CHAPTER XXVII.
Je noterai cela, Madame, dans mon livre.--Moliere.
I am not one of those persons who are many days in deciding what may beeffected in one. "On the third day from this," said I to Bedos, "at halfpast nine in the morning, I shall leave Paris for England."
"Oh, my poor wife!" said the valet, "she will break her heart if I leaveher."
"Then stay," said I. Bedos shrugged his shoulders.
"I prefer being with Monsieur to all things."
"What, even to your wife?" The courteous rascal placed his hand to hisheart and bowed. "You shall not suffer by your fidelity--you shall takeyour wife with you."
The conjugal valet's countenance fell. "No," he said, "no; he could nottake advantage of Monsieur's generosity."
"I insist upon it--not another word."
"I beg a thousand pardons of Monsieur; but--but my wife is very ill, andunable to travel."
"Then, in that case, so excellent a husband cannot think of leaving asick and destitute wife."
"Poverty has no law; if I consulted my heart and stayed, I shouldstarve, et il faut vivre."
"Je n'en vois pas la necessite," replied I, as I got into my carriage.That repartee, by the way, I cannot claim as my own; it is the veryunanswerable answer of a judge to an expostulating thief.
I made the round of reciprocal regrets, according to the orthodoxformula. The Duchesse de Perpignan was the last--(Madame D'Anville Ireserved for another day)--that virtuous and wise personage was in theboudoir of reception. I glanced at the fatal door as I entered. I havea great aversion, after any thing has once happened and fairly subsided,to make any allusion to its former existence. I never, therefore, talkedto the Duchess about our ancient egaremens. I spoke, this morning,of the marriage of one person, the death of another, and lastly, thedeparture of my individual self.
"When do you go?" she said, eagerly.
"In two days: my departure will be softened, if I can execute anycommissions in England for Madame."
"None," said she; and then in a low tone (that none of the idlers, whowere always found at her morning levees, should hear), she added, "youwill receive a note from me this evening."
I bowed, changed the conversation, and withdrew. I dined in my ownrooms, and spent the evening in looking over the various billets-doux,received during my sejour at Paris.
"Where shall I put all these locks of hair?" asked Bedos, opening adrawer full.
"Into my scrap-book."
"And all these letters?"
"Into the fire."
I was just getting into bed when the Duchesse de Perpignan's notearrived--it was as follows:--
"My dear Friend,
"For that word, so doubtful in our language, I may at least call you inyour own. I am unwilling that you should leave this country with thosesentiments you now entertain of me, unaltered, yet I cannot imagine anyform of words of sufficient magic to change them. Oh! if you knew howmuch I am to be pitied; if you could look for one moment into thislonely and blighted heart; if you could trace, step by step, theprogress I have made in folly and sin, you would see how much of whatyou now condemn and despise, I have owed to circumstances, rather thanto the vice of my disposition. I was born a beauty, educated a beauty,owed fame, rank, power to beauty; and it is to the advantages I havederived from person that I owe the ruin of my mind. You have seen howmuch I now derive from art I loathe myself as I write that sentence; butno matter: from that moment you loathed me too. You did not take intoconsideration, that I had been living on excitement all my youth, andthat in my maturer years I could not relinquish it. I had reigned by myattractions, and I thought every art preferable to resigning my empire:but in feeding my vanity, I had not been able to stifle the dictates ofmy heart. Love is so natural to a woman, that she is scarcely a womanwho resists it: but in me it has been a sentiment, not a passion.
"Sentiment, then, and vanity, have been my seducers. I said, that Iowed my errors to circumstances, not to nature. You will say, thatin confessing love and vanity to be my seducers, I contradict thisassertion--you are mistaken. I mean, that though vanity and sentimentwere in me, yet the scenes in which I have been placed, and the eventswhich I have witnessed, gave to those latent currents of action a wrongand a dangerous direction. I was formed to love; for one whom I did loveI could have made every sacrifice. I married a man I hated, and I onlylearnt the depths of my heart when it was too late.
"Enough of this; you will leave this country; we shall never meetagain--never! You may return to Paris, but I shall then be no more;n'importe--I shall be unchanged to the last. Je mourrai en reine.
"As a latest pledge of what I have felt for you, I send you the enclosedchain and ring; as a latest favour, I request you to wear them for sixmonths, and, above all, for two hours in the Tuileries tomorrow. Youwill laugh at this request: it seems idle and romantic--perhaps itis so. Love has many exaggerations in sentiment, which reason woulddespise. What wonder, then, that mine, above that of all others, shouldconceive them? You will not, I know, deny this request. Farewell!--inthis world we shall never meet again, and I believe not in the existenceof another. Farewell!
"E. P."
"A most sensible effusion," said I to myself, when I had read thisbillet; "and yet, after all, it shows more feeling and more characterthan I could have supposed she possessed." I took up the chain: itwas of Maltese workmanship; not very handsome, nor, indeed, in any wayremarkable, except for a plain hair ring which was attached to it, andwhich I found myself unable to take off, without breaking. "It is a verysingular request," thought I, "but then it comes from a very singularperson; and as it rather partakes of adventure and intrigue, I shall atall events appear in the Tuileries, tomorrow, chained and ringed."
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