LETTERS TO THE COUNT DE GRIGNAN.[295] FROM 1670 TO 1696.

LETTERS TO THE COUNT DE GRIGNAN.[295] FROM 1670 TO 1696.

LETTER I.

Paris, Wednesday, 23d June, 1670.

You have written me the most charming letter in the world. I should have answered it much sooner, had I not known that you were traversing your province. I should likewise have sent you the music you desired, but have not yet been able to procure it: in the mean time let me tell you that I love you most affectionately, and if that is capable of giving you the satisfaction you assure me it does, you ought to be the most contented man in the world. You must certainly be so in the correspondence you carry on with my daughter; it appears to me very animated on her part, and I do not think any one can love another more than she does you. I hope to return her to you safe and sound, with a little one the same, or I will burn my books. I am not very skillful indeed my self; but I can ask advice, and follow it, and my daughter on her side takes all possible care of herself.

LETTER II.

Paris, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 1670.

Is it not true that I have given you the prettiest wife in the world? and can any one be more prudent, more regular in her conduct? Can any one love you more, have more Christian sentiments, long more ardently to be with you, or attend more strictly to the duties of her station? It is ridiculous enough to say all this of my own daughter; but I admire her as other people do, and perhaps more, as I am more an eyewitness of her behavior; and to own the truth to you, whatever good opinion I had of her as to the principal points, I never thought she would have been so exact as she is in all the minuter ones. I assure you, every body does her justice, and she loses none of the praises which are so much her due.

LETTER III.

Paris, Friday, August 15, 1670.

When I write to you so frequently, you must remember that it is on condition that you do not answer me. Relying on this, I shall proceed to tell you that I am heartily rejoiced at the many honors that are conferred on you. It appears to me that the commandant has less share in them than M. de Grignan himself; and I think I see a partiality for you that another would not experience.

I find there is so brisk a correspondence kept up between a certain lady and you, that it would be ridiculous to give you any news. I have not so much as a hope of acquainting you that she loves you: her every action, her whole conduct, with all her little anxieties and cares about you, tell it plain enough. I am very delicate in the point of friendship, and pretend to know something about it, and I own to you that I am perfectly satisfied with what I see, and could not wish it to be greater. Enjoy this pleasure to the utmost, and never be ungrateful. If there is any little vacant place in your heart, allow me the pleasure of occupying it; for, I assure you, you hold a very considerable one in mine.

LETTER IV.

Paris, Wednesday, December 10, 1670.

Madame de Coulanges has told me several times that you love me sincerely, that you talk of me, that you wish me with you. As I made the first advances toward this friendship, and loved first, you may judge how happy I am to find that you return the partiality I have so long had for you. All that you write of your daughter is admirable, and I had no doubt that the good health of the mother would comfort you for your disappointment. The joy I should have had in acquainting you with the birth of a son would have been too great—it would have been showering too many blessings at once; and the pleasure I naturally take in being the messenger of good news, would have been carried to excess. I shall soon be in the same condition you saw me in last year. I must love you extremely to send my daughter to you at this inclement season of the year. How foolish it is to leave a good mother, with whom you assure me she is very well satisfied, to run after a man at the furthest end of France! I give you my word, nothing can be more indecorous than such behavior. I do believe you were greatly concerned at the death of the amiable duchess. I was so afflicted myself that I stood in need of comfort while I was writing to you about it.

My daughter desires me to acquaint you with the marriage of Monsieur de Nevers;[296] that Monsieur de Nevers who was so difficult to be caught, who used to slip so unexpectedly through the hands of the fair, is at length going to wed. And whom think you? Not Mademoiselle de Houdancourt, nor yet Mademoiselle de Grancei, but the young, the handsome, the modest Mademoiselle de Thianges,[297] who was brought up at the Abbaye aux Bois. Madame de Montespan[298] has the wedding solemnized at her house next Sunday; she acts as mother on the occasion, and receives the honors as such. The king restored Monsieur de Nevers to all his posts, so that this belle, though she does not bring him a penny of fortune, will be worth more to him than the richest heiress in France. Madame de Montespan does wonders in every thing.

I forbid you to write to me. Write to my daughter, and leave me to the freedom of writing to you, without embarking you in a train of answers which would rob me of the pleasure I have in acquainting you with every little trifle. Continue to love me, my dear count. I dispense with your honoring my motherly dignity, but you must love me, and assure yourself that there is not a place in the world where you are so dearly beloved as you are here.

LETTER V.

Paris, Friday, January 16, 1671.

Alas! the poor dear child is still with me, for it was utterly impossible for her, do what she would, to have set out the 10th of this month, as she all along hoped and intended to do. The rains have been, and are still, so very violent that it would have been downright folly to have attempted it. The rivers are overflowed, the roads are all under water, and the carriage-tracks so covered that she would have run the risk of being overturned in every ford. In short, things are in such a state that Madame de Rochefort, who is at her country-seat, and is absolutely wild to be in Paris, where she is expected with the greatest impatience by her husband and mother, does not dare to venture till the roads are a little safer. Indeed, the winter is perfectly dreadful. We have not had an hour’s frost, but there has been a continual deluge of rain every day. Not a boat can pass under any of the bridges; the arches of the Pont Neuf are in a manner choked up. In short, it is something more than common. I own to you, that seeing the season so very inclement, I warmly opposed her setting out. I would not stop her for the cold, the dirt, or the fatigues of the journey, but methinks I would not have her drowned. Yet, strong as the reasons are for her stay, nothing could have prevailed on her had not the coadjutor, who is to go with her, been engaged to perform the marriage ceremony of his cousin De Harcourt,[299] which is to be solemnized at the Louvre. Monsieur de Leonne is to stand proxy. The king has spoken to the coadjutor upon this subject, but the affair has been put off day after day, and may not be finished this week. My poor daughter is in such extreme impatience to be gone that the time she now passes with us can not be called living; and if the coadjutor does not disengage himself from this same wedding, I think I see her ready to commit an act of folly by setting out without him. It would be so extraordinary to go by herself, and so happy on the contrary to have a brother-in-law to accompany her, that I shall do all in my power to prevent their separation. In the mean time the waters may be a little drained off. But I can assure you that I have no sort of pleasure in her company. I know that she must leave us. All that passes now is mere ceremony and preparation. We make no parties, we take no amusement; our hearts are heavy, and we talk of nothing but rains, bad roads, and dreadful stories of persons who have lost their lives in attempting to pass them.

LETTER VI.

The Rocks, Sunday, August 9, 1671.

You alone, my dear count, could have prevailed on me to give my daughter to a Provençal; this is truth, as Caderousse and Merrinville will witness for me; for if I had liked the latter as well as you, I should not have found so many expedients to prevent a conclusion, and she had been his. Do not entertain the least doubt of my having the highest opinion of you; a moment’s reflection will convince you I am sincere. I am not at all surprised that my daughter does not mention me to you; she served me just the same by you last year; believe, therefore, whether she tells you so or not, that I never forget you. I think I hear her scold, and say, “Ah! this is a pretense of yours to excuse your own laziness.” I shall leave you to dispute this among yourselves, and assure you that, though you are perhaps the most happily formed for general love and esteem of any man in the world, yet you never were, and never will be, more sincerely loved by any one than by me. I wish for you every day in my mall; but you are proud; I see that you expect me to visit you first; you may think yourself very happy that I am not an old woman, but am resolved to enjoy the remains of life and health in taking that journey: our abbé seems to have as strong an inclination to go there as myself; that is one good thing. Adieu, my dear Grignan, love me always; treat me with a sight of you, and you shall see my woods.

LETTER VII.

Paris, June 20, 1673.

Come hither, my son-in-law. So, then, you are resolved to send my daughter back to me in the first coach; you are displeased with her, and quite angry that she admires your castle, and think that she takes too great a liberty in pretending to reside there and command in every thing. As you say you hate every thing that is worthy of hatred, you certainly must hate her. I enter into all your displeasure; you could not have addressed yourself to one who feels the force of it better than myself. But do you know, after what you have said, that you make me tremble to hear you talk of wishing me at Grignan, and I am quite inconsolable for that reason; for there is nothing in futurity so dear to me as the hope of seeing you there; and whatever I may say, I am persuaded that you will be very glad of it too, and that you love me; it is impossible it should be otherwise; I love you so well, that the same sentiments must necessarily pass from me to you, and from you to me. I commend the care of my daughter’s health to you above all earthly things; watch over it, be absolute master in all that regards it; do not behave as you did at the bridge of Avignon; keep your authority in this one point, and in every thing else leave her to her own way; she is more skillful than you. Ah, how I pity you for having lost the pleasure of receiving her letters! You were much happier a year ago; would to God you had that pleasure now, and I had the mortification of seeing and embracing her! Adieu, my dearest count, though I believe you are as much beloved as any man in the world, yet I do not think that any of your mothers-in-law[300] ever loved you so well as I do.

LETTER VIII.

The Rocks, July, 1614.

You flatter me too much, my dear count; I shall accept of but one part of your fine speeches, and that is the thanks you return me for having given you a wife, that constitutes all your happiness; for, indeed, I think I contributed a little toward it: but the authority you have acquired over her in Provence, has been wholly owing to yourself, to your merit, your birth, and your conduct; all this I have nothing to do with. Ah! how much you lose by my heart not being at ease! Le Camus is delighted with me; he tells me I sing his airs extremely well: he certainly composes divinely; but I am so dull and woebegone, that I can learn nothing. You would sing them like an angel; I assure you Le Camus has a high opinion both of your voice and judgment. I regret the loss of these little accomplishments which we are too apt to neglect. Why should we lose them? I have always said that we ought not to part with them, and that they can never be an incumbrance; but what is to be done with a rope round the neck? You have given my daughter one of the most delightful journeys in the world; she is quite enchanted with it; but then you have dragged her over hills and dales, and exposed her to the dangers of the Alps, and to the uncivil waves of the Mediterranean; in short, I have a month’s mind to chide you for it; but let me first embrace you most affectionately.

LETTER IX.

The Rocks, November 6, 1675.

Count, I am delighted to hear that my daughter is satisfied with you. Allow me to thank you by reason of the great interest I take in your affairs, and which I entreat you to preserve. You can not fail of this without ingratitude, and without doing injustice to the blood of the Adhémars. I have read, in the Crusades, of one of these who was an illustrious personage six hundred years ago. He was beloved as you are, and would never have given a moment’s uneasiness to such a wife as yours. His death was lamented by an army of three hundred thousand men, and mourned by all the princes in Christendom. Not many pages after I find a castellane, not altogether so ancient; he is, indeed, a mere modern; it was but five hundred and twenty years since he made a great figure. I conjure you, therefore, by these two noble ancestors, who are my particular friends, to be guided by Madame de Grignan, and consider how much you will consult your own interest in doing so.