 2Oth. 
 
 These are the measures I have taken to hide my 
 happiness, for I wished to avoid every possible op- 
 portunity for my jealousy. I am like that beauti- 
 ful Italian princess who ran like a lioness to devour 
 her love in some Swiss city, after having thrown 
 herself on her prey like a lioness. Thus I only 
 speak to you of my arrangements in order to ask of 
 you another favor, that of never coming to see us 
 unless I have asked you myself, and of respecting 
 the solitude in which I wish to live. 
 
 I purchased, two years ago, above the ponds of 
 Ville-d'Avray, on the road to Versailles, some 
 twenty acres of meadows, a strip of woodland and a 
 fine little fruit garden. At the end of the meadows,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 265 
 
 the ground has been excavated in such a manner as 
 to obtain a pond of about three acres in extent, in 
 the midst of which has been left a prettily con- 
 trived island. The two pretty wooded hills which 
 enclose this little valley distil ravishing little 
 streams which flow through my park, where they 
 have been knowingly distributed by my architect. 
 These streams fall into the ponds of the crown, 
 glimpses of which may be caught in the distance. 
 This little park, admirably well designed by this 
 architect, is, according to the nature of the ground, 
 surrounded by hedges, by walls, by deep ditches, so 
 that no point of view is lost. Half-way up the hill, 
 flanked by the woods of the Ronce, in a delightful 
 situation and before a meadow which slopes down 
 to the pond, I have had constructed a chalet, the 
 exterior of which is in every point similar to that 
 which the travelers admire on,the road from Sion 
 to Brigg, and which so seduced me on my return 
 from Italy. In the interior, its elegance surpasses 
 that of the most illustrious chalets. At a hundred 
 steps from this rustic habitation a charming house 
 which constitutes an extension communicates with 
 the chalet by an underground passage-way and con- 
 tains the kitchen, the servants' rooms, the stables, 
 and the carriage-houses. Of all these constructions 
 in brick, the eye sees onjy a facade of a graceful 
 simplicity and surrounded by shrubbery. The 
 lodging of the gardeners constitutes another struct- 
 ure and masks the entrance to the orchards and the 
 kitchen gardens.
 
 266 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 The gate of this property, hidden in the wall 
 which encloses it on the side of the woods, is almost 
 unfmdable. The trees and shrubs planted, which 
 are already large, will completely conceal the houses 
 in two or three years. The pedestrian will only 
 guess at our habitation in seeing the smoke of the 
 chimneys from the tops of the hills, or in the winter 
 when the leaves have fallen. 
 
 My chalet is constructed in the middle of a land- 
 scape copied from that which is called the garden of 
 the king at Versailles, but it has a view of my pond 
 and my island. On all sides, the hills show their 
 masses of foliage, their fine trees so well cared for 
 by your new civil list. My gardeners have orders 
 to cultivate around me only odoriferous flowers and 
 those by thousands, so that this corner of the earth 
 is a perfumed emerald. The chalet, ornamented 
 with a creeping vine which runs over the roof, is 
 literally enclosed in creeping plants, in hop vines, 
 clematis, jessamine, azalea, cobaea. Whoever can 
 distinguish our windows may boast that he has good 
 eyesight ! 
 
 This chalet, my dear, is a good and complete 
 house, with its heater and all the furnishings which 
 modern architecture has introduced, which con- 
 structs palaces in a hundred feet square. It con- 
 tains an apartment for Gaston and an apartment for 
 myself. The ground-floor is taken for an antecham- 
 ber, a parlor and a dining-room. Above us are 
 three chambers, for the nursery. I have five fine 
 horses, a little light coupe and a milord for two
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 267 
 
 horses; for we are within forty minutes of Paris: 
 when it shall please us to go to the opera, to see a 
 new play, we can set out after dinner and return in 
 the evening to our nest The road is very good 
 and passes under the shadows of our enclosing 
 hedge. My people, my cook, my coachman, the 
 groom, the gardeners, my femme de chambre, are 
 perfectly honest persons whom I have been seeking 
 for these last six months and who will all be under 
 the orders of my old Philippe. Although certain of 
 their attachment and of their discretion, I retain 
 them by their interests ; they will have small wages, 
 but which will be increased each year by the amount 
 which we give them on New Year's day. All of 
 them know that the slightest fault, a suspicion of 
 their discretion, may cause them to lose immense 
 advantages. Lovers never worry their servants, 
 they are indulgent by character, thus I may count 
 upon our people. 
 
 Everything that there is precious, pretty and ele- 
 gant in my house at the Rue du Bac is found in the 
 chalet The Rembrandt is hung on the stairway 
 neither more nor less than if it were a daub; the 
 Hobbema is in his study, opposite the Rubens; the 
 Titian, which my sister-in-law, Marie, sent me from 
 Madrid, ornaments the boudoir; the handsome fur- 
 niture found by Felipe is well placed in the parlor, 
 which the architect has delightfully decorated. 
 Everything in the chalet is of an admirable simpli- 
 city, of that simplicity which costs a hundred thou- 
 sand francs. Constructed over cellars in porous
 
 268 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 stone laid in cement, our ground-floor, scarcely vis- 
 ible under the flowers and the shrubbery, enjoys an 
 adorable freshness without the least dampness. 
 Finally, a fleet of white swans sails on the pond. 
 
 Oh, Renee, there reigns in this valley a silence 
 which would rejoice the dead! One is awakened 
 by the song of the birds or by the murmuring of the 
 breeze in the poplars. A little stream found by the 
 architect in digging the foundations of the wall 
 flows down the hill on the side of the woods, over 
 silvery sand toward the pond between two banks of 
 watercress : I do not know that any sum of money 
 would pay for it. Will Gaston not conceive a hatred 
 for this happiness too complete ? Everything is so 
 beautiful that I shudder ; the worms take up their 
 lodging in the fine fruit, the insects attack the mag- 
 nificent flowers. Is it not always the pride of the 
 forest which is ravaged by that horrible brown 
 larva, the voracity of which resembles that of death ? 
 I know already that an invisible and jealous power 
 attacks the complete felicities. It is long ago that 
 you wrote me so, moreover, and you proved to be a 
 prophet. 
 
 When, day before yesterday, I went to see if 
 my last fancies had been comprehended, I felt the 
 tears come into my eyes, and I endorsed on the 
 architect's statement, to his very great surprise, 
 To be paid. 
 
 "Your man of business will not pay this, Ma- 
 dame," he said to me, "it is a question of three 
 hundred thousand francs."
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 269 
 
 I added, Without dispute! like a true Chaulieu of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 "But, monsieur," I said to him, "I add a condition 
 to my gratitude, do not speak of these buildings 
 and of the park to any one. No one is to know the 
 name of the proprietor, promise me on your honor to 
 observe this clause of my payment" 
 
 Do you now comprehend the reason of my sudden 
 journeyings, of the secret comings and goings? Do 
 you see where are to be found those beautiful things 
 that were thought to be sold? Do you seize the 
 great reason for the change of my fortune? My 
 dear, love is a great affair, and who wishes to love 
 well should not have any other. Money will no 
 longer be a care for me; I have rendered life easy, 
 and I have been the mistress of the house so thor- 
 oughly once that I shall not have to attend to it 
 again except for ten minutes each morning with my 
 old major-domo Philippe. I have carefully observed 
 life and its dangerous windings; death one day gave 
 me some cruel instructions, and I wish to profit by 
 them. My only occupation will be to please him 
 and to love him, to throw some variety into what 
 would appear so monotonous to common beings. 
 
 Gaston knows nothing as yet. At my request, 
 he has, like myself, taken a lodging in Ville- 
 d'Avray; we depart to-morrow for the chalet Our 
 life there will be the least costly; but if I should 
 tell you what sum I propose to spend on my toilet, 
 you would say and with reason: "she is crazy!" 
 I wish to adorn myself for him every day, as women
 
 270 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 are in the habit of adorning themselves for the world. 
 My toilet for the country for the whole year will 
 cost twenty-four thousand francs, and that for the 
 day is not the dearest. He can wear a blouse, if he 
 wants to ! Do not think that I wish to make of this 
 life a duel and exhaust myself in combinations to 
 entertain love: I wish to have no reproach to make 
 to myself, that is all. I have thirteen years in 
 which to be a pretty woman, I wish to be loved the 
 last day of the thirteenth year even more than I 
 shall be the morning after my mysterious wedding. 
 This time, I shall be always humble, always grate- 
 ful, without any caustic speech; and I shall make 
 myself a servant, since commanding ruined me the 
 first time. Oh! Renee, if, like myself, Gaston has 
 comprehended the infinitude of love, I am certain of 
 living always happy. Nature is very beautiful 
 around the chalet, the forests are ravishing. At 
 each step, the freshest landscapes, the points of 
 wooded view give pleasure to the soul by calling 
 up charming ideas. These forests are full of love. 
 Provided that I have done something else than 
 prepare for myself a magnificent funeral pile ! Day 
 after to-morrow I shall be Madame Gaston. My 
 God, I ask myself if it is really Christian to love a 
 man so much. 
 
 "Well, it is legal," said to me my man of affairs, 
 who is one of my witnesses, and who, finally seeing 
 the object of the liquidation of my fortune, ex- 
 claimed: "I am losing a client by it!" 
 
 Thou, my beautiful lamb, I dare no longer say
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 271 
 
 beloved, thou mayst say: "I am losing a sister by 
 it." 
 
 My angel, address henceforth Madame Gaston, 
 Poste Restante, Versailles. Our letters will be 
 collected there every day. I do not wish that we 
 should be known in the country round. All our 
 provisions will be brought from Paris. Thus I hope 
 to be able to live mysteriously. Within the last 
 year while this retreat was in preparation, no one 
 was seen there, and the property was acquired dur- 
 ing the movements which followed the Revolution 
 of July. The only being who showed himself in 
 the country was my architect, no one was known 
 but he, and he will return no more. Adieu. In 
 writing this word, I feel in my heart as much pain 
 as pleasure: is this not to regret you as completely 
 as I love Gaston ? 
 
 XLIX 
 MARIE GASTON TO DANIEL D'ARTHEZ 
 
 October, 1833. 
 
 My dear Daniel, I have need of two witnesses for 
 my marriage; I ask you to come to my house to- 
 morrow evening bringing with you our friend, the 
 good and grand Joseph Bridau. It is the intention 
 of the lady who will be my wife to live far from the 
 world and perfectly unknown, she has foreseen the 
 very dearest of my wishes. You have known noth- 
 ing of my love affairs, you who have softened for me 
 the miseries of poverty; but, you will understand
 
 272 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 it, this absolute secret was a necessity. This is 
 the reason that, for the last year, we have seen 
 so little of each other. The day after my marriage, 
 we shall be separated for a longtime. Daniel, you 
 have the soul that can comprehend me: friendship 
 will subsist without the friend. Perhaps I shall 
 sometimes have need of you, but I shall not see you, 
 in my house at least. She has again anticipated 
 our wishes in this. She has made for me a sacri- 
 fice of her friendship for a friend of her childhood who 
 is for her a true sister; I should immolate my friend 
 for her. That which I say to you here will doubt- 
 less enable you to divine, not a passion, but a love 
 entire, complete, divine, founded on an intimate 
 knowledge between the two beings who thus unite 
 themselves. My happiness is pure, infinite; but as 
 there is a secret law which forbids us to have an 
 unmixed happiness, at the bottom of my soul, and 
 buried in the last fold, I hide a thought by which I 
 alone am affected, and of which she is ignorant. 
 You have too often aided my constant poverty to be 
 ignorant of the horrible situation in which I was. 
 Whence did I draw the courage to live when hope 
 extinguished herself so often? In your past, my 
 friend, in whom I found so many consolations and 
 delicate succors. Finally, dear friend, my crushing 
 debts, she has paid them. She is rich, and I have 
 nothing. How many times have I not said in my 
 accessions of idleness: "Ah! if some rich woman 
 would only take a fancy to me !" Well, in presence 
 of the actual fact, the jests of careless youth, the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 273 
 
 deliberate choice of the unscrupulous unhappy, 
 everything has disappeared. I am humiliated, 
 despite the most ingenious tenderness. I am 
 humiliated, despite the certainty thus acquired of 
 the nobleness of her soul. I am humiliated, even 
 while knowing that my humiliation is a proof of my 
 love. In short, she has seen that I should not recoil 
 before this abasement. There is a point where far 
 from being the protector, I am the protected. This 
 sorrow I confide to you. Outside of this point, my 
 dear Daniel, the least things fulfill my dreams. I 
 have found the beautiful without spot, the good 
 without defect. In short, as is said, the bride is 
 too beautiful, she has spirit in her tenderness, she 
 has that charm and that grace which import variety 
 into love, she is educated and understands every- 
 thing; she is pretty, blonde, slender, and slightly 
 plump, as if Raphael and Rubens had come to an 
 understanding between them to compose a woman ! 
 I do not know if it would ever have been possible 
 for me to have loved a brunette as much as a 
 blonde, it has always seemed to me that the bru- 
 nette was a spoiled boy. She is a widow, she never 
 had any children, she is twenty-seven years old. 
 Although lively, alert and indefatigable she is yet 
 so constituted as to take pleasure in the meditations 
 of melancholy. These marvelous gifts do not ex- 
 clude in her either dignity or nobility: her charac- 
 ter is imposing. Although she belongs to one of 
 the old families the most tainted with pride of birth, 
 she loves me enough to pass over the misfortunes 
 18
 
 274 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of my origin. Our secret love has lasted for a long 
 time; we have proved each other; we are equally 
 jealous: our thoughts may well be said to be two 
 claps of the same thunder. Both of us love for the 
 first time, and this delicious springtime has enclosed 
 in its joys all those scenes which imagination has 
 decorated with its most smiling, its sweetest, its 
 most profound conceptions. Sentiment has displayed 
 lavishly for us all its flowers. Every one of these 
 days has been full, and when we separated, we wrote 
 to each other poems. It has never occurred to me to 
 tarnish this brilliant season by a desire, although my 
 soul was ceaselessly troubled by it. She is a widow 
 and free, she comprehended marvelously all the flat- 
 teries of this constant restraint; she has often been 
 touched by it to the point of tears. You will have a 
 glimpse then, my dear Daniel, of a creature truly 
 superior. There has not even passed between us the 
 first kiss of love, we were afraid of each other. 
 
 "We have," she said to me, "each one a misfor- 
 tune with which to reproach ourselves." 
 
 "I do not see yours." 
 
 "My marriage," she replied. 
 
 You who are a great man and who love one of the 
 most extraordinary women of this aristocracy in 
 which I have found my Armande, this word alone 
 will suffice to enable you to understand this soul 
 and how great will be the happiness of 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 MARIE GASTON.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 275 
 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME DE MACUMER 
 
 What, Louise, after all the close sorrows which 
 came to you from a partaken passion, in the very 
 bosom of marriage, you are going to live with a 
 husband in solitude? After having killed one while 
 living in the world, you wish to go into retreat to 
 devour another? What griefs are you preparing for 
 yourself ! But, from the manner in which you have 
 gone into it, I see that it is quite irrevocable. A 
 man who has been able to overcome your aversion 
 to a second marriage must possess an angelic spirit, 
 a divine heart; it is necessary then to leave you to 
 your illusions; but have you then forgotten what 
 you have said of men's youthful days, who have 
 all of them known ignoble localities, and whose 
 candor has been lost in the most horrible public 
 places on the road ? Who has changed ? you or they ? 
 You are very happy to be able to believe in happi- 
 ness : I have not the strength to blame you, although 
 the instinct of tenderness urges me to turn you from 
 this marriage. Yes, a hundred times yes, nature 
 and society combine to destroy the existence of en- 
 tire felicities, because they run counter to nature 
 and to society, because heaven is perhaps jealous of 
 its rights. In short, my friendship foresees some 
 unhappiness which no foresight could explain to me, 
 I do not know whence it will come, nor what will 
 give rise to it; but, my dear, an immense and
 
 276 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 boundless happiness will doubtless overwhelm you 
 in the end. An excessive joy is supported with 
 even less facility than the heaviest pain. I do not 
 say anything against him : you love him, and I have 
 doubtless never seen him; but you will write to me 
 I hope, on one of your idle days, some kind of a por- 
 trait of this fine and curious animal. 
 
 You see me taking my part gaily, for I feel a cer- 
 tainty that, after the honeymoon, you will do, both 
 of you and with a common accord, like the rest of 
 the world. Some day, two years from now, on our 
 promenades, while passing along this road, you will 
 say to me: "See, there is the chalet from which 
 I was never going to come out!" And you will 
 laugh with your fine laugh, showing your beautiful 
 teeth. I have said nothing about it as yet to Louis, 
 we should have given him too much matter for 
 laughter. I will inform him only of your marriage 
 and of your desire to keep it secret. You have un- 
 fortunately no need of mother or sister to put the 
 bride to bed. We are in October, you are com- 
 mencing with the winter, like a courageous woman. 
 If it were not a question of marriage, I would say 
 that you were taking the bull by the horns. 
 Finally, you will have in me the most discreet and 
 the most intelligent of friends. The mysterious 
 centre of Africa has devoured many travelers, and 
 it seems to me that you are throwing yourself, in 
 matters of sentiment, into a journey similar to those 
 in which so many explorers have perished, either 
 by the negroes or in the deserts. Your desert is
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 277 
 
 at two leagues from Paris, I can then say to you 
 cheerfully: Bon voyage! we shall see each other 
 again. 
 
 LI 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME MARIE 
 GASTON 
 
 1835. 
 
 What has become of you, my dear? After a 
 silence of two years it is permitted to Renee to be 
 anxious about Louise. This then is love! it carries 
 away, it annuls a friendship like ours. Admit 
 that, if I adore my children even more than you 
 love your Gaston, there is in the maternal sentiment 
 an unfathomable immensity which permits that 
 nothing should be taken from other affections, and 
 which leaves a wife still a sincere and devoted 
 friend. Your letters, your sweet and charming 
 face, are missing for me. I am reduced to conjec- 
 tures about you, oh Louise ! 
 
 As to ourselves, I will explain things to you in 
 the briefest possible manner. 
 
 In reading over your last letter but one, I found 
 some keen words on our political situation. You 
 rallied us for having kept the place of president of 
 the chamber at the Cour des Comptes, which we 
 held, as well as the title of count, through the favor 
 of Charles X. ; but is it with forty thousand francs 
 income, of which thirty belong to a majorat, that I 
 could comfortably establish Athenais and this poor
 
 278 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 little beggar of a Rene? Should we not get our 
 living from our office, and wisely accumulate the 
 revenue on our lands? In twenty years we shall 
 have accumulated about six hundred thousand 
 francs, which will serve to provide for my daughter 
 and Rene, whom I destine for the navy. My poor 
 little one will have ten thousand francs income, and* 
 perhaps we may be able to leave him in money a 
 sum which will render his share equal to that of 
 his sister. When he becomes captain of a vessel, 
 my beggar shall marry a rich wife, and he will hold 
 in the world a rank equal to that of his elder 
 brother. 
 
 These sage calculations have determined in our 
 household the acceptance of the new order of things. 
 Naturally, the new dynasty made Louis peer of 
 France and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. 
 From the moment when L'Estorade took the oath, 
 he could do nothing by half; from that date he 
 rendered great services in the Chamber. Now he 
 has arrived at a situation in which he may rest 
 peacefully until the end of his days. He is dexterous 
 in the management of public affairs; he is rather an 
 agreeable speaker than an orator, but this is suffi- 
 cient for what we ask in politics. His shrewdness, 
 his knowledge both in government and in adminis- 
 tration are appreciated and all parties consider him 
 an indispensable man, I may say to you that he has 
 been lately offered an embassy, but I caused him to 
 refuse it. The education of Armand who is now 
 thirteen years old, that of Athenais who is going on
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 279 
 
 toward eleven, detain me in Paris, and I wish to 
 remain here until my little Rene has finished his, 
 which is now commencing. 
 
 To have remained faithful to the Elder Branch and 
 to return to the estates, it would have been neces- 
 sary not to have had to raise and to provide for 
 three children. A mother should, my angel, not be 
 a Decius, above all at a time when the Decia are 
 rare. In fifteen years from now, L'Estorade will be 
 able to retire to La Crampade with a good pension, 
 in installing Armand at the Cour des Comptes 
 where he will leave him referendary. As to Rene, 
 the navy will doubtless make him a diplomat. At 
 the age of seven this little boy is already as keen 
 as an old cardinal. 
 
 Ah! Louise, I am a very happy mother! My 
 children continue to give me joys without number. 
 Sen^a brama sicura riche^a.^ Armand is in the 
 Henry Fourth College, I decided for a public educa- 
 tion without being able, nevertheless, to separate 
 myself from him, and I have done as the Due 
 d'Orleansdid before being, and perhaps in order to 
 become, Louis-Philippe. Every morning Lucas, 
 that old servant whom you know, takes Armand to 
 the college at the hour of the first classes, and brings 
 him back to me at half-past four. An old and 
 learned tutor who lives in my house, makes him 
 study in the evening and wakes him in the morning 
 at the hour at which the collegians rise. Lucas 
 carries him a lunch at noon, during the recess. 
 Thus I see him at dinner, in the evening before he
 
 280 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 goes to bed, and I assist at his departure in the 
 morning. Armand is still the charming child, affec- 
 tionate and devoted, whom you love; his tutor is 
 well pleased with him. I have my Nais with me 
 and the little one who buzzes unceasingly, but I am 
 as much of a child as they. I have not been able to 
 bring myself to resolve to lose the sweetness of the 
 caresses of my dear infants. To be able to run, as 
 often as I desire, to Armand's bed, to see him asleep, 
 to go to take, to ask, or to receive a kiss from this 
 angel, is for me a necessity of my life. 
 
 Nevertheless, this system of keeping children in 
 the paternal household has its inconveniences, and 
 I have thoroughly recognized them. Society, like 
 nature, is jealous, and never permits any encroach- 
 ment upon its laws; it does not suffer any one to 
 derange its economy. Thus in the families in which 
 the children are kept at home, they are too soon 
 exposed to the distractions of the world, they see its 
 passions, they study its dissimulations. Incapable 
 of divining the distinctions which regulate the con- 
 duct of accomplished people, they measure the world 
 by their sentiments, their passions, instead of sub- 
 mitting their desires and their requirements to the 
 world; they adopt the false glitter, which shines 
 more than the solid virtues, for it is above all spe- 
 cious appearances which the world puts forward 
 and with which it clothes deceitful forms. When, 
 at the age of fifteen, a child has the self-assurance 
 of a man who knows the world, he is a monstrosity, 
 becomes an old man at twenty-five, and renders
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 281 
 
 himself by this precocious science unfit for the solid 
 studies on which real and serious talents are based. 
 The world is a great comedian; and, like the come- 
 dian, it receives and sends back everything, it re- 
 tains nothing. A mother should then, in keeping 
 her children about her, take the firm resolution to 
 prevent them from penetrating into the world, 
 should have the courage to oppose both their desires 
 and her own, not to show them. Cornelia should 
 lock up her jewels. Thus will I do, for my children 
 are my whole life. 
 
 I am thirty years old, the greatest heat of the day 
 is past, the most difficult part of the road tra- 
 versed. In a few years I shall be an old woman, 
 thus 1 shall draw an immense strength from the 
 consciousness of duties accomplished. One would 
 say that these three little beings know my thought 
 and conform themselves to it There exist be- 
 tween them, who have never left me, and myself, 
 mysterious relations. In short, they overwhelm me 
 with enjoyment, as though they knew all that they 
 owe me for indemnification. 
 
 Armand, who during the first three years of his 
 studies was dull, thoughtful, and who filled me with 
 anxieties, has suddenly taken a fresh start Doubt- 
 less he has comprehended the object of these pre- 
 paratory labors which children do not always 
 perceive, and which is to accustom them to work, 
 to sharpen their intelligence and to accustom them 
 to obedience, the principle of all society. My dear, 
 a few days ago, I had the intoxicating sensation
 
 282 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of seeing Armand crowned in the general competi- 
 tion, in full gathering at Sorbonne. Your godson re- 
 ceived the first prize for translation. At the distri- 
 bution of the prizes of the Henry Fourth College he 
 obtained two first prizes, that for verses and that for 
 a theme. I turned pale when I heard his name pro- 
 claimed, and I had a great desire to cry out: " I am 
 his mother!" Nais grasped my hand so tightly as 
 to hurt, if one could feel pain in such a moment. 
 Ah! Louise, this fete is worth a great many lost 
 loves. 
 
 The triumphs of the brother have stimulated my 
 little Rene, who wants to go to the college like his 
 elder brother. Sometimes these three infants cry, 
 make a disturbance in the house and a noise to drive 
 one to distraction. I do not know how 1 resist it, 
 for I am always with them; I have never trusted to 
 anyone, not even to Mary, the care of my children. 
 But there are so many joys to gather in this beauti- 
 ful avocation of a mother! To see an infant leave 
 his play to come to embrace me as if driven by a 
 need what joy ! Then one observes them so much 
 the better. One of the duties of a mother is to dis- 
 tinguish from the earliest ages the aptitudes, the 
 character, the vocation of her children, that which 
 no pedagogue would know how to do. All children 
 brought up by their mother have experience and 
 good breeding, two acquisitions which supplement 
 the natural intelligence, whilst the natural intelli- 
 gence never supplements that which men learn from 
 their mothers. I recognize already these shades of
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 283 
 
 distinction among the men in the salons, in whom I 
 distinguish almost immediately the traces of the 
 woman in the manners of the young man. Why 
 should one's children be deprived of such an ad- 
 vantage ? As you see, my duties accompl ished are 
 fertile in treasures, in enjoyments. 
 
 Armand, I am certain of it, will be the most ex- 
 cellent magistrate, the most upright administrator, 
 the most conscientious deputy that can ever be met 
 with; whilst my Rene will be the most courageous, 
 the most adventurous and at the same time the 
 shrewdest sailor in the world. This little scamp 
 has an iron will ; he has all that he wishes for, he 
 will take a thousand detours to arrive at his object 
 and if the thousand do not bring him there, he will 
 find a thousand and one. Where my dear Armand 
 resigns himself with calmness while studying the 
 reason of things, my Rene storms, sets his wits to 
 work, combines, talking ceaselessly, and ends by 
 discovering a joint; if he can slip in the blade of a 
 knife, very soon he will have room to drive in his 
 little carriage. 
 
 As to Nais, she is so much myself, that I do not 
 distinguish her flesh from my own. Ah, the darling, 
 the beloved little girl whom I please myself by 
 making coquettish, whose hair and whose curls I 
 dress weaving in with them my thoughts of love, I 
 wish her to be happy; she shall never be given but 
 to one who will love her and whom she will love. 
 But, my God! when I let her ornament herself, or 
 when I tie red ribbons in her hair, when I shoe her
 
 284 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 little feet so delicate, there leaps to my heart and 
 to my head a thought which almost makes me faint. 
 Can anyone govern her daughter's fate ? Perhaps 
 she will love a man unworthy of her, perhaps she 
 will not be loved by him whom she loves. Often 
 when I contemplate her the tears come into my eyes. 
 To leave a charming creature, a flower, a rose, 
 which has lived on our breast like a bud on a rose 
 tree, and to give her to a man who ravishes every- 
 thing from us ! It is you who, in two years, have 
 not written me these three words: "I am happy!" it 
 is you who have recalled to me the drama of mar- 
 riage, horrible for a mother who is as much of a 
 mother as I am. Adieu, for I do not know why I am 
 writing to you, you do not merit my friendship. 
 Oh ! answer me, my Louise. 
 
 LII 
 MADAME GASTON TO MADAME DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 At the Chalet. 
 
 A silence of two years has piqued your curiosity, 
 you ask me why I have not written to you ; but, my 
 dear Renee, there are no phrases, no words, no 
 language, to express my happiness : our souls have 
 the strength to sustain it, this is the whole truth in 
 two words. We have not to make the slightest 
 effort in order to be happy, we understand each 
 other in everything. In two years there has not 
 been the slightest dissonance in this concert, the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 285 
 
 least discord of expression in our sentiments, the 
 least difference in the least wishes. In short, my 
 dear, there is not one of these thousand days which 
 has not borne its peculiar fruit, not one moment 
 which fancy has not rendered delightful. Not only 
 will our life, we have the certainty of it, never be 
 monotonous, but, still more, it will never perhaps 
 be sufficiently extended to contain the poesies of our 
 love, fruitful as nature, varied as she. No, not one 
 mistake! We please each other still more than on 
 the first day, and we discover from moment to 
 moment new reasons for loving each other. We 
 promise each other every evening in taking our 
 promenade after dinner to go to Paris through curi- 
 osity, as you would say: "I am going to see 
 Switzerland." 
 
 "What!" replies Gaston, "they are laying out 
 such a boulevard, the Madeleine is completed. We 
 must go and see that." 
 
 Bah! the next morning we remain in bed, we 
 breakfast in our chamber ; noon comes, it is warm, 
 a little siesta is permitted; then he asks me to per- 
 mit him to look at me, and he looks at me abso- 
 lutely as if I were a picture; he loses himself in 
 this contemplation, which, as you may imagine, is 
 reciprocal. Tears then, fill our eyes, we think of 
 our happiness and we tremble. I am always his 
 mistress, that is to say that I appear to love less 
 than I am loved. This deceiving is delicious. 
 There is so much charm for us women to see feel ing 
 prevail over desire, to see the master, still timid,
 
 286 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 halt there where we wish that he should remain! 
 You have asked me to tell you what he is like; but, 
 my Renee, it is impossible to draw the portrait of a 
 man whom one loves, one would not know whether 
 it was truthful or not Then, between ourselves, 
 let us admit without prudishness a singular and sor- 
 rowful result of our manners, there is nothing so 
 different as a man of the world from a man of love; 
 the difference is so great that one can resemble the 
 other in nothing. He who assumes the most grace- 
 ful attitudes of the most graceful dancer in order to 
 say to us at the corner of the fire, in the evening, a 
 word of love, may have not one of the secret graces 
 which a woman desires. On the contrary, a man 
 who appears ugly, without manners, badly clothed 
 in his black cloth, hides a lover who possesses the 
 spirit of love, and who will not be ridiculous in any 
 one of those positions in which we ourselves can 
 perish with all our exterior graces. To discover in 
 a man a mysterious accord between that which he 
 appears to be and that which he is, to find among 
 them one who in the secret life of marriage shall 
 have that innate grace which is not given, which 
 cannot be acquired, which the antique statuary has 
 displayed in the voluptuous and chaste marriages of 
 his statues, that innocence of abandonment which 
 the ancients have put in their poems, and which in 
 the undraped appears to have still more covering for 
 the souls, all this ideal which springs from our- 
 selves and which belongs to the world of harmony, 
 which is doubtless the genius of things; in short,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 287 
 
 this immense problem sought for by the imagination 
 of all women, well, Gaston is of it the living solu- 
 tion. Ah! dear, I did not know what love, youth, 
 wit and beauty in union were. My Gaston is never 
 affected, his grace is instinctive, it develops itself 
 without effort When we walk alone in the woods, 
 his hand passed around my waist, mine on his 
 shoulder, his body close to mine, our heads touching 
 each other, we proceed with an equal step, by a 
 movement uniform and so gentle, so quite the same, 
 that for those who should see us pass we would ap- 
 pear to be but one being, gliding over the gravel of 
 the alleys like Homer's Immortals. This harmony 
 is in the desire, in the thought, in the speech. 
 Sometimes, under the foliage, still wet from a pass- 
 ing shower, when in the evening the grass is of a 
 greenness made lustrous by the rain, we have taken 
 entire walks without saying a single word to each 
 other, listening to the sound of the drops which fell, 
 enjoying the reddish colors which the setting sun 
 displayed on the tops or reflected on the gray barks 
 of the trees. Certainly our thoughts were then a 
 secret, confused prayer, which mounted to Heaven 
 as an excuse for our happiness. Sometimes we 
 cried out together at the same moment, in seeing the 
 end of an alley which turned suddenly, and which 
 from a distance offered us delightful images. If you 
 know what there is of honey and of profundity in 
 a kiss almost timid given in the midst of this holy 
 nature it is to believe that God has made us only 
 that we might pray thus. And we always returned
 
 288 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 with increased mutual love. This love between 
 two married people would seem an insult to society 
 in Paris, it is necessary to deliver one's self up to 
 it like the lovers in the depths of the forest. 
 
 Gaston, my dear, has that medium stature which 
 has been that of all men of energy; he is neither fat 
 nor lean, and is very well built; his proportions 
 have a roundness; there is dexterity in all his 
 movements, he leaps a ditch with the lightness of a 
 wild beast. In whatever position he may be he 
 has in him a sense which enables him to find his 
 equilibrium, and this is rare among men who have 
 the habit of meditation. Although a brunette, he is 
 of a great whiteness. His hair is of a blackness 
 like jet and offers vigorous contrasts with the dull 
 whiteness of the tones of his neck and of his fore- 
 head. He has the melancholy head of Louis XIII. 
 He has permitted his moustaches and his imperial 
 to grow, but I have made him cut off his whiskers 
 and his beard; they have become common. His 
 holy poverty preserved him pure for me from all 
 those stains which spoil so many young men. He 
 has magnificent teeth, his health is like iron. The 
 glance of his blue eye, so piercing, but for me of a 
 magnetic softness, lights up and burns like a flame 
 when his soul is agitated. Like all persons who are 
 strong and of a powerful intelligence, he has an 
 evenness of character which will surprise you as it 
 has surprised me. I have heard many women con- 
 fide to me the vexations of their household; but 
 these variations of will, these disquietudes of men
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 289 
 
 discontented with themselves, who do not wish to 
 or who do not know how to grow old, who experi- 
 ence unknown eternal reproaches for their mad 
 youth, and whose veins are filled with poison, 
 whose glance has always a depth of sadness, who 
 have made themselves wilful in order to hide their 
 suspicions, who will sell you an hour of tranquil- 
 lity for evil mornings, who will revenge themselves 
 on us for not being able to be amiable, and who 
 conceive a secret hatred for our beauties, all these 
 miseries youth is not acquainted with, they are the 
 attributes of disproportioned marriages. Oh! my 
 dear, do not marry Athenais to any but a young man. 
 If you knew how much I feast upon this constant 
 smile which a fine and delicate spirit varies unceas- 
 ingly, of this smile which speaks, which in the 
 corners of the lips encloses thoughts of love, mute 
 thankfulnesses, and which always unites past joys 
 to the present ones ! There is never anything for- 
 gotten between us. We have made of the least 
 things of nature the accomplices of our felicities: 
 everything is living, everything speaks to us of 
 ourselves in this ravishing forest A mossy old 
 oak, near the house of the keeper on the road, tells 
 us that we have seated ourselves fatigued in its 
 shadow and that Gaston has explained to me the 
 mosses which were at our feet, has related to me 
 their history, and that, from these mosses, we have 
 mounted from science to science, to the ends of the 
 world. Our two spirits have something so frater- 
 nal, that I think that it is two editions of the same 
 19
 
 2cp MEMOIRS OF 
 
 work. As you see, I have become literary. We 
 have both of us the habit or the gift of seeing each 
 thing in its full extent, of perceiving all of it, and 
 the proof that we are constantly giving each other 
 of the purity of this interior sense is a pleasure 
 always new. We have come to consider this under- 
 standing of the spirit as a witness of love; and, if 
 ever it should be missing for us, it would be for us 
 what an infidelity is for other households. 
 
 My life, full of pleasures, will appear to you, 
 moreover, excessively laborious. In the first place, 
 my dear, learn that Louise-Armande-Marie de 
 Chaulieu takes care of her own chamber. I would 
 never suffer that hired services, that a strange 
 woman or maid should be initiated literary 
 woman ! into the secrets of my bedchamber. My 
 religion embraces the least things necessary to its 
 cult. It is not jealousy, but rather respect for one's 
 self. Thus my chamber is arranged with the care 
 which a young girl in love might take of her sur- 
 roundings. I am as fastidious as an old maid. My 
 dressing-room, instead of being topsy-turvy is a de- 
 licious boudoir. My cares have foreseen every- 
 thing. The master, the sovereign, may enter it at 
 any moment; his eyes will not be offended, 
 astonished nor disenchanted, flowers, perfumes, 
 elegance, everything there charms the eye. While 
 he is still sleeping in the morning, at daybreak, 
 without his having yet suspected it, I arise, I pass 
 into this cabinet where, rendered sage by my 
 mother's experiences, I remove the traces of sleep
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 291 
 
 with lotions of cold water. Whilst we sleep, the 
 skin, less excited, performs its functions sluggishly ; 
 it becomes warm, it has as it were a fog visible to 
 the eyes of the flesh-worm, a sort of atmosphere. 
 Under the streaming sponge a woman becomes a 
 young girl. In this perhaps may be found the 
 meaning of the myth of Venus issuing from the sea. 
 The water thus gives the piquant graces of the 
 morning; I comb myself, I perfume my hair; and 
 after this careful toilet, I slip in again like a ser- 
 pent, so that on his awakening the master finds me 
 as fine as a spring morning. He is charmed with 
 this freshness of the newly-blown flower, without 
 being able to explain the reason. Later, the toilet 
 for the day is an affair for my femme de chambre 
 and takes place in a dressing-room. There is, as 
 you may suppose, the toilet for retiring. Thus I 
 make three of them for monsieur my husband, 
 sometimes four; but this, my dear, relates to other 
 myths of antiquity. 
 
 We have also our labors. We are much inter- 
 ested in our flowers, in the beautiful creatures of 
 our greenhouse and in our trees. We are seriously 
 botanists, we love flowers passionately, the chalet 
 is encumbered with them. Our turfs are always 
 green, our shrubberies are cared, for like those of 
 the gardens of the richest banker. So that nothing 
 is as handsome as our enclosure. We are great 
 gourmands concerning fruits, we superintend our 
 peaches, our hotbeds, our espaliers, our fruit trees 
 cut distaff-fashion. But if these rustic occupations
 
 2Q2 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 should not satisfy the mind of my adored, I have coun- 
 seled him to finish in silence and in solitude some 
 of those pieces for the theatre which he commenced 
 during his days of poverty, and which are truly 
 admirable. This species of labor is the only one in 
 Letters which can be quitted and taken up again, for 
 it demands long reflection, and does not exact the 
 careful chiseling required by style. The dialogue 
 cannot always be done, it requires for it outlines, 
 resumes, sallies, which the mind produces as plants 
 give their flowers, and which are found rather in 
 waiting for them than in seeking them. This pur- 
 suit of ideas suits me. 1 am the collaborator of my 
 Gaston, and thus never leave him, not even when 
 he is traveling into the vast fields of the imagina- 
 tion. Can you guess now how I get through the 
 winter evenings ? Our service is so gentle, that we 
 have not had since our marriage a word of reproach, 
 not an observation to address to our servants. 
 When they have been questioned about us, they 
 have displayed a crafty spirit, they have passed us 
 off for the lady companion and the secretary of their 
 masters reputed to be traveling; confident of never 
 meeting with the least refusal they never go out 
 without asking permission; moreover, they are 
 happy, and see clearly that their condition can be 
 changed only by their own fault. We permit the 
 gardeners to sell the surplus of our fruits and of our 
 vegetables. The neatherd who has charge of the 
 dairy does the same with the milk, the cream and the 
 fresh butter. Only, the best of all these products
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 293 
 
 is reserved for our own use. These people are 
 very well content with their profits, and we are 
 enchanted with this abundance which no fortune 
 could or would know how to procure in that terrible 
 Paris, where the fine peaches cost, each one, the 
 income from one hundred francs. All this, my 
 dear, has a reason : I wish to be the world for Gas- 
 ton; the world is amusing, my husband should then 
 not weary himself in this solitude. I believed my- 
 self jealous when I was loved and when I let myself 
 be loved; but I experience to-day the jealousy of 
 the women who love, in short, the true jealousy. 
 Thus, any one of his looks which seems to me in- 
 different makes me tremble. From time to time I 
 say to myself: "If he should be going to love me 
 no more " and I shudder. Oh ! I am indeed before 
 him as the Christian soul is before God. 
 
 Alas, my Renee, I have still no children. A 
 moment will come without doubt when the senti- 
 ments of the father and the mother will be required 
 to animate this retreat, when we shall have need, 
 both of us, of seeing the little dresses, pelerines, 
 little brown or blonde heads leaping, running 
 through the shrubberies and our flowery paths. 
 Oh ! what a monstrosity are flowers without fruits. 
 The memory of your beautiful family is poignant 
 for me. My life, for myself, is restricted, whilst 
 yours has enlarged, has radiated outward. Love is 
 profoundly egotistical, whilst maternity tends to 
 multiply our sentiments. I have deeply felt this 
 difference in reading your good, your tender letter.
 
 294 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Your happiness has made me envious in seeing 
 you live in three hearts! Yes, you are happy: you 
 have sagely fulfilled the laws of social life, whilst 
 I am outside of everything. It is only children 
 loving and loved who can console a woman for the 
 loss of her beauty. I shall be thirty soon, and at 
 that age, the terrible internal lamentations of a 
 woman commence. If I am beautiful yet, I perceive 
 the limits of the feminine life; after which what 
 will become of me? When I shall be forty, he will 
 not be, he will be young still and I shall be old. 
 When this thought traversed my heart, I remained 
 at his feet an hour, making him swear that, when 
 he should feel less love for me, he would tell me on 
 the instant. But he is a child, he swears it to me 
 as if his love could never diminish, and he is so 
 handsome that you understand! I believe him. 
 Adieu, dear angel ; shall we be again years without 
 writing to each other ? Happiness is monotonous in 
 its expressions ; thus it is perhaps because of this 
 difficulty that Dante seems greater to loving souls 
 in his Paradise than in his Inferno. I am not Dante, 
 I am only your friend, and wish not to weary you. 
 You, you can write to me, for you have in your 
 children a varied happiness which goes on increas- 
 ing, whilst mine . Do not speak any more of it. 
 I send you a thousand tendernesses.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 295 
 
 LIU 
 
 MADAME DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME GASTON 
 
 My dear Louise, 1 have read, re-read your letter, 
 and the more its meaning has penetrated me the 
 more have I seen in you less a woman than a child; 
 you have not changed, you forget what I have said 
 to you a thousand times, Love is a theft made by 
 the social state from the natural state ; it is so tran- 
 sient in its nature, that the resources of society 
 cannot change its primitive condition: thus all the 
 noble souls endeavor to make a man of this infant; 
 but then Love becomes, according to you yourself, 
 a monstrosity. Society, my dear, has wished to be 
 fruitful. In substituting durable sentiments for the 
 fugitive folly of nature she has created the greatest 
 human thing, the Family, eternal base of all soci- 
 eties. She has sacrificed the man as well as the 
 woman to her work ; for, let us not deceive our- 
 selves, the father of the family gives his activity, 
 his strength, all his fortunes, to his wife. Is it not 
 the wife who enjoys all the sacrifices? the luxury, 
 the riches, is it not nearly all for her? for her the 
 glory and the elegance, the sweetness and the flower 
 of the household ? Oh my angel, you are once more 
 taking life very badly. To be adored is a theme 
 of young girls, good for a few springs, but which 
 could not be that of a married woman and a mother. 
 Perhaps it is sufficient for the vanity of a woman 
 to know that she can make herself adored. If you
 
 296 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 wish to be wife and mother, return to Paris. Let 
 me repeat it to you that you will lose yourself in 
 happiness as others lose themselves through unhap- 
 piness. The things which do not weary us, silence, 
 bread, the air, are without reproach because they 
 are without taste ; whilst the things full of savor, 
 irritating our desires, end by wearying them. 
 Listen to me, my child ! At the present time, even 
 though I could be loved by a man for whom I should 
 feel rising within me the love which you bear to 
 Gaston, I should know how to remain faithful to my 
 dear duties and to my sweet family. Maternity, 
 my angel, is for the heart of a woman one of those 
 things simple, natural, fertile, inexhaustible as 
 those which are the elements of life. I remember 
 having one day, it is nearly fourteen years ago, 
 embraced devotion as a shipwrecked man clings to 
 the mast of his vessel, through despair ; but to-day, 
 when I call up by memory all my life before me, I 
 would again choose this sentiment as the principle 
 of my life, for it is the surest and the most fruitful 
 of all. The example of your life, based on a fero- 
 cious egotism, although hidden by the poetry of the 
 heart, has fortified my resolution. I shall never say 
 these things to you again, but I should now say 
 them to you once more for the last time on learning 
 that your happiness resists the most terrible of 
 trials. 
 
 Your life in the country, the object of my medi- 
 tations, has suggested to me this other observation 
 which I should submit to you. Our life is composed,
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 297 
 
 for the body as for the heart, of certain regular 
 movements. Every excess brought into this mech- 
 anism is a cause of pleasure or of sorrow; now, 
 pleasure or sorrow is a fever of the soul e n- 
 tially transient, because it is not supportable for a 
 long time. To make of excess the very life, is not 
 that to live unhealthfully ? You are living un- 
 healthfully, in maintaining in the state of passion 
 a sentiment which should become in marriage an 
 equal and pure force. Yes, my angel, to-day I 
 recognize it, the glory of the household is pre- 
 cisely in this calm, in this profound mutual cogni- 
 zance, in this exchange of good and evil with which 
 the vulgar pleasantries reproach it Oh! how great 
 it is, that speech of the Duchesse de Sully, the wife 
 of the great Sully in fact, to whom it was said that 
 her husband, grave as he appeared, did not scruple to 
 have a mistress: "That is very simple," she replied, 
 "I am the honor of the house, and should be much 
 mortified to play in it the rSle of a courtesan." 
 More voluptuous than tender, you wish to be at once 
 the wife and the mistress. With the soul of Heloise 
 and the senses of Saint Therese, you deliver your- 
 self up to deviations sanctioned by the laws; in a 
 word, you deprave the institution of marriage. Yes, 
 you who judged me so severely when I seemed to be 
 immoral in accepting on the evening of my marriage 
 the means of happiness ; in bending everything to 
 your own use you merit to-day the reproaches which 
 you addressed to me. What ! you wish to subjugate 
 nature and society to your caprice? You remain
 
 298 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 yourself, you do not transform yourself in the 
 least into that which a wife should be; you keep 
 the wishes, the exactions, of a young girl, and you 
 carry into your passion the most exact calculations, 
 the most mercantile! Do you not sell your adorn- 
 ments very dear ? I find you very suspicious with 
 all your precautions. Oh! dear Louise, if you could 
 know the sweetness of the efforts which the mothers 
 expend on themselves in order to be good and tender 
 to all their family! The independence and the 
 pride of my character have been melted in a gentle 
 melancholy, and which the maternal pleasures have 
 dissipated in requiting it. If the morning was diffi- 
 cult, the evening will be pure and serene. I am 
 afraid that it will be quite the contrary with your 
 life. 
 
 In finishing your letter, I have entreated God to 
 send you to pass a day in our midst to convert you 
 to the family, to these joys unspeakable, constant, 
 eternal, because they are true, simple, and accord- 
 ing to nature. But alas! what can my reason do 
 against a fault which renders you happy? I have 
 tears in my eyes in writing these last words to you. 
 I frankly believed that a few months devoted to this 
 conjugal love would restore you to reason through 
 satiety; but I see you insatiable, and after having 
 killed a lover, you will finish by killing love. 
 Adieu, dear wanderer; I despair, since the letter 
 in which I hoped to restore you to social life by the 
 picture of my happiness has only served for the glo- 
 rification of your egotism. Yes, there is nothing
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 299 
 
 but yourself in your love, and you love Gaston 
 much more for yourself than for himself. 
 
 LIV 
 
 MADAME GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 May 2oth. 
 
 Renee, the misfortune has come; no, it has 
 descended upon your poor Louise with the rapidity 
 of thunder, and you understand me, unhappiness 
 for me, that is doubt. Conviction, that would be 
 death. Day before yesterday, after my first toilet, 
 in looking for Gaston everywhere in order to take 
 a little promenade before the dejeuner, I could not 
 find him. I entered the stable, where I saw his 
 mare covered with sweat and from whom the groom 
 was removing with the aid of a knife the flecks of 
 foam before drying her. 
 
 "Who then has got Fedelta into such a state?" I 
 said. 
 
 "Monsieur," replied the boy. 
 
 I recognized on the horse's flanks the mud of 
 Paris, which does not resemble the mud of the 
 country. 
 
 "He has been to Paris," I thought. 
 
 This thought sent a thousand others into my heart 
 and drew to it all the blood in my body. To go to 
 Paris without saying anything to me about it, to 
 select the hour in which I left him alone, to go there
 
 300 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and return with such rapidity that Fedelta was 
 almost foundered ! The suspicion compressed me in 
 so terrible a girdle that I could scarcely draw my 
 breath. I went and sat down on a bench at the dis- 
 tance of a few steps to endeavor to recover my self- 
 possession. Here Gaston found me, ghastly, frightful, 
 as it would seem, for he said to me: "What is the 
 matter with you?" so hastily and with a voice so 
 full of anxiety, that I rose and took him by the arm ; 
 but I had no strength in my joints, and I was obliged 
 to sit down again ; he took me then in his arms and 
 carried me into the parlor, a distance of a few steps, 
 where all our frightened servants followed us; but 
 Gaston sent them away with a gesture. When we 
 were alone, I was able, without wishing to say any- 
 thing, to reach our chamber, in which I locked my- 
 self so as to be able to weep unrestrained. Gaston 
 remained at the door for nearly two hours listening 
 to my sobs, interrogating with an angelic patience 
 his creature who no longer replied to him. 
 
 "I will see you again when my eyes are no longer 
 red and when my voice no longer trembles," I said 
 to him finally. 
 
 Theyou, instead of our familiar and habitual thee, 
 sent him suddenly out of the house. I bathed my 
 eyes in ice-water, I refreshed my countenance, the 
 door of our chamber was opened, I found him there, 
 returned to his post without my having heard the 
 sound of his footsteps. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" he asked me. 
 
 "Nothing," I said to him. "I recognized the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 301 
 
 white Paris mud on Fedelta's reeking flanks, I did 
 not understand that you should go there without 
 letting me know; but you are free." 
 
 "Your punishment for your so criminal doubts 
 shall be not to learn my motives till to-morrow," 
 he replied. 
 
 "Look at me," I said to him. 
 
 1 plunged my eyes into his : the infinite penetrated 
 the infinite. No, I did not perceive that shadow 
 which infidelity diffuses in the soul and which nec- 
 essarily changes the purity of the eyeballs. I 
 pretended to him to be reassured, even though I 
 should remain anxious. Men know, quite as well 
 as we do, how to deceive, how to lie! We have 
 not left each other since. Oh! dear, how much, at 
 moments, in looking at him, I feel myself indissolu- 
 bly attached to him. What inward tremors agitate 
 me when he comes back after having left me alone 
 for a moment! My life is in him, and not in my- 
 self. I have given cruel denials to your cruel letter. 
 Did I ever feel this dependence on the part of that 
 divine Spaniard, for whom I was what this atrocious 
 darling is for me? How I hate that mare! What 
 stupidity on my part to have had horses ! But it 
 would be necessary also to cut off Gaston's feet, or 
 to detain him in the cottage. I was entirely occu- 
 pied with these stupid thoughts, you may judge from 
 that of my want of reason. If love has not con- 
 structed a cage for him, no power could retain a 
 man who is weary. 
 
 "Do I weary you?" I said to him point-blank.
 
 302 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "How you torment yourself without cause!" he 
 replied, his eyes full of a gentle pity. "I have 
 never loved you so much." 
 
 "If that is true, my adored angel," I replied to 
 him, "let me have Fedelta sold." 
 
 "Sell her," he said to me. 
 
 This word all but crushed me, Gaston seemed to 
 say to me: "You alone are rich here, I am noth- 
 ing, I have no will at all." If he did not think this, 
 I believed that he thought it, and I left him again, 
 to go to bed, the night had come. 
 
 Oh Renee, in the solitude, a destroying thought 
 conducts you toward suicide. These delightful 
 gardens, this starry night, this freshness which 
 brought to me in little puffs the incense of all our 
 flowers, our valley, our hills, everything seemed to 
 me sombre, black and deserted. I was as it were 
 at the foot of a precipice in the midst of serpents, of 
 venomous plants; I no longer saw God in the 
 heavens. After a night like this, a woman has 
 grown older. 
 
 "Take Fedelta, hasten to Paris," I said to him 
 the next morning, "do not sell her; I love her, she 
 carries you!" 
 
 He was not deceived, nevertheless, by my accent, 
 through which pierced the interior rage which I en- 
 deavored to conceal. 
 
 "Confidence!" he replied offering me his hand 
 with a movement so noble and throwing upon me so 
 noble a look, that I felt myself disarmed. 
 
 "We are very childish!" I cried.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 303 
 
 "No, you love me, and that is all," he said press- 
 ing me to him. 
 
 "Go to Paris without me," I said to him making 
 him understand that 1 had put away all my sus- 
 picions. 
 
 He went, I thought that he would stay with me. 
 I abandon the attempt to paint to you my sufferings. 
 There was within me another myself of whose ex- 
 istence I did not know. In the first place, this kind 
 of scene, my dear, has a tragic solemnity for a 
 woman who loves, which nothing can express; your 
 whole life appears to you in the moment in which 
 they are taking place, and the eyes perceive 
 nowhere any horizon ; the nothing is everything, 
 there is a whole volume in the regard, the speech is 
 full of icy suspicions, and in a movement of the lips 
 may be read a sentence of death. I waited for his 
 return, for had I not shown myself sufficiently noble 
 and grand ? I went up to the roof of the chalet and 
 I followed him with my eyes along the highroad. 
 Ah! my dear Renee, I saw him disappear with 
 frightful rapidity. 
 
 "How he hurries there!" I thought involuntarily. 
 
 Then, once more alone, I fell back again into the 
 hell of suppositions, into the tumult of suspicions. 
 At moments the certainty of being betrayed seemed 
 to me to be a balm, compared with the horrors of 
 doubt! The doubt is our duel with ourselves, and 
 we then give ourselves terrible wounds. I came 
 and went, I went up and down the garden alleys, I 
 returned to the chalet, I came out of it again like a
 
 304 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 crazy woman. Leaving at seven o'clock, Gaston 
 only returned at eleven; and as by the Park of 
 Saint-Cloud and the Bois de Boulogne, a half hour 
 suffices to reach Paris, it is evident that he had 
 passed three hours in Paris. He entered trium- 
 phantly bringing me a little hand-whip in hard 
 rubber, the handle of which is in gold. 
 
 For two weeks I had been without a whip; mine, 
 old and worn-out, had broken. 
 
 "This is why you tortured me?" I said to him, 
 admiring the workmanship of this jewel which con- 
 tained a little perfume flask in the end. 
 
 Then I comprehended that this present concealed 
 a new deceit; but I threw myself promptly on his 
 neck, not without having reproached him gently for 
 having imposed such cruel torments upon me for a 
 bagatelle. He thought himself excessively clever. 
 I saw then in his aspect, in his look, that species of 
 interior joy which one feels in carrying out a trick 
 successfully; it escapes like a light from our soul, 
 like a ray of our spirit which reflects itself in the 
 features, which disengages itself from the move- 
 ment of the body. While admiring this pretty 
 thing, I asked him, at a moment when we were 
 looking at each other closely: 
 
 "Who made for you this work of art?" 
 
 "One of my friends, an artist." 
 
 "Ah! Verdier mounted it," I added, reading the 
 name of the dealer stamped on the whip. 
 
 Gaston has remained very infantile, he blushed. 
 I overwhelmed him with caresses to reward him for
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 305 
 
 having been ashamed of deceiving me. I played 
 the innocent, and he thought that everything was 
 ended. 
 
 May 25th. 
 
 The next morning about six o'clock, I put on my 
 riding habit, and I descended at seven at Verdier's 
 establishment, where I saw several whips of this 
 pattern. A clerk recognized mine which I showed 
 to him. 
 
 "We sold it yesterday to a young man," he said 
 to me. 
 
 And, on the description which I gave him of my 
 impostor of a Gaston, there was no longer any 
 doubt I spare you the palpitations of my heart, 
 which bruised my chest in going to Paris and during 
 this little scene in which my life was decided. 
 When I returned at half-past seven, Gaston found 
 me radiant, in a morning toilet, promenading with 
 a deceitful light-heartedness and certain that noth- 
 ing would betray my absence, into the secret of 
 which I had admitted none but my old Philippe. 
 
 "Gaston," I said to him as we wandered around 
 our pond, "I know well enough the difference which 
 exists between a unique work of art, executed lov- 
 ingly for a single person, and that which comes out 
 of a mould." 
 
 Gaston turned pale and looked at me presenting 
 to him the terrible piece & conviction. 
 
 "My friend," I said to him, "it is not a whip, it 
 is a screen behind which you hide a secret." 
 
 20
 
 306 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Thereupon, my dear, I gave myself the pleasure 
 of seeing him twisting himself up in the mazes of 
 falsehood and the labyrinth of deceit without being 
 able to find an issue, displaying a prodigious art in 
 his endeavors to find a wall to climb, but con- 
 strained to remain on the ground before an adversary 
 who finally consented to allow herself to be pacified. 
 This consentment came too late, as it always does 
 in these scenes. Moreover, I had committed the 
 fault against which my mother had endeavored to. 
 forewarn me. In showing itself openly, my jealousy 
 established a state of warfare and all its stratagems 
 between Gaston and myself. My dear, jealousy is 
 essentially stupid and brutal. I promised myself 
 then to suffer in silence, to watch everything, to 
 acquire a certainty, and to then finish with Gaston, 
 or to consent to my unhappiness, there is no other 
 conduct to follow for women of position. What is 
 he hiding from me ? for he conceals a secret from me. 
 This secret concerns a woman. Is it some youthful 
 adventure for which he blushes? What? This 
 what, my dear, is engraved in four letters of fire on 
 everything. I read this fatal word in looking in the 
 mirror of our pond, across my shrubbery, in the 
 clouds of the sky, on the ceilings, on the table, in 
 the flowers of my carpet. In the midst of my sleep, 
 a voice cries to me "What?" Dating from that 
 morning, there has, been in our life a cruel interest, 
 and I have known the most bitter thoughts which 
 can corrode our hearts, to belong to a man whom 
 we think unfaithful. Oh ! my dear, this life partakes
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 307 
 
 at once of hell and of paradise. I had not yet even 
 set my foot in this furnace, I, up to this time, so 
 worshipfully adored. 
 
 "Ah! you wished one day to penetrate into the 
 sombre and burning palaces of suffering?" I said to 
 myself. "Well, the demons have heard your fatal 
 wish: go forward, unhappy one!" 
 
 May 3<Dth. 
 
 Since that day, Gaston, instead of working 
 leisurely and with the ease of the rich artist who 
 caresses his work, gives himself tasks like the 
 writer who lives by his pen. He employs four 
 hours every day in finishing two pieces for the 
 theatre. 
 
 "He is in want of money!" 
 
 This thought was whispered to me by an inward 
 voice. He expends almost nothing; we live in an 
 absolute confidence, there is not a corner of his cab- 
 inet in which my eyes or my fingers may not 
 search, his yearly expenses do not amount to two 
 thousand francs, I know him to have thirty thou- 
 sand francs left, rather than guarded, in a drawer. 
 You know my meaning. In the middle of the night, 
 I went during his sleep to see if the sum was still 
 there. What an icy shudder seized me when I 
 found the drawer empty ! In the same week, I dis- 
 covered that he goes to get letters at Sevres, and he 
 must tear them up immediately after having read 
 them, for, notwithstanding my Figaro-like inven- 
 tions, I have not been able to find any traces of
 
 308 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 them. Alas! my angel, notwithstanding my prom- 
 ises and all the fine oaths which I made to myself 
 on the subject of the whip, a movement of the soul 
 which must be called folly impelled me, and I 
 followed him in one of his rapid rides to the post 
 office. Gaston was terrified to be surprised on 
 horseback paying the carriage of a letter which he 
 was holding in his hand. After having looked at 
 me fixedly, he put Fedelta at the gallop so rapidly 
 that I was quite overcome on arriving at the wooden 
 gate, in a moment in which I thought myself unable 
 to feel any corporal fatigue, I suffered so in my 
 soul ! There, Gaston said nothing to me, he rang and 
 waited, without speaking to me. I was more dead 
 than alive. Either I was right or I was wrong; but 
 in either case, my espionage was unworthy of Ar- 
 mande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu. I rolled in the 
 social mud below the grisette, the ill-bred girl, side 
 by side with the courtesans, the actresses, the un- 
 educated creatures. What sufferings ! Finally the 
 gate opened, he gave his horse to his groom, and I 
 dismounted also, but in his arms, he extended them 
 to me; I gathered up my dress on my left arm, and 
 we walked away still silent. The hundred steps 
 which we took thus can count for me a hundred 
 years in purgatory. At each step, thousands of 
 thoughts, almost visible, danced in tongues of fire 
 before my eyes, leaped at my soul, having each one 
 a dart, a different venom! When the groom and 
 the horses were at a distance, I stopped Gaston, I 
 looked at him, and with a movement which you
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 309 
 
 should have seen, I said to him, indicating the fatal 
 letter which he still held in his right hand: 
 
 "Let me read it?" 
 
 He gave it to me, I unsealed it, and read a letter 
 in which Nathan, the dramatic author, informed him 
 that one of our pieces, received, accepted and put in 
 rehearsal, was to be presented the next Saturday. 
 The letter contained a ticket for a box. Although 
 for me this was to go from martyrdom to the 
 heavens, the demons still cried to me, to trouble my 
 joy: "Where are the thirty thousand francs?" 
 And the dignity, the honor, all my ancient self, 
 prevented me from asking the question ; I had it on 
 my lips; I knew that, if my thought became speech, 
 it would be necessary for me to throw myself in my 
 pond, and I resisted with difficulty the desire to 
 speak. Dear, did I not then suffer beyond the 
 woman's strength? 
 
 "You are wearying yourself here, my poor Gas- 
 ton," I said to him, handing him back the letter. 
 "If you wish, we will return to Paris." 
 
 "To Paris, why?" said he. "I wished to know 
 if I had any talent, and to taste the punch of suc- 
 cess!" 
 
 At a moment in which he was working, I could 
 very well have appeared surprised in searching in 
 the drawer and not finding the thirty thousand 
 francs; but would that not have been to invite this 
 answer: "I have obliged such and such a friend," 
 which a clever man like Gaston would not fail to 
 make ?
 
 310 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 My dear, the moral of this is that the fine success 
 of the piece to which all Paris is crowding at this 
 moment is due to us although Nathan had all the 
 glory of it I am one of the two stars in this 
 announcement : ET MM. * * * I saw the first repre- 
 sentation, hidden in the back of a box in the pro- 
 scenium on the ground floor. 
 
 July ist 
 
 Gaston is still working and goes constantly to 
 Paris ; he is engaged on new pieces so as to have a 
 pretext for going to Paris and for procuring money. 
 We have three pieces received and two ordered. 
 Oh! my dear, I am lost, I am walking in the 
 shadows. I would burn my house to be able to see 
 clearly. What is the significance of such conduct? 
 Is he ashamed of having received a fortune from 
 me? His soul is too great to be affected by such 
 silliness. Moreover, when a man begins to conceive 
 these scruples, they are inspired in him by an in- 
 terest of the heart. One accepts everything from 
 one's wife, but no one wishes to have anything 
 from the woman whom you think of leaving or 
 whom you no longer love. If he wants so much 
 money, it is doubtless because he has to expend it 
 for a woman. If it were only a question of himself, 
 could he not take it out of my purse without cere- 
 mony ? We have a hundred thousand francs of sav- 
 ings! In short, my beautiful lamb, I have traversed 
 the entire world of suspicions, and, everything
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 311 
 
 taken into consideration, I am certain that I have a 
 rival. He forsakes me, for whom? I wish to see 
 her. 
 
 July loth. 
 
 I have seen clearly : I am lost. Yes, Renee, at 
 thirty, in all the glory of beauty, rich with the re- 
 sources of my spirit, adorned with the seductions of 
 the toilet, always fresh, elegant, I am betrayed, and 
 for whom? for an Englishwoman who has big feet, 
 big bones, a big breast, some Britannic cow. I can 
 no longer doubt This is what has happened to me 
 in these last few days. 
 
 Wearied with doubting, thinking that, if he had 
 helped one of his friends, Gaston would have told 
 me of it, seeing him accused by his own silence, 
 and finding him incited to work by a continual thirst 
 for money; jealous of his work, disquieted by his 
 perpetual goings to Paris, I took my measures, and 
 these measures caused me to descend then so low 
 that I cannot tell you about them. Three days ago, 
 I learned that Gaston when he goes to Paris, visits 
 in the Rue de la Ville-FEveque, at a house in which 
 his amours are guarded with a discretion unexam- 
 pled in Paris. The porter, very taciturn, said but 
 little, but enough to make me despair. I made then 
 the sacrifice of my life and I alone wished to know 
 everything. I went to Paris, I took an apartment 
 in the house which is opposite that in which Gaston 
 visits, and I saw him with my own eyes entering
 
 312 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 on horseback into the court Oh ! I received only 
 too soon a horrible and frightful revelation. This 
 Englishwoman, who appears to me to be thirty-six 
 years old, is called Madame Gaston. This discovery 
 was for me the stroke of death. Finally, I have 
 seen her going to the Tuileries with two children . 
 Oh! my dear, two children who are the living 
 miniatures of Gaston. It is impossible not to be 
 struck with a so scandalous resemblance . And 
 what pretty children! they are dressed richly, as 
 the English know how to array them. She has 
 given him children! everything is explained. This 
 Englishwoman is a species of Greek statue de- 
 scended from some monument; she has the white- 
 ness and the coldness of marble, she walks solemnly 
 like a happy mother. She is handsome, it must be 
 admitted, but she is as heavy as a man-of-war. 
 There is nothing fine or distinguished about her, 
 certainly she is not a lady, she is the daughter of 
 some farmer in a poor village in a distant county, 
 or the eleventh daughter of some poor minister. I 
 returned from Paris in a dying condition. On the 
 road, a thousand thoughts assailed me like so many 
 demons. Could she be married ? had he known her 
 before marrying me ? has she been the mistress of 
 some rich man who has abandoned her, and has she 
 not suddenly fallen to the care of Gaston ? I made 
 an infinite number of suppositions, as if there were 
 any need of suppositions in presence of children. 
 The next day I returned to Paris, and I gave enough 
 money to the porter of the house to secure as
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 313 
 
 answer to the question: "Is Madame Gaston mar- 
 ried legally?" 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle." 
 
 July 1 5th. 
 
 My dear, since that morning, I have redoubled 
 my love for Gaston, and I have found him more 
 amorous than ever ; he is so young ! Twenty times, 
 when we rose in the morning, I was ready to say to 
 him: "You love me more than she of the Rue de 
 la Ville-l'Eve'que?" But I dare not explain to my- 
 self the mystery of my forbearance. 
 
 "You love children a good deal ?" I asked him. 
 
 "Oh yes!" he replied; "but we shall have 
 some!" 
 
 "And how?" 
 
 "I have consulted the most learned physicians, 
 and they all have advised me to take a journey of a 
 couple of months." 
 
 "Gaston," I said to him, "if I had been able to 
 love anyone absent, I would have remained in the 
 convent to the end of my days." 
 
 He began to laugh, and I, my dear, the word 
 journey killed me. Oh! certainly, I had rather 
 throw myself out of the window than allow myself 
 to roll down the stairway clinging from step to 
 step . Farewell, my angel ; I have rendered my 
 death sweet, elegant but infallible. My will was 
 drawn up yesterday. You can now come to see 
 me, the interdict is raised. Hasten to receive my 
 adieux. My death will be, like my life, marked
 
 314 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 with distinction and with grace: I will die in the 
 possession of all my faculties. 
 
 Adieu, dear sisterly spirit, you whose affection 
 has not had any aversions nor ups nor downs, and 
 who, like the equable light of the moon, have 
 always soothed my heart; we have not known the 
 vivacities, but we have also not tasted the venomous 
 bitterness of love. You have comprehended life 
 wisely. Adieu! 
 
 LV 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO 
 MADAME GASTON 
 
 July 1 6th. 
 
 My dear Louise, I send you this letter by an ex- 
 press before hastening to the chalet myself. Calm 
 yourself. Your last message appeared to me so 
 senseless, that I thought myself empowered, in such 
 circumstances, to confide everything to Louis, it 
 was a question of saving you from yourself. If, 
 like yourself, we have employed horrible methods, 
 the result is so happy that I am certain of your ap- 
 probation. I even descended to employ the police; 
 but that is a secret between the prefect, ourselves, 
 and you. Gaston is an angel ! These are the facts, 
 his brother, Louis Gaston, died at Calcutta, in 
 the service of a merchant company, at the moment 
 when he was about to return to France, rich, happy 
 and married. The widow of an English merchant
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 315 
 
 had given him the most brilliant fortune. After 
 ten years of labors undertaken for the sake of send- 
 ing the means of existence to his brother, whom he 
 adored and to whom he did not mention his losses 
 in his letters so as not to distress him, he was sur- 
 prised by the failure of the famous Halmer. The 
 widow was ruined. The blow was so violent, that 
 Louis Gaston's head was affected. The mind, in 
 becoming enfeebled, permitted the malady to take 
 possession of the body, and he succumbed to it in 
 Bengal, where he had gone to realize on the rem- 
 nant of the fortune of his poor wife. This dear 
 captain had placed in the hands of a banker a first 
 sum of three hundred thousand francs to send to his 
 brother; but this banker, dragged down by the 
 house of Halmer, deprived them of this last resource. 
 The widow of Louis Gaston, this handsome woman 
 whom you take for your rival, arrived in Paris with 
 two children who are your nephews, and without a 
 sou. The jewels of the mother scarcely sufficed to 
 pay the passage of her family. The information 
 which Louis Gaston had given the banker to send 
 the money to Marie Gaston enabled the widow to 
 find the former lodging of your husband. As your 
 Gaston had disappeared without saying where he 
 was going, Madame Louis Gaston was sent to 
 D'Arthez, the only person who could give any in- 
 formation concerning Marie Gaston. D'Arthez had 
 all the more generously provided for the first 
 needs of this young woman in that Louis Gaston 
 had, four years before, at the date of his marriage,
 
 316 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 enquired for his brother of our celebrated writer, 
 knowing him to be the friend of Marie. The cap- 
 tain had enquired of D'Arthez for some way of 
 securing the payment of this sum to Marie Gaston. 
 D'Arthez had replied that Marie Gaston had become 
 rich through his marriage with the Baronne de 
 Macumer. Their beauty, this magnificent present 
 from their mother, had saved, in the Indies as in 
 Paris, the two brothers from all misfortune. Is it 
 not a touching history? D'Arthez had naturally 
 ended by writing to your husband the condition in 
 which his sister-in-law and his nephews found 
 themselves, and informing him of the generous inten- 
 tions which chance had caused to miscarry, but which 
 Gaston of the Indies had entertained for the Gaston of 
 Paris. Your dear Gaston, as you may well imagine, 
 hastened precipitately to Paris. This is the history 
 of his first excursion. For the last five years he has 
 put aside fifty thousand francs of the income which 
 you have forced him to take, and he has employed 
 them in the purchase of two inscriptions of twelve 
 hundred francs of income each, in the names of his 
 nephews ; then he furnished the apartment in which 
 his sister-in-law is living, promising her three thou- 
 sand francs every three months. This is the his- 
 tory of his theatrical labors and of the pleasure 
 which the success of his first piece caused him. 
 Thus Madame Gaston is not your rival, and bears 
 your name very legitimately. A noble and deli- 
 cate man like Gaston felt himself obliged to hide 
 this adventure from you, doubting your generosity.
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 317 
 
 Your husband did not regard as his own that which 
 you have given him. D'Arthez read to me the letter 
 which he wrote him asking him to be one of the wit- 
 nesses of your marriage : Marie Gaston said in this 
 that his happiness would be complete if he had not 
 any debts for you to pay and if he had been rich. A 
 virgin soul is not sufficiently mistress of itself not 
 to have such sentiments: they are or they are not; 
 and when they are, their delicacy, their exactions, 
 may be conceived. The facts are simply that 
 Gaston wished, himself, to provide secretly a com- 
 fortable existence for the widow of his brother, 
 when this woman had sent him a hundred thousand 
 crowns of her own fortune. She is beautiful, she 
 has a heart, distinguished manners, but no spright- 
 liness of wit This woman is a mother; is not this 
 to say that I was attached to her as soon as I saw 
 her, finding her with a child in, her arms and the 
 other dressed like the baby of a lord. Everything 
 for the children ! is her motto in the smallest things. 
 Thus, far from quarreling with your adored Gaston, 
 you have only new reasons for loving him! I have 
 seen him, he is the most charming young man in 
 Paris. Oh yes! dear child, I have very well com- 
 prehended in seeing him that a woman could be 
 crazy for him, he has the physiognomy of his soul. 
 In your place, I would take the widow and the two 
 children to the chalet, putting up for them some de- 
 lightful little cottage, and I would constitute them 
 my children ! Reassure yourself then, and prepare 
 in your turn this surprise for Gaston.
 
 3l8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 LVI 
 
 MADAME GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE 
 
 Ah! my well-beloved, hear the terrible, the fatal, 
 the insolent word of the imbecile Lafayette to his 
 master, to his king: It is too late! Oh! my life, 
 my beautiful life! what doctor will restore it to me? 
 I am struck with death. Alas! am I not a will-o'- 
 the-wisp of a woman destined to extinguish itself 
 after having blazed? My eyes are two torrents of 
 tears, and I can only weep when far from him. 
 I fly him and he seeks me. My despair is all in- 
 ward. Dante forgot my torture in his Inferno. 
 Come to see me die! 
 
 LVII 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE COMTE 
 DE L'ESTORADE 
 
 At the Chalet, August 7th. 
 
 My dear friend, take the children and make the 
 journey to Provence without me; I shall remain 
 with Louise, who has only a few days more to live: 
 1 owe myself to her and to her husband, who will 
 go mad, I think. 
 
 Since the hint which you know of and which 
 made me fly in the company of the doctors to Ville- 
 d'Avray, I have not left this charming woman and 
 have not been able to write to you, for this is the
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 319 
 
 fifteenth night which I have passed here. When I 
 arrived, I found her with Gaston, beautiful and 
 adorned, her countenance smiling and happy. What 
 a sublime falsehood! These two beautiful children 
 had come to an explanation. For a moment I was, 
 like Gaston, the dupe of this audacity; but Louise 
 grasped my hand and said in my ear : 
 
 "He must be deceived, I am dying." 
 
 An icy chill seized me on finding her hands burn- 
 ing and rouge on her cheeks. I congratulated my- 
 self on my prudence. I had had the precaution, in 
 order not to frighten anyone, to ask the doctors to 
 walk about in the woods while waiting till I should 
 send for them. 
 
 "Leave us alone," she said to Gaston. "Two 
 women who see each other again after five years of 
 separation have many secrets to confide to each 
 other, and Renee has doubtless some confidence to 
 make to me." 
 
 When we were alone, she threw herself in my 
 arms without being able to restrain her tears. 
 
 "What has happened?" I said to her. "I have 
 brought you, in any case, the first surgeon and the 
 first physician of the Hotel-Dieu, with Bianchon; 
 there are four of them." 
 
 "Oh! if they can save me, if it is time, let them 
 come!" she cried. "The same feeling which com- 
 pelled me to die, now urges me to live." 
 
 "But what have you done?" 
 
 "I have made myself consumptive in its most 
 violent form in a few days."
 
 320 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "And how?" 
 
 "I got myself into a violent perspiration in the 
 night and hastened to place myself on the border of 
 the pond, in the dew. Gaston thinks that I have a 
 cold, and I am dying!" 
 
 "Send him to Paris quickly; lam going for the 
 doctors myself," I said, running like one crazy to 
 the place where I had left them. 
 
 Alas! my friend, after the consultation not one 
 of these learned men gave me the least hope. 
 They all think that when the leaves fall Louise 
 will die. The physical constitution of this dear 
 creature has singularly served her purpose, she 
 had natural dispositions to the malady which she 
 has developed ; she could have lived for a long time, 
 but in a few days she has rendered everything 
 irreparable. 
 
 I will not tell you my impressions on hearing 
 this decree so well founded. You know that I 
 have lived as much for Louise as for myself. I 
 remained overwhelmed, and did not conduct to the 
 door those cruel doctors. With my face bathed in 
 tears, I passed I do not know how long a time in 
 sorrowful meditation. A celestial voice drew me 
 from my torpor with these words: "Well, I am 
 condemned!" which Louise said to me, placing her 
 hand on my shoulder. She caused me to rise and 
 led me into her little salon. 
 
 "Do not leave me again," she asked me with a 
 supplicating look; "I do not wish to see despair 
 around me; I wish above all to deceive him, I shall
 
 LOUISE TO RENEE 
 
 "I have made myself consumptive in its most 
 violent form in a few days" 
 
 ''And how?" 
 
 " / got myself into a violent perspiration in the 
 nigJit and hastened tc place myself on the border 
 of the pond, in the dew. Gaston thinks that I 
 have a cold, and I am dying!"
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 321 
 
 have the strength for it. I am full of energy, of 
 youth, and I shall know how to die on my feet As 
 for myself, I do not complain, I shall die as I have 
 often wished to, at thirty, young, beautiful, with 
 all my faculties. As to him, I should have rendered 
 him unhappy, I see it. I am taken in the snares of 
 my love, like a doe which drowns herself in strug- 
 gling against being taken: of us two I am the doe, 
 and a very wild one. My unfounded jealousies 
 have already affected his heart in such a manner 
 as to make him suffer. The day on which my sus- 
 picions should have encountered indifference, the 
 reward which attends jealousy, well, I should 
 have died. I have had my full account of life. 
 There are beings who have for sixty years been in 
 service under the control of the world and who, in 
 fact, have not lived two years; on the contrary, I 
 appear to be only thirty, but in reality I have had 
 sixty years of love. Thus for me, for him, this 
 denouement is happy. As to us two, that is another 
 thing: you lose a sister who loves you, and this loss 
 is irreparable. You alone here, you should weep 
 for my death. My death," she resumed after a 
 long pause during which I saw her only through the 
 veil of my tears, "brings with it a cruel lesson. 
 My dear doctor in a corset is right: marriage should 
 not have for its foundation passion, nor even love. 
 Your life is a beautiful and noble life, you have 
 walked on your way, loving always more and more 
 your Louis; whereas when the conjugal life begins 
 by an extreme ardor, it can but decrease. I have 
 
 21
 
 322 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 been twice wrong, and twice death has come to 
 extinguish my happiness with his fleshless hand. 
 He carried off from me the most noble and the most 
 devoted of men ; to-day, the skeleton carries me away 
 from the most beautiful, the most charming, the 
 most poetic spouse in the world. But I have known 
 alternately the beau ideal of the soul and of the 
 body. In Felipe, the soul dominated the body and 
 transformed it; in Gaston, the heart, intellect and 
 beauty rival each other. I die adored, what could 
 I wish more ? To reconcile myself with God whom 
 I have neglected perhaps, and towards whom 1 will 
 take my flight full of love in asking of Him to restore 
 to me one day these two angels in the heavens. 
 Without them, paradise would be a desert for me. 
 My example would be fatal : I am an exception. 
 As it is impossible to encounter more than one Fe- 
 lipe or more than one Gaston, the social law is in 
 this in accord with the natural law. Yes, the 
 woman is a feeble being who should when giving 
 herself in marriage, make an entire sacrifice of her 
 will to the man, who owes to her in return the sac- 
 rifice of his egotism. The revolts and the tears of 
 which our sex has been so prodigal in these latter 
 times with so much demonstration are stupidities 
 which entitle us to be called children, as so many 
 philosophers have done." 
 
 She continued to speak thus with her soft voice 
 which you know, saying the wisest things in her 
 elegant manner, until Gaston entered, bringing 
 from Paris his sister-in-law, the two children and
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 323 
 
 the English nurse for the children whom Louise had 
 asked him to get 
 
 "See my pretty executioners," she said on seeing 
 her two nephews. "Could I not readily have de- 
 ceived myself? How much they resemble their 
 uncle!" 
 
 She was charming for Madame Gaston the elder, 
 whom she entreated to consider the chalet as her 
 own house, and to whom she did the honors of it 
 with those manners a la Chaulieu which she pos- 
 sesses in the highest degree. I wrote immediately 
 to the Duchesse and to the Due de Chaulieu, to the 
 Due de Rhetore and to the Due de Lenoncourt- 
 Chaulieu, as well as to Madeleine. I did well. 
 The next day, fatigued with so many efforts, Louise 
 was not able to walk; she did not even rise to be 
 present at the dinner. Madeleine de Lenoncourt, 
 her two brothers and her mother came in the even- 
 ing. The coldness which the marriage of Louise 
 had caused to arise between her and her family was 
 removed. Since that evening, the two brothers and 
 the father of Louise come on horseback every morn- 
 ing, and the two duchesses pass all their evenings 
 at the chalet Death brings together as much as it 
 separates, it silences unworthy passions. Louise is 
 sublime in her grace, her reasonableness, charm, 
 wit and sensibility. Up to the last moment, she 
 displayed that taste which has rendered her so cel- 
 ebrated, and dispensed to us freely the treasures of 
 that wit, which made her one of the queens of 
 Paris.
 
 324 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "I wish to be pretty even in my coffin," she said 
 to me, with that smile which is hers only, when tak- 
 ing to her bed to languish there for these two weeks. 
 
 In her chamber, there is no trace of sickness : the 
 draughts, the drugs, and all the medical parapherna- 
 lia are hidden. 
 
 "Shall I not make a beautiful corpse?" she said 
 yesterday to the Cure of Sevres, in whom she has 
 confided all. 
 
 We take a miser's pride in everything of hers. 
 Gaston, whom so many anxieties, so many fright- 
 ful indications, have prepared, does not want for 
 courage, but he is struck: I should not be surprised 
 to see him follow his wife naturally. Yesterday he 
 said to me, while walking around the sheet of 
 water : 
 
 "I should be the father of those two children . " 
 And he showed me his sister-in-law who was out 
 walking with his nephews. "But, although I wish 
 to do nothing to take myself out of this world, 
 promise me to be a second mother to them and to 
 permit your husband to accept the official guardian- 
 ship which I will confide to him conjointly with my 
 sister-in-law." 
 
 He said this without the least emphasis and like 
 a man who feels himself lost His countenance 
 replies with smiles to the smiles of Louise, and I 
 am the only one who is not deceived. He displays 
 a courage equal to hers. Louise has wished to see 
 her godson; but I am not grieved that he is in 
 Provence, she would have been able to be very
 
 TWO YOUNG WIVES 325 
 
 bountiful to him, which would have embarrassed 
 me considerably. 
 Adieu, my dear friend. 
 
 August 25th the day of her fete . 
 Yesterday evening, Louise was for some moments 
 a prey to delirium; but it was a truly elegant deli- 
 rium which proves that spiritual people do not be- 
 come foolish like the bourgeois or like the stupid. 
 She sang in an almost extinguished voice some 
 Italian airs from the Puritans, from La Somnambula 
 and from Moses. We were all silent around the 
 bed, and we had all of us, even her brother Rhetore, 
 tears in our eyes, so clear was it to us that her soul 
 was thus escaping. She saw us no longer ! All her 
 grace was still in the charms of this song, feeble 
 and of a divine softness. Her agony commenced in 
 the night. I came at seven o'clock in the morning 
 to raise her myself; she had recovered some 
 strength, she wished to sit at her window, she 
 asked for Gaston's hand . Then, dear friend, the 
 most charming angel that we can ever see on this 
 earth left us nothing but her mortal body. Having 
 received the Sacrament the evening before, unknown 
 to Gaston, who during the terrible ceremony, had 
 snatched a little sleep, she had required of me that 
 I should read her in French the De Profundis, while 
 she was thus contemplating the beautful bit of 
 nature which she herself had created. She repeated 
 the words mentally and clasped the hands of her 
 husband, kneeling on the other side of the sofa.
 
 326 MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG WIVES 
 
 August 26th. 
 
 My heart is broken. I have just seen her in her 
 shroud, she has become pale in it with violet tints. 
 Oh! I wish to see my children! my children! 
 Bring my children to me! 
 
 Paris, 1841.
 
 LIST OF ETCHINGS 
 
 VOLUME XIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LOUISE AND FELIPE Fronts. 
 
 LOUISE AND THE BARON DE MACUMER 88 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU AND THE SPANIARD 112 
 
 LOUISE AND HER ARCHITECT 257 
 
 LOUISE TO RENEE 320 
 
 13 N. & R., 2 Y. 327
 
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