THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE
 
 Mlle. Julie de Lespinasse
 
 LETTERS ' 
 
 OF 
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE 
 
 litt Notes on \)a ILiit ant CI)aracta: 
 
 BY 
 
 D'ALEMBERT, MARMONTEL, DE GUIBERT, Etc 
 
 AND 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION BY C.-A. SAINTE-BEUVE 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOIT WORMELEY. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HARDY, PRATT & COMPANY. 
 1903.
 
 i/yt/// *? 
 
 Copyright 1901, 
 By Hardy, Pratt & Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ^SnttoErsitg Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction. By C.-A. Sainte-Beuve 1 
 
 Notes on the Life and Character of Mlle. de Lespi- 
 
 NASSE. By Grimm, Marmontel, La Harpe, etc. . . 21 
 
 Letters from Mlle. de Lespinasse to M. de Guibert . 42 
 Portrait of Julie-Jeanne-El^onore de Lespinasse. By 
 
 D'Alembert 299 
 
 Eulogy of Eliza. By M. de Guibert 310 
 
 To the Manes of Mlle. de Lespinasse. By D'Alembert 326 
 
 Letters from Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 
 Voltaire, and D'Alembert, on the Death of Mlle. 
 
 DE Lespinasse 332
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 By C.-A. SAINTE-BEUVE. 
 
 The claims of Mile, de Lespinasse to the attention of poster- 
 ity are positive and durable. At the moment of her death she 
 was universally regretted, as having, without name, without 
 fortune, without beauty, created for herself the salon most 
 in vogue, most eagerly frequented at an epoch which counted 
 so many that were brilliant. Still, this flattering chorus of 
 regi'ets given to the memory of the friend of d'Alembert 
 would have left but a vague and presently receding idea of 
 her, if the publication of her Letters, made in 1809, had not 
 revealed her under an aspect wholly different, and shown, no 
 longer the charmmg person dear to society, but the woman 
 of heart and passion, the burning and self-consuming victim. 
 
 This volume of Letters from Mile, de Lespinasse to the 
 Comte de Guibert is one of the most curious and most 
 memorable monuments to passion. In 1820 another volume, 
 under the title of " Nouveaux Lettres de Mile, de Lespinasse," 
 was published, which is not hers ; it is unworthy of her mind 
 and of her heart ; being as flat and insipid as the other 
 is distinguished, or, to say it better, unique. I beg- my read- 
 ers not to confound that volume of 1820 (a speculation and 
 fabrication of publishers) with the Letters given to the world 
 in 1809, the only ones that deserve confidence, and of which 
 I desire to speak. 
 
 These love-letters, addressed to M. de Guibert, were pub- 
 lished by the widow of M. de Guibert, assisted in the work 
 
 1
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by Barrfere, the Barrfere of the Terror, neither more nor less, 
 who, as we know, loved literature, especially that of senti- 
 ment. Wlien the Letters appeared there was great emotion 
 in society, several of the friends of Mile, de Lespinasse being 
 still alive at that date. They deplored the indiscreet publi- 
 cation ; they blamed the conduct of the editors, who thus 
 dishonoured, they said, the memory of a woman until then 
 respected, and betrayed her secret to all, without the right to 
 do so. They appealed to both morality and decency ; they 
 invoked the very fame of Mile, de Lespinasse. Nevertheless, 
 they eagerly enjoyed the reading of the Letters, which far sur- 
 passed in interest the most ardent romances, being, in truth, a 
 " Nouvelle H(^loise " in action. To-day jjosterity, indifferent 
 to personal considerations, sees only the book, and classes it 
 in the series of immortal paintings and testimonies of passion, 
 of which there is not so great a number that we cannot count 
 them. Antiquity gives us Sappho for certain accents, certain 
 sighs of fire that come to us athwart the ages ; it has given 
 us the " Phcedra " of Euripides, the " Magician " of Theocritus, 
 the " Medea " of Apollonius of Ehodes, the " Dido " of Virgil, 
 the "Ariadne" of Catullus. Among moderns we have the 
 Latin Letters of H^loise, those of the Portuguese nun, " Manou 
 Lescaut," the " Ph^dre " of Eacine, and a few other rare pro- 
 ductions, among which the Letters of Mile, de Lespinasse are 
 in the first rank. Oh ! if the late Barr^re had never done 
 worse in his life than publish these Letters, if he had had no 
 greater burden on his conscience we would say to-day, absolv- 
 ing him with all our heart, " May the earth lie light upon 
 him ! " 
 
 Here is an anecdote which I possess from the original. 
 At the time when these Letters appeared, a brilliant society 
 had gathered at the baths of Aix in Savoie. Some of the 
 party had gone to visit Chamb^ry ; on their return one of the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 carriages was occupied by Mme. de Stael, Benjamin Constant, 
 Mme. de Boigne, Adrien de Montmorency, etc. During the 
 drive a series of accidents occurred — tempest, thunder and 
 lightning, hindrances and dela}-s of all kinds. On arriving 
 at Aix the persons in the carriage found the people of the 
 hotel grouped at the door, very anxious and inquiring. But 
 they, the travellers, had seen nothing, and noticed nothing 
 of the accidents without, for Mme. de Stael had talked the 
 whole time, and her topic was the Letters of Mile, de Lespi- 
 nasse and M. de Guibert, who had been her own first lover. 
 
 The life of Mile, de Lespinasse began early in being a 
 romance, and more than a romance. She was the natural 
 daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon, a lady of condition in 
 Burgundy, whose legitimate daughter had manied the brother 
 of the Marquise du Deffand. It was at the house of this 
 brother, the Marquis de Vichy-Chamrond, in Burgundy, that 
 Mme. du Deffand found the yoimg girl, then twenty j'ears of 
 age, oppressed, assigned to inferior domestic duties, and kept 
 in a condition that was wholly dependent. She took a fancy 
 to her at once ; or rather, they took a fancy to each other, and 
 we can readily conceive it ; if we look only to the value of 
 minds, it is seldom that chance brings together two more 
 distinguished. 
 
 Mme. du Deffand had no peace until she had drawn the 
 young girl from her province and installed her with herself 
 at the convent of Saint-Joseph, as her companion and reader, 
 intending to make of her a perpetual resource. The family 
 of the young girl's mother had, however, a strong fear, 
 namely : that she might profit by her new position and the 
 protectors she would find in society to claim the name of 
 Albon and 'her share of the inheritance. She might have 
 done so, in fact ; for she was born during the lifetime of M. 
 d'Albon, the husband of her mother, and the law recognizes
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 all such children as legitimate. Mme. du Deffand thought it 
 right to take precautions, and dictated to her, with little deli- 
 cacy, certain conditions on this point before permitting her 
 to come to her ; for one who appreciated so well the young 
 girl's mind it was knowing very little of her heart. 
 
 This arrangement of a life in common was made in 1754, 
 and it lasted till 1764 : ten years of household companion- 
 ship and concord ; a long period, longer than could have been 
 hoped between two minds so equal in quality and associated 
 with elements so impetuous. But finally, Mme. du Deft'and, 
 who rose late and was never afoot before six in the evening, 
 discovered that her young companion was receiving in her 
 private room, a good hour earlier, most of her own habitual 
 visitors, thus taking for herself the first-fruits of their con- 
 versation. Mme. du Deffand felt herself defrauded of her 
 most cherished rights, and uttered loud outcries, as if it were 
 a matter of domestic robbery. The storm was terrible, and 
 could only end in a rupture. Mile, de Lespinasse left the 
 convent of Saint-Joseph abruptly ; her friends clubbed to- 
 gether to make her a salon and a subsistence in the rue de 
 Belle-Chasse. These friends were d'Alembert, Turgot, the 
 Chevalier de Chastellux, Lom^nie de Brienne, the future 
 archbishop and cardinal, Boisgelin, Archbishop of Aix, the 
 Abb^ de Boismont, — in short, the flower of the minds of that 
 day. This brilliant colony followed the emigrant spirit and 
 her fortunes. From that moment Mile, de Lespinasse lived 
 apart and became, through her salon and through her influ- 
 ence on d'Alembert, one of the recognized powers of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Happy days ! when all life turned to sociability ; when all 
 was arranged for the gentlest commerce of minds and for the 
 best conversation. Not a vacant day, not a vacant hour ! If 
 you were a man of letters and more or less of a philosopher.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 here is the regular employment you could make of your week : 
 Sunday and Thursday, dinner with Baron d'Holbach ; Mon- 
 day and Wednesday, dinner with Mme. Geoffrin ; Tuesday, 
 dinner with M. Helv^tius ; Friday, dinner with Mme. Necker. 
 I do not mention the Sunday breakfasts of the Abbd Morellet ; 
 those, I think, came a little later. Mile, de Lespinasse, hav- 
 ing no means to give dinners and suppers, was punctually 
 at home from five to nine o'clock, and her circle assembled 
 every day during those hours of the " early evening." 
 
 What she was as mistress of her salon and as a bond of 
 society before, and even after, the invasion and delirium of 
 her fatal passion, all the Memoirs of the time will tell us. 
 She was much attached to d'Alembert, illegitimate like her- 
 self, who (like herself again) had proudly forborne to seek 
 for rights which tenderness had failed to give him. D'Alem- 
 bert was then lodging with his foster-mother, the worthy 
 wife of a glazier, in the rue Michel-le-Comte, which was far 
 from the rue de Belle-Cliasse. A serious illness seized him, 
 during which Mile, de Lespinasse took care of him, induced 
 the doctors to order him to live in better air, and finally 
 decided him to come to her. From that day they made one 
 household, but in all honour and propriety, so that no one 
 ever gossiped to the contrary. D'AlemberVs life became 
 much easier, and the respect paid to Mile, de Lespinasse was 
 thereby increased. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse was not pretty ; but through mind, 
 through grace, through the gift of pleasing, Nature had amply 
 compensated her. From the first day when she came to 
 Paris she seemed as much at her ease and as little provincial 
 as if she had lived here all her life. She profited by the edu- 
 cation of the excellent society that surrounded her, although 
 she had little need to do so. Her great art in social life, one 
 of the secrets of her success, was to feel the minds of others,
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to make them shine, and to seem to forget herself. Her con- 
 versation was neitlier above nor below those with whom she 
 talked ; she had the sense of measurement, proportion, accu- 
 racy. She reflected so well the impressions of others, and 
 received so visibly the effect of their minds, that others loved 
 her for the success they felt they had with her. She raised 
 this method to an art. "Ah! how I wish," she exclaimed 
 one day, " that I knew everybody's weakness." D'Alembert 
 fastened on the words and blamed them, as proceeding from 
 too great a desire to please, and to please every one. But even 
 in that desire, and in the means it suggested to her she re- 
 mained true, she was sincere. She said of herself, in expla- 
 nation of her success with others that she held the " truth of 
 all \_le vrai de tout], while other women held the truth of 
 nothing \lc vrai de rien]." 
 
 In conversing she had the gift of the right word, the 
 instinct for the exact and choicest expression ; common 
 and trivial expressions disgusted her ; she was shocked, and 
 could not recover herself. She was not precisely simple, 
 though very natural. It was the same with her clothes. 
 " She gave," some one said, " an idea of richness which by 
 taste and choice was vowed to simplicity." Her literary 
 taste was more lively \_vif] than sure ; she loved, she adored 
 Racine, as master of the heart, but for all that she did not 
 like the over-finished, she preferred the rough and sketchy. 
 Whatever caught her by an inward fibre excited and uplifted 
 her ; she could even have mercy on a worthless book for one 
 or two situations in it which went to her soul. She has 
 imitated Sterne in a couple of chapters which are worth 
 little. As a writer, where she does not dream of being one, 
 that is to say Ln her Letters, her pen is clear, firm, excellent, 
 except for a few words such as sensitive, virtuous, which are 
 repeated too often, and show the influence of Je^in-Jacques.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 But never any commonplaceness, never declamation ; all is 
 from the living spring, from nature. 
 
 Let us come at once to her principal claim, to her glory 
 of loving woman. In spite of her tender friendship for 
 d'Alembert, a friendship which was doubtless a little more 
 at its origin, we may say that Mile, de Lespinasse loved 
 but twice in her life : she loved M. de Mora and M. de 
 Guibert. It is the struggle of these two passions, the one 
 expiring but powerful still, the other whelming-in and soon 
 to be paramount, it is this violent and desperate combat which 
 constitutes the heart-rending drama to which the publication 
 of these Letters initiates us. The contemporaries of Mile, 
 de Lespinasse, her nearest and best informed friends knew 
 nothing of it. Condorcet, writing to Turgot, often speaks of 
 her and tells him of her nervous attacks, but without appear- 
 ing to suspect their cause; those who, like Marmontel, 
 divined some trouble, were wholly on the wrong scent as to 
 dates and sentiments. D'Alembert himself, so concerned in 
 seeing clearly, knew the mystery only on reading certain 
 papers after her death. Therefore we must seek the truth 
 as to the secret sentiments of Mile, de Lespinasse from her 
 own avowals, from herself alone. 
 
 She had loved M. de Mora for five or six years, when she 
 met for the first time M. de Guibert. The Marquis de 
 Mora was the son of the Comte de Fuent^s, ambassador from 
 Spain to the Co\u-t of France. All things prove that, 
 although still young, he was a man of superior merit and 
 destined to a great future had he lived. As to this, we have 
 not only the assurance of Mile, de Lespinasse, but that of 
 others least subject to infatuation among his contempo- 
 raries ; the Abbe Galiani, for instance, learning in Naples of 
 his death, writes to Mme. d'Epinay (June 18, 1774): "I 
 dare not speak of Mora. I have mourned him long. All is
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 destined iu this world, and Spain was not worthy to possess 
 a M. de Mora." And again (July 8th) : " There are lives on 
 which depend the fate of empires. Hannibal, when he 
 heard of the defeat and death of his brother Hasdrubal, a 
 man of greater worth than himself, did not weep, but he 
 said, ' Now I know what will be the fate of Carthage.' I 
 say the same on the death of M. de ]\Iora." 
 
 M. de Mora came to France about the year 1766; it was 
 then that Mile, de Lespinasse knew him and loved him. He 
 was absent at various times, but always returned to her. 
 Finally, his lungs were attacked and his native climate was 
 ordered for him. He left Paris, never to re-enter it, on 
 Friday, August 7, 1772. Mile, de Lespinasse, philosopher 
 and freethinker none the less, was on one point as supersti- 
 tious as any Spanish woman, as any loving woman ; and she 
 did not fail to note that having quitted Paris on a Friday, 
 it was on a 'Friday also that he left Madrid (May 6, 1774), 
 and that he died at Bordeaux on Friday, the 27th of the same 
 month. When he left Paris the passion of Mile, de Les- 
 pinasse for him and that which he returned to her had never 
 been more ardent. An idea of it may be gained from the 
 fact that during a journey which M. de Mora made to 
 Fontainebleau in the autumn of 1771 he wrote twenty-two 
 letters to her in ten days of absence. Matters were estab- 
 lished on this tone, and the pair had parted with every 
 promise and every pledge between them, when Mile, de Les- 
 pinasse, in the month of September, 1772, met the Comte 
 de Guibert for the first time, at Moulin-Joh, the country- 
 house of M. Watelet. 
 
 M. de Guibert, then about twenty-nine years of age, was a 
 young colonel for whom society had lately roused itself to a 
 pitch of enthusiasm. He had recently published an " Essay 
 on Tactics," preceded by a survey of the state of political and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 military science in Europe. In it were generous, or as we 
 should say in these clays, advanced ideas. He discussed the 
 great Frederick's system of war. He competed at the Acade- 
 my on subjects of patriotic eulogj- ; he had tragedies in his 
 desk on national subjects. " He aims at nothing less," said 
 La Harpe, " than replacing Turenne, Corneille, and Bossuet." 
 It would be very easy at this date, but not very just, to make 
 a caricature of M. de Guibert, a man whom every one, begin- 
 ning with Voltaire, considered at his dawn as vowed to glory 
 and grandeur, and who kept the pledge so insufficiently. 
 Abortive hero of that epoch of Louis XVL which gave 
 France naught but promises, M. de Guibert entered the 
 world, his head high and on the footing of a genius ; it was, 
 so to speak, his speciality to have genius, and you will not 
 find a writer of his day who does not use the word in rela- 
 tion to him. " A soul," they cried, " which springs on all 
 sides towards fame." 
 
 This was an attitude difficult to maintain, and the fall, at 
 last, was all the more bitter to him. Let us admit, however, 
 that a man who could be loved to such a point by Mile, de 
 Lespuiasse, and who, subsequentl}", had the honour of first 
 occupying the heart of Mme. de Stael, must have had those 
 eager, animated qualities which belong to personality, and 
 mislead the judgment as to deeds so long as their father 
 is present. M. de Guibert had the qualities that exhilarate, 
 excite, and impress ; he had his full value in a brilliant cir- 
 cle ; but he chilled quickly and was out of place in the bosom 
 of intimacy. In the order of sentiments he had the emotion, 
 the tumult, the din of passion, but not its warmth. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse, who ended by judging him as he was 
 and by estimating his just weight wrthout being able to 
 cease loving him, began, in the first instance, by admiration. 
 " Love," it is said, " begins usually by admhation, and it sur-
 
 Lb INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vives esteem with difficulty, or rather, it does not survive it, 
 except in prolonging its existence by convulsions." Here, in 
 her, is the history of that fatal passion ; the degrees of which 
 were so rapid that we can scarcely distinguish them. She 
 was then {must we tell it ?) nearly forty years old. She was 
 bitterly regretting the departure of M. de Mora — that true 
 man of delicacy and feelmg, that truly superior man — 
 when she involved herself in loving M. de Guibert, the false 
 great man, but who was present and seductive. Her first 
 letter is dated Saturday evening, May 15, 1773. M. de Gui- 
 bert was about to start on a long journey through Germany, 
 Prussia, and, possibly, Russia. We have his own printed 
 " Relation " of this journey, and it is curious to put these 
 witty, practical, often instructive and sometimes emphatic and 
 sentimental notes side by side with the letters of his ardent 
 friend. Before he departs he has already done her some 
 wrong. He had said he would leave Tuesday, May 18th, 
 then Wednesday, but he did not start till Thursday, the 20th, 
 and his friend knew nothing of it. It is evident that she 
 was not the one to receive his last thought, his last farewell. 
 She suffers already, and blames herself for suffering ; she has 
 just received a letter from M. de Mora, full of confidence in 
 her love ; she is ready to sacrifice everything to him, " but," 
 she adds, " for the last two months I have had no sacrifice to 
 make to him." She thinks she still loves M. de Mora ; that 
 she can stop and immolate at will the new feeling which de- 
 taclies and drags her away from him. M. de Mora absent, 
 ill, faithful, writes to her, and each letter reopens her wound 
 and quickens her remorse. What will it be when, returning 
 to her, he falls ill and dies on his way at Bordeaux ? Thus, 
 until the end, we find her torn in her delirium between the 
 need, the desire to die for M. de Mora, and the desire to live 
 for M. de Guibert. " Do you conceive, mo7i ami, the species
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 of torture to which I am condemned ? I have remorse for 
 what I give you, and regrets for what I am forced to with- 
 hold." But this is only the beginning of it all.^ 
 
 M. de Guibert, who is much in vogue, and something of a 
 coxcomb, leaves behind him, when he goes upon his journey, 
 more than one regret, ^^^e tind there are two women, one 
 whom he loves, who responds but little, the other who loves 
 him, but does not occupy him much. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse takes an interest in these persons, in 
 one especially, and she tries to glide between the two. But 
 what of that ? when the heart loves utterly it is not proud, 
 and she tells herself, with Felix in " Polyeucte," — 
 
 "I enter upon feelings that are not believable; 
 Some I have are violent, others are pitiable, 
 I have even some . . ." 
 
 She dares not conclude with Corneille, " some that are base." 
 She asks to be given a place apart, for herself ; she does not 
 yet know what place. 
 
 " Let us decide our ranks" she says. " Give me my place, 
 but, as I do not like to change, give me a good one. I do 
 not wish that of this unhappy woman, who is displeased with 
 you ; nor that of the other, with whom you are displeased. 
 I do not know where you will place me, but do so, if possible, 
 that we may both be content : do not bargain ; grant me 
 much ; you shall see that I will not abuse it. Oh ! you 
 shall see that I know how to love ! I can but love, I know 
 only how to love." 
 
 Here begins the eternal note, and it never ceases. To love 
 
 1 The Letters are addressed tliroughout to " men ami," which cannot 
 here be translated as " my friend : " the consonants themselves forbid it, 
 also the limited meaning of the English word in its general use. Conse- 
 quently; the soft French word, with more love in it, is retained in the 
 following translation. — Tr,
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. * 
 
 — that is her lot. Phsedra, Sappho, and Dido had none more 
 complete, more fatal. Slie deceives herself when she says : 
 " I have a strength, or a faculty, which makes me equal to 
 everything : it is that of knowing how to suffer, and to suffer 
 much without complaint." She knows how to suffer, but she 
 does complain, she cries aloud, slie passes in the twinkling of 
 an eye from exaltation to dejection : " What shall I say to 
 you ? the excess of my inconsistency bewilders my mind, and 
 the weight of life is crushing my soul. What must I do ? 
 What shall I become ? Will it be Charenton or the grave 
 that shall deliver me from myself ? " 
 
 She counts the letters she receives ; her life depends on the 
 postman : " There is a certain carrier who for the last year 
 gives fever to my soul." To calm herself while waiting and 
 expecting, to obtain the sleep that flees her, she finds nothing 
 better than recourse to opium, of which we find her doubling 
 the doses with the progress of her woe. \^^iat matters to 
 her the destiny of other women, those women of society, wdio 
 " for the most part feel no need of being loved ; all they want 
 is to be jyre.f erred " ? As for her, what she wants is to be 
 loved, or rather, to love, even without return : " You do not 
 know all that I am worth ; reflect that I can suffer and die ; 
 judge from that if I resemble those other women, who know 
 how to please and amuse." In vain does she cry out now 
 and then : " Oh ! I hate you for giving me the knowledge of 
 hope, fear, pain, pleasure ; I did not need those emotions ; 
 why did you not leave me in peace ? My soul had no need to 
 love ; it was filled by a tender sentiment, deep, and shared, 
 responded to, though sorrowful in parting. It was the impul- 
 sion of that soiTOW that took me to you ; I meant that you 
 should please me only, but you did more ; in consoling me 
 you bound me to you." In vain does she curse the violent 
 feeling which has taken the place of an equable and gentler
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 sentiment ; her soul is so grasped, so ardent that she cannot 
 keep from transports, as it were, of intoxication : " I live, I 
 exist with such force that there are moments when I find 
 myself loving to madness and to my own misery." 
 
 So long as M. de Guibert is absent she restrains herself a 
 little — if it can be called restraint. He returns, however, at 
 the end of October, 1773, after being distinguished by the great 
 Frederick and taking part in the manoeuvres of the camp in 
 Silesia ; thus acquiring a fresh resplendency. Here, with a 
 little attention, it is impossible not to note a decisive moment, 
 a moment we must veil, which corresponds to that of the 
 grotto in Dido's episode. ^ A year later, in a letter from Mile, 
 de Lespinasse dated midnight (1775) we find these words, 
 which leave but little room for doubt : " It was on the 10th 
 of February of last year (1774) that I was intoxicated by a 
 poison the effect of which lasts to this day. . . ." She 
 continues this delirious and doleful commemoration, in which 
 the image, the spectre, of M. de Mora, dying on his way to 
 her, mingles with the nearer and more charming image which 
 wraps her in a fatal attraction. 
 
 From this moment passion is at its height, and there is 
 scarcely a page in the Letters that is not all flame. Scrupu- 
 lous persons, though they read and relish them, blame M. de 
 Guibert severely for not having returned them to j\Ille. de 
 Lespinasse, who frequently asked for them. It appears, in 
 
 1 Her letters do not seem to bear out this conclusion. The close intimacy 
 with the personality of a writer that comes, in the work of translation, 
 from the necessary scrutiny of his or her words and thoughts and habitual 
 method of expressing them gives — to the translator at least — ground for 
 doubting this opinion. It may be true ; but a Frenchman's mind, even 
 that of Sainte-Beuve, seems unable to escape from this line of judgment. 
 If it is not true, tlie soul's tragedy is far greater. IMUe. de Lespinasse 
 uses plain, clear language, which reveals tlie passion of her nature simply ; 
 when she speaks of "remorse " for her infidelity to M. de Mora, she is ex- 
 pressing the extreme, perliaps excessive, honour, delicacy, and sensitiveness 
 of her spirit. — Tr.
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fact, that order and attention were not among the number of 
 M. de Guibert's good qualities ; he takes no care of his friend's 
 letters : he mingles them with his other papers, he drops them 
 from his pocket by mistake, while at the same time he forgets 
 to seal his own. Sometimes he returns them to her, bu.t 
 among the number returned some are not hers ! In that we 
 see M. de Guibert undisguised. Nevertheless, I do not know 
 why he should be held responsible and guilty to-day for the 
 pleasure we derive from these Letters. He doubtless returned 
 many, and many were destroyed. But Mile, de Lespinasse 
 wrote many. It is but a handful, preserved by chance, which 
 have come to us. What matter ? the thread of the stor}^ is 
 there, and it suffices. Throughout, they are almost one and 
 the same letter, ever novel, ever unexpected, beginning 
 afresh. 
 
 Amid their anguish, their plaints, one word, the divine 
 eternal word, returns again and again and redeems all. 
 Here is one of her letters in two lines which says more 
 than many words : — 
 
 "From every instant of my life, 1774. 
 "Mon ami, — I suffer, I love you, I await you." 
 
 It is very rare in France to meet (pushed to this degree) 
 with the class of passion and " sacred ill " of which Mile, de 
 Lespinasse was the victim. This is not a reproach that I 
 make — God forbid ! — to the amiable women of our nation ; 
 it is a simple remark, which others have made before me. A 
 moralist of the eighteenth century who knew his times, M. 
 de Meilhan, has said, " In France, great passions are as rare 
 as great men." M. de Mora declared that even the Spanish 
 women could not enter into comparison with his friend. 
 " Oh ! they are not worthy to be your pupils," he tells her 
 constantly ; " your soul was warmed by the sun of Lima, but
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 my compatriots seem born beneath the snows of Lapland." 
 And it was from Madrid that he wrote it ! He found her 
 comparable to none but a Peruvian, daughter of the Sun. 
 " To love and suffer," she cries, " Heaven or Hell ; to that I 
 would vow myself; it is that I would feel; that is the 
 climate I desire to inhahit ; " and she pities the women 
 who live and vegetate in a milder air and flirt their fans 
 around her. "I have known only the climate of Hell, 
 rarely that of Heaven." " Ah ! my God ! " she says again, 
 " how natural passion is to me, and how foreign is reason ! 
 Mon ami, never did any one reveal herself with such 
 abandonment." It is this abandonment, this total unre- 
 serve which is the interest and the excuse of the mental 
 situation, the sincerest and the most deplorable that ever 
 betrayed itself to the eye. 
 
 This situation of soul is so visibly deplorable that we may 
 look upon it, I think, without danger ; so inherent is the sense 
 of malady, so plainly do delirium, frenzy, agony disclose them- 
 selves pell-mell. While admiring a nature capable of this 
 powerful manner of feelmg, we are tempted as we read to 
 pray that Heaven would turn from us and from those we 
 love so invincible a fatality, so terrible a thunderbolt. I shall 
 try to note the course of this passion, as much, at least, as it 
 is possible to note down that which was irregularity and 
 contradiction itself. 
 
 Before the journey of M. de Guibert to German}^, Mile, de 
 Lespinasse loved him, but had not yielded to her love. She 
 admired him, she was filled with enthusiasm, already she 
 suftered cruelly and made poison of everything. He returns, 
 she intoxicates herself, she yields ; then follows remorse ; she 
 judges him correctly ; she sees with terror his indifference ; 
 she sees him as he is — a man of flourish, of vanity, of suc- 
 cess ; not a man for intimacy, having, above all, a need for
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 expansion; excited, animated by things from without, but 
 never deeply emotional. 
 
 But of what use is it to become clear-sighted ? Did a 
 woman's mind, great as it may be, ever check her heart ? 
 " The mind of most women serves to strengthen their folly 
 rather than their reason ! " La Kochefoucauld says that, and 
 Mile, de Lespinasse proves the truth of it. She continued to 
 love M. de Guibert, all the while judging him. She suffers 
 more and more ; she appeals to him and chides him with a 
 mixture of irritation and tenderness : " Fill my soul, or cease 
 to torture it ; make me to love you always, or to be as though 
 I had never loved you — in short, do the impossible; calm 
 me, or I die ! " 
 
 Instead of that, he harms her ; with his natural careless- 
 ness he finds a way to wound even her self-love. She compares 
 him to M. de Mora ; she blushes for him, for herself, at the 
 difference between them : " And it is you who have made 
 me guilty towards that man ! the thought revolts my soul, 
 and I turn away from it." Repentance, hatred, jealousy, re- 
 morse, contempt of herself, and sometimes of him — she suf- 
 fers at all moments the tortures of the damned. To deaden 
 them, to distract her mind, to make truce with her sufferings, 
 she has recourse to many things. She tries " Tancrfede," 
 which touches her ; she thinks it beautiful, but nothing is 
 on the key of her own soul. She has recourse to opium to 
 suspend her life and numb her sensibilities. Sometimes 
 she makes a resolution to no longer open the letters she 
 receives ; she keeps one, sealed, for six days. There are 
 days, weeks, when she thinks herself almost cured, re- 
 stored to reason, to calmness ; she extols reason and its 
 sweetness ; but her calmness is merely an illusion. Her 
 passion counterfeited death only to revive more ardent, 
 more inflamed than ever. She regrets no longer her de-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 ceitful, insipid calmness. " I lived," she says, " but I seemed 
 to be apart from myself." She tells M. de Guibert that she 
 hates him, but we know what that means : " You know well 
 that when I hate you it is that I love you to a degree of pas- 
 sion that overthrows my reason." 
 
 Her life is thus passed in loving, hating, fainting, reviving, 
 dying ; that is to say, in ever loving. Each crisis ends by 
 a pardon, a reconciliation, a closer and more violent clasp. 
 M. de Guibert thinks of his fortune and his establishment ; 
 she concerns herself with them for his sake. Yes, she con- 
 cerns herself about his marriage. When he marries (for he 
 has the face to many in the very midst of this passion) she 
 takes an interest in it ; she praises the young wife, whom she 
 meets. Alas ! it may be to that generous praise that we owe 
 the preservation of these Letters, which ought in those rival 
 hands to have been annihilated. It might be supposed that 
 this marriage of M. de Guibert would end all ; the noble, de- 
 mented soul thinks so herself ; but no ! passion laughs at 
 social impossibilities and barriers. She continues, therefore, 
 in spite of all, to love M. de Guibert, without asking more of 
 him than to let himself be loved= After many struggles, 
 the last day finds their intercourse restored as though 
 nothing had been broken between them. But she feels her- 
 self dying ; she redoubles the use of opium ; she desires to 
 live only from day to day, without a future — has passion a 
 future ? " I feel the need of being loved to-day, and only to- 
 day ; let us blot from our dictionary the words ' alwaj^s ' 
 and ' forever.' " 
 
 The last of these Letters are but a piercing cry, with rare 
 intermissions. One could scarcely imagine into what inex- 
 haustible forms she puts the same sentiment; the river of 
 fire o'erflows at every step in flashing torrents. Let us give 
 the summary in her own language : — 
 
 2
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " All these many contradictions, these many impulses are 
 true, and three words explain them : / love you." 
 
 Eemark that amid this, life of exhaustion and delirium, 
 Mile, de Lespinasse is in society ; she receives lier friends as 
 usual ; she amazes them at times by her variable humour, 
 but they attribute this change to her regrets at the absence, 
 and then at the death, of M. de Mora. " They do me the 
 honour to believe that I am crushed by the loss that 1 have 
 met with." They praised her and admired her for it, which 
 redoubled her shame. Poor d'Alembert, who li\^ed in the 
 same house, endeavoured vainly to console her, to amuse her ; 
 he never comprehended why she repulsed him now and then 
 with a sort of horror. Alas ! it was the horror she felt at 
 her own dissimulation with such a friend. The long agony 
 had its ending at last. She died on the 23d of May, 1776, 
 at the age of forty-three years and six months. Her 
 passion for M. de Guibert had lasted for more than three 
 years. 
 
 Amid this consuming passion, which seems as though it 
 could admit no other element, do not suppose that these Let- 
 ters fail to show the charming mind which was joined to this 
 noble heart. What delicate jesting as she writes of the 
 "good" Condorcet, the Chevalier de Chastellux, Chamfort, 
 and others of her society ! What gi-ace ! Lofty and gen- 
 erous sentiments, patriotism and virility of views, are re- 
 vealed in more places than one, and make us appreciate 
 the worthy friend of Turgot and of Malesherbes. When she 
 talks with Lord Shelburne she feels what is grand and vivi- 
 fying for thought in being born under a free Government : 
 " How can we not be grieved at being born under a Govern- 
 ment like ours ? As for me, weak and unhappy creature 
 that I am, if I were born again, I would rather be the lowest 
 member of the House of Commons than the King of Prussia
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 himself." Little disposed as she was to augur any good 
 of the future, she has a moment of transport and hope 
 when she sees her friends made ministers and putting 
 their hands bravely to the work of public regeneration. 
 But even then, what is it that preoccupies her most ? 
 She orders her letters from M. de Guibert to be brought to 
 her wherever she may be, — at Mme. Geoffrin's, at M. Tur- 
 got's even, at table, and during dinner. " What are you 
 reading so earnestly ? " asked a neighbour, the inquisitive 
 Mme. de Boufflers. " Is it some paper for M. Turgot ? " 
 " Precisely, madame," she replies ; " it is a memorial I must 
 give him presently, and I wish to read it before I give it 
 to him." 
 
 Thus, all things in her life relate to passion, all things 
 bring her back to it ; and it is passion alone which gives us 
 the key to this strange heart and struggling destiny. The 
 incalculable merit of the Letters of Mile, de Lespinasse is 
 that we do not find in them what we find in books and 
 novels ; here we have the pure drama of nature, such as it 
 reveals itself, now and then, in certain gifted beings ; the 
 surface of life is suddenly torn apart and the life itself is 
 bared to us. It is impossible to encounter such beings, 
 victims of a sacred passion and capable of so generous a woe, 
 without being moved to a sentiment of respect and admi- 
 ration in the midst of the profound pity which they inspire. 
 Nevertheless, if we are wise we shall not envy them ; we 
 shall prefer a calmer interest, gently quickened ; we shall 
 cross the Tuileries (as she did one beautiful sunny morning) 
 and say with her : " Oh ! how lovely ! how divine this 
 weather ! the air I breathe is calming — I love, I regret, 
 I desire, but all those sentiments have won the imprint of 
 sweetness and melancholy. Ah ! this manner of feeling has 
 greater charm than the ardour and throes of passion ! Yes,
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I believe I am disgusted with them ; I will no longer love 
 so forcibly ; I will love gently — " Yet a moment later she 
 adds, " but never feebly." The pangs are seizing her again. 
 Ah, no ! those who have tasted that poison once are never 
 cured.
 
 NOTES 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MLLE. DE 
 LESPINASSE. 
 
 The mysteries surrounding Mile, de Lespinasse from her 
 birth to her grave, and beyond it, have given rise to so many 
 false conjectures that it seems well to bring together the 
 undoubted facts of her life, disengaged from such conjectures 
 and from those statements of her nearest friends which are 
 now known to have been mistaken. 
 
 The following Notes are taken from the Introduction 
 written by M. Eugfeue Assd for his edition of the " Letters " 
 published in 1876, and from the letters and other writings 
 of her friends published in the same volume, also from : — 
 
 The " (Euvres " of d'Alembert. Paris. An xiii (1805). 
 
 The " Memoires " of Marmontel. Paris. 1804. 
 
 The " Correspondence Litteraire " of La Harpe and of 
 Grimm. Paris. 1804 and 1830. 
 
 The " (Euvres " of Condorcet. Paris. 1847-9. 
 
 The " Memoires " of the Abbe de Morellet. 
 
 The " (Euvres " of Mme. de Stael. 
 
 The "Tombeau de Mile, de Lespinasse," edited by the 
 Bibliophile Jacob (M. Paul Lacroix). 1879. 
 
 Julie- Jeanne-file onore de Lespinasse was born at Lyon on 
 the 18th of November, 1732. It was not without good reason 
 that she compared her birth and her early years to the most 
 affecting pages of the novels of Richardson or the Abbd
 
 22 - NOTES. 
 
 Provost. She owed her life to a guilty connection formed 
 by the Coratesse d'Albon ; and it was only by concealing, at 
 least from strangers, the secret of this origin that her mother 
 was able to keep her with her and to treat her, if not publicly, 
 at any rate in reality, as her daughter, and perhaps as her 
 best-loved child. 
 
 About this mystery which surrounded the life and youth 
 of Mile, de Lespinasse, her contemporaries gathered only 
 uncertain and often contradictory rumours. Grimm, and 
 even La Harpe and Marmontel, who knew her intimately, do 
 not agree in their narratives. At the period when they wrote 
 nothing was clearly known of those early years ; to-day it is 
 otherwise, and the testimony of Mme. du Deffand, a connec- 
 tion of the d'Albon family, and that of M. de Guibert, who 
 not only received the confidences of Mile, de Lespinasse, but 
 to whom she read the narrative she had herself written on 
 this period of her life, enable us to rectify all errors. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse was brought up by her mother, from 
 whom she received a solid and even brilliant education, as to 
 which all her contemporaries are agreed. The tenderness of 
 the mother went so far as to think of having her recog- 
 nized as a legitimate daughter. Mme. du Deffand, relating, 
 in a letter to the Duchesse de Luynes, her first meeting with 
 the young girl at the chateau de Chamrond, belonging to her 
 (Mme. du Deffand's) brother, the Marquis de Vichy-Cham- 
 rond, who had married the legitimate and eldest daughter of 
 Mme. d'Albon, speaks of her as " a person who has no relatives 
 who acknowledge her, or at any rate none who will, or ought 
 to acknowledge her. This," she adds, " will show you her posi- 
 tion. I foimd her at Chamrond, where she has lived since 
 the death of Mme. d'Albon (the mother of my sister-in-law), 
 who had brought her u}) and, in spite of her youth, had given 
 her marks of the greatest friendship." Elsewhere she says
 
 NOTES. 23 
 
 that the girl had passed her early years with the son of Mme. 
 d'Albon, the Vicomte d'Albon. We may suppose that those 
 years were spent in the ancient manor of Avranches, situated 
 on the road from Eoanne to Lyon, a patrimonial domain of 
 the d'Albons which her mother, the last representative of that 
 branch of the family, inherited from her father, the Marquis 
 de Saint-Forgeux, in 1729. 
 
 The painful and almost tragic scenes which, it is only too 
 true, darkened the young girl's youth, took place undoubtedly 
 during the first months after her mother's death and, more 
 especially, during the five years from 1747 to 1752, which 
 she passed at Chamrond wdth the Marquise de Vichy, legiti- 
 mate daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon. The youngs girl 
 had accepted the proposal to live there, believing that she 
 would be treated as a friend. She was almost immediately 
 made governess to the children, three in number, the eldest 
 being scarcely eight years old. But the bitterness of her 
 position came much less from the humble duties she was 
 required to perform than from the manner in which she was 
 treated. When Mme. du Deffand went to pass the summer 
 of 1752 at Chamrond with her brother and sister-in-law, she 
 noticed the intelligence and the charm of Mile, de Les- 
 pinasse, and was also struck by the air of sadness which 
 dimmed her face. Soon she obtained her confidence. " She 
 told me," says Mme. du Deffand, " that it was no longer pos- 
 sible for her to remain with M. and Mme. de Vichy; that 
 she had long borne the harshest and most humiliating treat- 
 ment ; that her patience was now at an end, and for more 
 than a year she had declared to Mme. de Vichy that she 
 must go away, being unable to bear any longer the scenes 
 that were made to her daily." 
 
 Nevertheless, the conduct of Mile, de Lespinasse on the 
 death of her mother had been such as ought to have won her
 
 24 NOTES. 
 
 not only the esteem and respect, but the affection of those 
 who, by blood if not by law, were her brother and sister. 
 'Put in possession of a large sum of money by her dying 
 mother, who intended to have secured to her a rich future, 
 she had generously and spontaneously given it to the 
 Vicomte d'Albon, thus reducing herself to the modest 
 income of a hvmdred crowns left to her by the will of 
 her mother. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse had resolved to fling herself into a 
 convent rather than remain longer with the Vichys, when 
 Mme. du Deffand, now nearly blind and seeking a com- 
 panion, proposed to the young girl to live with lier in Paris, 
 in that convent of Saint-Joseph which, with nothing cloistral 
 about it, served (like the Abbaye-aux-Bois in our own day) 
 as a decent but very worldly retreat for a small number of 
 women of rank, in which each had her separate and inde- 
 pendent suite of rooms. It was in October, 1752, that Mme. 
 du Deffand made this proposal to Mile, de Lespinasse, but it 
 was not until sixteen months later, in April, 1754, that 
 the latter was able to accept an offer she had welcomed 
 eagerly. She spent those months in a convent at Lyon, 
 under the friendly eye and protection of Cardinal de Tencin. 
 The delay was caused by futile efforts to obtain the con- 
 sent of the Vicomte dAlbon and Mme. de Vichy to the new 
 arrangement. Filled with incurable distrust, the brother 
 and sister refused to sanction a project which they regarded 
 as a menace to their prosperity ; although Mme. du Deffand 
 had taken upon herself the care of avoiding that danger by 
 exacting from Mile, de Lespinasse a pledge never to use her 
 new position to establish lier rights to the name and to a 
 share in the fortime of the d'Albon family. The following 
 extracts from the letters of Mme. du Deffand throw light on 
 this period : —
 
 NOTES. 25 
 
 Frovi Mme. la Marquise du Deffand to Mile, de Lespinasse. 
 
 Paris, February 13, 1754. 
 
 I am very glad, my queen, that you are satisfied with my letters 
 and also with the course which you have taken towards M. d'Albon. 
 I am convinced that he will resolve on securing you a pension; he 
 would be stoned by every one if he did otherwise. In case he re- 
 fuses, you obtain entire freedom to follow your own will, which I 
 trust will bring you to live with me. But examine yourself well, 
 my queen, and be very sure that you will not repent. In your 
 last letter you wrote me very tender and flattering things ; but 
 remember that you did not think the same only two or three 
 months ago ; you then confessed to me that you were frightened at 
 the dull life I made you foresee, — a life which, although you are 
 accustomed to it, would be more intolerable in the midst of the 
 great world than it has been in your seclusion ; you feared, you 
 said, to fall into a state of discouragement, which would render you 
 intolerable, and inspire me with disgust and repentance. Those 
 were your expressions; you thought them a fault which required 
 my pardon, and you begged me to forget them ; but, my queen, it 
 is not a fault to speak our thoughts, and explain our dispositions ; 
 on the contrary, we can do nothing better. ... I shall treat you 
 not only with politeness, but even with compliments before the 
 world, to accustom it to the consideration it ought to have for you. 
 ... I shall not have the air of seeking to introduce you ; I expect 
 to make you desired ; and if you know me well, you need have no 
 anxiety as to the manner in which I shall treat your self-love. 
 But you must rely on the knowledge that I have of the world. . . , 
 
 There is a second point on which I must explain myself to you ; 
 it is that the slightest artifice, or even the most trifling little art, 
 if you were to put it into your conduct, would be intolerable to 
 me. I am naturally distrustful, and all those in whom I detect 
 slyness become suspicious to me to the point of no longer feeling 
 the slightest confidence in them. I have two intimate friends, 
 Formont and d'Alembert; I love them passionately, but less for 
 their agreeable charms and their friendship for me than for their 
 absolute truthfulness. Therefore, you must, my queen, resolve 
 to live with me with the utmost truth and sincerity, and never
 
 26 NOTES. 
 
 use insinuation, nor any exaggeration ; in a word, n^vax deviate^ 
 and never lose one of the greatest charms of youth, which is 
 candour. You have much intelligence, you have gaiety, you are 
 capable of feelings ; with all these qualities you will be charming 
 so long as you let yourself go to your natural impulse, and are 
 without pretension and without subterfuge. . . . 
 
 March 29, 1754. 
 
 . , . Another favour I have to ask of you (and it is the most 
 important of all), namely: not to come to me unless you have 
 totally forgotten who you are, and unless you have made a firm 
 resolution never to think of changing your civil state. It would 
 be perfidy to make use of my friendship to cover me with shame, 
 to expose me to the blame of all honourable persons, to make my 
 family my relentless enemies. The slightest attempt of this kind 
 that you might make while living with me would be an unpardon- 
 able crime. I hope, my queen, that you liave no need to consult 
 yourself again on this point. It is long since you promised me all 
 I could desire on this subject. I am perfectly certain that any 
 such attempt would be in vain ; but it would, none the less, be 
 dreadful for me if you made one, and I repeat that I should never 
 forgive it. . . . 
 
 April 8, 1754. 
 
 ... I hope, my queen, that I shall have no reason to repent 
 what I do for you ; and that you will not come to me unless you 
 are fully decided to make no attempt [to change your social state]. 
 You know but too well how useless such efforts are ; but in future, 
 when living with me, they would be fatal to you, for the grief they 
 would cause me would draw down upon you powerful enemies, 
 and you would find yourself in a state of abandonment in which 
 there would be no resource. 
 
 That said, there remains only to tell you of the joy I shall have 
 in seeing you and in living with you. I shall write at once to 
 M. le Cardinal to beg him to start you from Lyon as soon as 
 possible. . . . 
 
 Adieu, my queen; pack yoiir trunks and come to be the happi- 
 ness and consolation of my life ; it does not depend on me to make 
 it reciprocal.
 
 NOTES. 27 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse was twenty-two years of age when 
 she came to take the situation thus foreshadowed. Mme. 
 du Deffand was fifty-seven, and already nearly blind. Long 
 since celebrated for her wit, she was beginning to be so 
 for her salon, where, side by side with men of letters, were 
 found all that aristocracy could then present that was most 
 distinguished for taste and intellect. Mile. de. Lespinasse, 
 on her first entrance to a world so new to her, was not out of 
 place. Her tact, her intelligence won all suffrages ; we find 
 the proof of it in the praises bestowed upon her by such good 
 judges as the Chevalier d'Aydie, the Prince de Beauvau, and 
 President H^nault. The qualities she may have lacked she 
 soon acquired by contact with the most polished society that 
 ever existed. " See what an education I received ! " she says 
 herself. " Mme. du Deffand, President Hdnault, the Abb^ 
 Bon, the Archbishop of Toulouse, the Archbishop of Aix, 
 M. Turgot, M. d'Alembert, the Abbe de Boismont, — these 
 are the persons who taught me to speak and to think, and 
 who have deigned to consider me as something." 
 
 This life in common lasted ten years, from 1754 to 1764. 
 Begun imder such auspices, for what reason did it become 
 a burden to the one who proposed it and to the other who 
 accepted it ? How came it to end in an open rupture which 
 had all the importance of an event, and actually divided, 
 almost into two camps, the society of that day ? Evidently 
 there were faults on both sides : Mme. du Deffand abusing 
 the superiority which her rank and her role as protectress 
 gave her over Mile, de Lespinasse ; and the latter allowing, 
 little by little, indifference and coldness to take the place of 
 her early interest and zeal. But the true determining cause 
 of the rupture was the rivalry, the jealousy perhaps, which 
 grew up between the two women. We recall Mme. du Def- 
 f and's words in the foregoing letter : " There is a point on
 
 28 NOTES. 
 
 which I must explain myself to you. The slightest artifice, 
 even the most trifling little art, in your conduct would be 
 intolerable to me." 
 
 That art, that artifice, Mile, de Lespinasse was guilty of in 
 the eyes of her protectress — let us use the true word, mis- 
 tress — on the day when she received in her own little room, 
 privately and, as it were, secretly, the most illustrious friends 
 of the marquise, Turgot, Marmontel, d'Alembert, — d'Alem- 
 bert of all others ! the favourite of Mme. du Deffand ! When 
 the latter, who slept till evening wearied with her late hours, 
 discovered this fact her anger broke forth into violent re- 
 proaches. " It was nothing less to her mind," says Marmon- 
 tel, " than treachery ; she uttered loud outcries, accusing the 
 poor girl of stealing her friends, and declaring she would no 
 longer warm that serpent in her bosom." 
 
 This abrupt separation left Mile, de Lespinasse without 
 resources, reduced to the paltry income of a hundred crowns 
 which her mother had left her in her will. But she had 
 friends, and they did not fail her. Not only did d'Alembert 
 (whom Mme. du Deffand compelled to choose between her- 
 self and Mile, de Lespinasse) not hesitate to boldly take the 
 part of the latter, not only did all those who might be called 
 her intimates — Turgot, Chastellux, Marmontel, the Comte 
 d'Anldzy, the Duchesse de Chatillon — stand by her, without 
 at the same time breaking wholly with her rival, but the 
 special friends of Mme. du Deffand, those who remained witli 
 her to the last, did not refrain from giving to Mile, de 
 Lespinasse the most touching and practical marks of inter- 
 est. It was felt, moreover, that she was already a power, 
 and society desired not to quarrel with a rising sovereign, 
 
 " All the friends of Mme. du Deffand," says Marmontel, 
 " became hers. It was easy to convince them that the anger 
 of the former was unjust. President H^nault himself de-
 
 NOTES. 29 
 
 clared for her. The Buchesse de Luxembourg blamed her 
 old friend openly, and made a present to Mile, de Lespinasse 
 of the complete furniture of the apartment she had hired ; 
 and the Due de Choiseul obtained for her from the king an 
 annual sum which put her above actual need." 
 
 In quitting Mme. du Deffand, Mile, de Lespinasse did 
 not exile herself from the faubourg Saint-Germain; she 
 established her new home not far from the convent of Saint- 
 Joseph, in the street, and close to the convent, of Belle- 
 Chasse. Installed in this apartment, which, though modest, 
 must have been almost vast to receive the visitors who 
 pressed there in greater numbers daily, she was not long 
 alone ; a year later d'Alembert joined her, thus associating 
 his life definitely with that of a woman whom he had loved 
 for eight years, and by whom he thought himself beloved. 
 
 " They lived very far apart," says Marmontel ; " and though 
 in bad weather it was difficult for d'Alembert to return at 
 night from the rue de Belle-Chasse to the rue Michel-le- 
 Comte, where his foster-mother lived, he never thought of 
 quitting the latter until he fell ill of putrid fever, for which 
 the first remedy is pure and free air. His physician, Bou- 
 vard, became imeasy and declared to us that his present 
 lodging might be fatal to him. Watelet offered him his 
 house near the boulevard du Temple ; there he was taken, 
 and Mile, de Lespinasse, in spite of all that might be said or 
 thought, went to nurse him. No one, however, thought or 
 said anything but good of her action, D'Alembert recovered, 
 and then, consecrating his life to her who had taken care of 
 him, he went to live in the same house. Nothing more inno- 
 cent than their intimacy, therefore it was respected ; malig- 
 nity itself never attacked it; and the consideration which 
 Mile, de Lespinasse enjoyed, far from suffering any shock, 
 was only the more honourably and publicly established."
 
 30 NOTES. 
 
 We must not exaggerate the character of this union, which 
 was restricted solely, on the jjart of d'Alembert, to " lodging 
 in the same house," in which there were ten other families, 
 Mile, de Lespinasse always maintaining her separate suite 
 of rooms. 
 
 The question here arises as to the nature of d'Alembert's 
 feelings for his friend. " Oh ! you," he cries after her death, 
 " whom I have so tenderly and constantly loved, and by 
 whom I believed that I was loved." Elsewhere he speaks 
 of liis " heart which has never ceased to be hers." And yet 
 in spite of these protestations of love, he rejects, in a letter 
 to Voltaire, the very idea of his marriage : " The person to 
 whom they marry me, in the gazettes, is in truth a most 
 estimable person in character, and formed by the charm and 
 sweetness of her society to make a husband happy. But she 
 is worthy of a better establishment than mine, and there is 
 between us neither marriage nor love, only reciprocal esteem 
 and all the gentleness of friendship." 
 
 Member of the Academy of Sciences, and also of the 
 French Academy, the perpetual secretary of which he soon 
 became, and the recognized chief of the Encyclopedists, 
 d'Alembert was not so bad a match as he chooses to say. 
 The truth is that the love of poor dAlembert for his friend 
 was never without a rival ; first, the Marquis de Mora, whose 
 memory rent her soul with regret and remorse, and last, the 
 Comte de Guibert, who, by the passion he inspired, brought 
 her life to its close in weakness and misery. 
 
 When Mile, de Lespinasse, ceasing to be a dependent in 
 the shadow of Mme. du Deffand, opened her rival salon in 
 the rue de Belle-Chasse, she was thirty-two years old, with 
 little or no beauty, but a face of astonishing mobility, on 
 which could be read the emotions of her soul, with, above 
 all, a suddenness of impressions, a vivacity and charm of
 
 NOTES. 31 
 
 mind which created around her a sort of atmosphere of 
 enthusiasm and sympathy. Such are the chief features 
 of the portrait which her contemporaries have left of her. 
 La Harpe speaks of her as a person " well-made, with an 
 agreeable face before the small-pox spoilt it." " She was tall 
 and well-formed," says M. de Guibert. " I did not know 
 her until she was thirty -eight years of age, but her figure 
 was still noble and full of grace. But what she possessed, 
 and what distinguished her above all else, was that first and 
 greatest charm of all, without which beauty is but a cold 
 perfection, the charm of an expressive countenance ; hers 
 had no special character; it united all." But, as often liap- 
 pens to persons for whom the trials of life begin early, one 
 thing was lacking to Mile, de Lespinasse, namely, the look 
 of youth, in which happiness plays so great a part. " Her 
 face," says Grimm, " was never young." 
 
 But her soul was — ever. To Marmontel it seemed " an 
 ardent soul, a fiery nature, a romantic imagination." " She 
 was born," says Grimm, " with nerves that were marvellously 
 sensitive. But that sensibility, which gave passion such 
 grasp upon her, made her also accessible to all generous 
 emotions — enthusiasm for the noble and the good, indigna- 
 tion at the bad and the mean." " She was of all styles," says 
 Guibert ; " the lover of what was good ! How she enjoyed, 
 'how she knew how to praise that which pleased her, above 
 all, that which touched her ! " These qualities had their 
 reverse, namely : infatuation and variability. D'Alembert 
 reproaches her for too ready a credulity, especially when 
 sentiments of a specially tender nature were in question. 
 She herself speaks of that " mobility of soul of which they 
 accuse me," and admits it. 
 
 Such was her soul. As for her mind : all was natural, 
 spontaneous, of an elegant simplicity as far removed from
 
 32 NOTES. 
 
 commonplaceness as from studied elegance ; the most perfect 
 harmony existed between thought and expression ; she had 
 a solid education, leaving more to divine than was shown ; 
 a smiling good sense rather than a downright, open gaiety ; 
 and finally, a tact so perfect that she seemed to have the 
 secret of all natures and all susceptibilities. These were 
 her salient traits, her most seductive endowments. D'Alem- 
 bert dwells particularly on this exquisite tact : " What dis- 
 tinguishes you above all," he says to her, " is the art of say- 
 ing to each that which suits him; this art, though little 
 common, is very simple in you ; it consists in never speaking 
 of yourself to others, but much of them." " I have never 
 known," says La Harpe, " a woman who had more natural 
 wit, less desire to show it, and more talent in showing to 
 advantage that of others." And Marmontel adds his word : 
 " One of her charms was the ardent nature that impas- 
 sioned her language and communicated to her opinions the 
 warmth, the sympathy, the eloquence of feeling. Often, too, 
 with her, reason grew playful ; a gentle philosophy allowed 
 itself light jesting." 
 
 We can easily comprehend the influence that such qualities 
 of heart and mind must have had on the society of that 
 period. And if we add to this personal influence of Mile. 
 de Lespinasse that (which was very great) of d'Alembert, 
 the recognized leader of the philosophic party, who added to 
 his fame as a learned man a literary renown which made the 
 French Academy choose him as its perpetual secretary, we 
 shall form a correct idea of what the salon of Mile, de Lespi- 
 nasse was — more literary than that of the Marquise du 
 Deffand, more aristocratic than that of the bourgeoise Mme. 
 Geoffrin. The dinners and suppers, which held so great a 
 place in the fame of the Maecenases of that day, counted for 
 nothing in the celebrity of the salon in the rue de Belle-
 
 NOTES. 33 
 
 Chasse. There, people talked from five o'clock to ten o'clock 
 daily. We may say that for twelve years, from 1764 to 
 1776, there was not a day when the choicest society failed 
 to be there, and not a day when Mile, de Lespinasse failed 
 to receive it. Not for all the world would her friends have 
 missed these daily festivals of intellect, gi-ace, and elegance. 
 
 Other salons had their habitual guests, their reigning and 
 dominating friends : with Mme. du Deffand were President 
 Henault, Pont de Veyle, the Prince de Beauvau, the Choiseuls, 
 and Horace Walpole, on his too rare journeys to Paris ; with 
 Mme. Geoffrin, Marmontel and Antoine Thomas ; with the 
 Baron d'Holbach, Diderot and Grimm ; but with IMlle. de 
 Lespinasse it was not even d'Alembert who reigned. In her 
 salon alone were received on a footing of perfect equality, 
 without marked preference, all that Paris had of most illus- 
 trious in letters, sciences, and arts. D'Alembert was no more 
 than an ordinary visitor, iinus inter pares. But his talent 
 as a talker made the place more delightful. 
 
 " His conversation," says Grimm, " offered all that could 
 instruct and divert the mind. He lent himself with as much 
 facility as good-will to whatever subject would please most 
 generally ; bringing to it an almost inexliaustible fund of 
 ideas, anecdotes, and curious recollections. There was, I 
 may say, no topic, however dry or frivolous in itself, that he 
 had not the secret of making interesting. He spoke well, 
 related with much precision, and brought out his point with 
 a rapidity which was peculiar to him. All his humorous 
 sayings have a delicate and profound originality." 
 
 Variety — such was the special character of the salon of 
 Mile, de Lespinasse; and this is particularly shown in the 
 account that Grimm has left of it. 
 
 " Without fortune, without birth, without beauty, she had 
 succeeded in collecting around her a very numerous, very 
 
 3
 
 34 NOTES. 
 
 varied, and veiy assiduous society. Her circle met daily from 
 five o'clock until nine in the evening. There we were sure 
 to find choice men of all orders in the State, the Church, 
 the Court, — military men, foreigners, and the most dis- 
 tinguished men of letters. Every one agrees that though 
 the name of M. d'Alembert may have drawn them thither, 
 it was she alone who kept them there. Devoted wholly to 
 the care of preserving that society, of which she was the soul 
 and the charm, she subordinated to this purpose all her 
 tastes and all her personal intimacies. She seldom went to 
 the theatre or into the coimtry, and when she did make an 
 exception to this rule it was an event of which all Paris was 
 notified in advance. . . . Politics, religion, philosophy, anec- 
 dotes, news, nothing was excluded from the conversation, 
 and, thanks to her care, tlie most trivial little narrative 
 gained, as naturally as possible, the place and notice it de- 
 served. News of all kinds was gathered there in its first 
 freshness." 
 
 No one has better pictured than Marmontel the influence 
 of Mile, de Lespinasse on her society, or made us feel more 
 fully the sort of creative breath which, from this chaos, 
 brought forth a world so brilliant and harmonious. 
 
 " I do not put," he says, " among the number of my private 
 societies the assembly which gathered every evening in the 
 apartments of Mile, de Lespinasse, for with the exception of 
 a few friends of d'Alembert, such as the Chevalier de Chas- 
 tellux, the Abbe Morellet, Saint-Lambert, and myself, the 
 circle was formed of persons who were not bound together. 
 She had taken them liere and there in society, but so well 
 assorted were they that once there they fell into harmony 
 like the strings of an instrument touched by an able hand. 
 Following out that comparison, I may say that she played 
 the instrument with an art that came of genius ; she seemed
 
 NOTES. 35 
 
 to know what tone each string would yield before she touched 
 it ; I mean to say that our minds and our natures were so 
 well known to her that in order to bring them into play she 
 had but to say a word. Nowhere was conversation more 
 lively, more brilliant, or better regidated than at her house. 
 It was a rare phenomenon indeed, the degi-ee of tempered, 
 equable heat which she knew so well how to maintain, 
 sometimes by moderating it, sometimes by quickening it. The 
 continual activity of her soul was communicated to our souls, 
 but measurably ; her imagination was the mainspring, her 
 reason the regulator. Remark that the brains she stirred at 
 will were neither feeble nor frivolous : the Condillacs and 
 Turgots were among them; d'Alembert was like a simple, 
 docile child beside her. Her talent for casting out a thought 
 and giving it for discussion to men of that class, her own 
 talent in discussing it with precision, sometimes with elo- 
 quence, her talent for bringing forward new ideas and vary- 
 ing the topic — always with the facility and ease of a fairy, 
 who, with one touch of her wand, can change the scene of 
 her enchantment — these talents, I say, were not those of an 
 ordinary woman. It was not with the follies of fashion and 
 vanity that daily, during four hours of conversation, without 
 languor and without vacuum, she knew how to make herself 
 interesting to a wide circle of strong minds." 
 
 Grimm insists on very nearly the same traits. " She pos- 
 sessed," he says, " in an eminent degree that art so diffi- 
 cult and SQ precious, — of making the best of the minds of 
 others, of interesting them, and of bringing them iato play 
 without any appearance of constraint or effort. She knew 
 how to unite the different styles of mind, sometimes even 
 the most opposed, without appearing to take the slightest 
 pains to do so; by a word, adroitly flung in, she sustained 
 the conversation, animating and varying it as she pleased.
 
 36 NOTES. 
 
 No one knew better how to do the honours of her house; she 
 put every one in his place, and every one was content with 
 it. She had great knowledge of the world, and that species 
 of politeness which is most agreeable ; I mean that which has 
 the tone of personal interest." 
 
 There were times, however, when the sensitive taste of 
 Mile, de Lespinasse was shocked and overcome by occasional 
 vulgarity of manners or expression. Of this the Abbe Mo- 
 rellet has left an amusing record in his " Memoirs." 
 
 " Mile, de Lespinasse," he relates, " loving men of intellect 
 passionately and neglecting no means of knowing them and 
 attracting them to her circle, ardently desired to know M. de 
 Buffon. Mme. Geoffrin, agreeing to procure her that happi- 
 ness, invited Buffon to pass an evening at her house. Behold 
 Mile, de Lespinasse in the seventh heaven, promising herself 
 to observe closely that celebrated man, and not lose a single 
 word that issued from his lips. The conversation having be- 
 gun, on the part of Mile, de Lespinasse by flattering compli- 
 ments, such as she knew so well how to pay, the topic of the 
 art of writing was brought up, and some one remarked, with 
 eulogy, how well M. de Buffon had united clearness with 
 loftiness of style, a union very difficult and rarely produced. 
 ' Oh, the devil ! ' said M. de Buffon, his head high, his eyes 
 partly closed, and with an air half silly, half inspired : 
 ' oh, the devil ! when it comes to clarifying one's style, 
 that 's another pair of sleeves.' At this speech, this vulgar 
 comparison. Mile, de Lespinasse was visibly troubled; her 
 countenance changed, she threw herself back in her chair, 
 muttering between her teeth, 'Another pair of sleeves! 
 clarify his style ! ' and she did not recover herself the whole 
 evening." 
 
 But conversation alone was not all that went on in the 
 salon of the rue de Belle-Chasse ; academicians were made
 
 NOTES. 37 
 
 there. Chastellux owed his election in a great measure to 
 Mile, de Lespinasse. In her last hours, already lying on her 
 deathbed, she secured that of La Harpc " M. de La Harpe" 
 says Bachaumont in his Memoirs, "was one of her nurs- 
 lings ; by her influence she opened the doors of the Academy 
 to him who is now its secretary. This poet was the last of 
 those whom she enabled to enter them." All power has its 
 detractors, all royalty its envious carpers, and these cast 
 great blame on Mile, de Lespinasse for caballing, so they 
 said, in the interests of her friends and through the influ- 
 ence of d'Alembert, to close the doors of the Academy to 
 those who were not her friends. Dorat, whose style she did 
 not like (and perhaps not his person), attributed to her the 
 various checks his academic ambition had met with ; and he 
 made himself the organ of these accusations in two come- 
 dies entitled, " Les Proneurs " and " Merlin Bel Esprit." 
 Society came very near seeing renewed the scandal of the 
 famous comedy of " Les Philosophes," and Mile, de Les- 
 pinasse only just escaped being acted on the stage during her 
 lifetime by Dorat, as Eousseau had been by Palissot. With- 
 out justifying Dorat, ^vhose comic muse was otherwise very 
 inoffensive, it cannot be denied that Mile, de Lespinasse 
 played a very great part in all tlie Academic struggles, and 
 that her devotion to the ideas of d'Alembert and the Ency- 
 clopedists, often carried her too far. Grimm, who men- 
 tions the reproach, contests its justice without denying its 
 cause. 
 
 "Her enemies," he says," blamed her, very ridiculously, for 
 being concerned in a variety of affairs which were not her 
 business, and for having favoured by her intrigues that philo- 
 sophic despotism which the cabal of the bigots accused M. 
 d'Alembert of exercising over the Academy. But why 
 should women, who decide everything in France, not decide
 
 38 NOTES. 
 
 also the honours of literature ? . . . M. Dorat, who thinks 
 he has reason to complain of her, has allowed himself to 
 take vengeance in a play called 'Les Proneurs.' Several 
 persons who have heard it read think it has more invention 
 and more gaiety than M. Dorat has put into his other come- 
 dies. The play turns on a young man whom they want to 
 initiate into the mysteries of the modem philosophy, and to 
 whom, in consequence, they teach the methods of acquirmg 
 celebrity in the quickest manner. M. d'Alembert and Mile, 
 de Lespinasse play the chief roles. The story is told that 
 one of their most zealous admirers, an old courtier who is 
 very hard of hearing, when the plot of the new play was 
 read before him, seeing every one about him ecstatic, cried 
 out, louder than any of them, ' There now ! that is good 
 comedy.' " 
 
 We now know the friends who occupied the mind of Mile, 
 de Lespinasse ; we have next to speak of those who filled her 
 heart. . . . 
 
 But here we must turn to the sketch of M. de Mora and 
 M. de Guibert, and to the picture of the love, the passion, 
 the remorse that consumed her life contained in Sainte- 
 Beuve's essay which precedes these Notes. All further 
 analysis would be superfluous, for what can be needed 
 after the sympathetic but judicial insight of that true 
 discerner of men and women ? 
 
 Nevertheless, for a clear understanding of the following 
 letters, whicli are full of allusions that need a clue, it is well 
 to refer once more to the particular fact that underlies them, 
 namely : the struggle in her soul between her love for M. de 
 Mora and her passion for M. de Guibert. All the letters up 
 to the time of M. de Mora's death have this struggle for 
 their key-note, — a struggle naturally full of inconsistencies. 
 After his death her remorse begins, and, embittered by M. de
 
 NOTES. 39 
 
 Guibert's unfaithfulness — which her passion condones — it 
 kills her. 
 
 Mile, de Lespinasse possessed the mysterious gift of charm, 
 a gift that cannot be explained or analyzed, a spiritual gift, 
 not dependent on beauty or physical attraction, and one 
 which many women exercise equally over men and women. 
 The word " exercise," however, is not applicable to it, for it 
 is an unconscious faculty, a gift bestowed on women which 
 they themselves are unable to explain ; some of its elements 
 are easily defined, — such as self-unconsciousness, perception 
 of the souls of others, — but as a whole the gift is mysterious. 
 Mile, de Lespinasse had it in an eminent degi'ee imtil the 
 period of her fatal passion. Plainly it was a part of the tie 
 between herself and M. de Mora, and she never lost it with 
 her circle of friends so long as she lived, nor after her death. 
 The story of d'Alembert's attachment to her is as full of pain 
 as her own, and even more pathetic. His was the passion of 
 friendship, if not of love ; and it is difticidt to acquit her of 
 indifference to his feelings, and even of cruelty, especially 
 in the bequest of her correspondence with M. de Mora, to be 
 read and destroyed by him at her death. Even Marmontel, 
 so faithful to her himself, says : " Mile, de Lespinasse was 
 no longer the same with d'Alembert ; not only did he have 
 to bear her coldness, but often her fretful humours full 
 of gloom and bitterness." She admits this herself, and gives 
 as its excuse (which Sainte-Beuve recognizes) that her soul 
 was wrung with remorse for the deception she was practising 
 upon him. A true excuse no doubt, and one with which we 
 ought to credit her ; but the sorrow and the distress to him 
 were none the less, and the shock when he discovered the 
 truth after her death was not the more bearable. No, his 
 passion stands beside hers in this sad story, and we cannot 
 help comparing them. Hers has the stilrm rtnd dranfj of
 
 40 NOTES. 
 
 passionate emotion, with fame to crown it: his was silent 
 sorrow, and he died of it, unsung. 
 
 Marmontel leaves us no doubt that her death was the cause 
 of his. " D'Alembert," he says, " was unconsoled and incon- 
 solable for his loss. It was then that he buried himself in 
 the lodging given to him in the Louvre as secretary of the 
 J-rench Academy. I have told elsewhere how he passed the 
 rest of his life. He often complained to me of the dreadful 
 solitude into which he had fallen. In vain I reminded him 
 of all that he had told me himself about the change in the 
 feelings of his friend. " Yes," he replied, " she was changed, 
 but I was not ; she lived no longer for me, but I lived always 
 for her. Now that she is gone, I know not why I live. Ah ! 
 would that I had still to suffer the bitter moments she knew 
 so well how to soften and make me forget ! Do you remem- 
 ber the happy evenings we spent with her ? And now — 
 what remains to me ? Instead of herself when I come home, 
 I find her shade. This lodging in the Louvre is like a tomb ; 
 I never enter it except with horror." 
 
 D'Alembert survived his friend, whose memory never left 
 him for an instant, seven years. 
 
 It was on a Thursday, May 23, 1776, that death brought 
 to Mile, de Lespinasse the rest for which she longed. The 
 account that La Harpe has left of this event is perhaps the 
 most affecting that we have of it : " During the last days of 
 her life she saw none but her intimate friends. They were 
 all in her chamber on the night of her death ; and all were 
 weeping. She had passed tlie last three days in a state of 
 exliaustion that scarcely permitted her to speak aloud. The 
 nurses revived her with cordials and raised her in her bed. 
 * Do I still live ? ' she said. Those were her last words." 
 
 The Letters of Mile, de Lespinasse cannot be read and 
 judged by personal standards or social convention ; not even
 
 NOTES. 41 
 
 from the standpoint of our present phase of human nature, 
 which a century has changed from hers. There are many 
 judgments and countless criticisms that might be made upon 
 her ; but the essential thing is that here is a human soul laid 
 bare in the fierce light of the fire of passion, and fit to stand 
 by the great ones of her class, Sappho, H^loise, and the un- 
 known souls whose genius never passed to words ; for this 
 passion of loving is a form of genius.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE TO 
 M. DE GUIBERT, 
 
 Paris, Saturday evening, May 15, 1773. 
 
 You start on Tuesday ; and as I know not the effect which 
 your departure will have upon me, as I know not if I shall 
 have freedom or will to write, I wish to speak with you once 
 more and assure myself of receiving news of you from 
 Strasburg. You must tell me if you arrive there in good 
 health ; if the movement of travelling has not already 
 calmed your soul. Not that your soul is " ill, it suffers only 
 from the ills it causes ; and diversion, change of scene will 
 suffice to turn aside those emotions of sympathy which may 
 be painful to you because you are kind and honourable. 
 Yes, you are yerj kind ; I have just re-read your letter of this 
 morning ; it has the sweetness of Gestner joined to the energy 
 of Jean-Jacques. Eh, mon Dieu ! why unite all that can 
 touch and please, and why, above all, offer me a blessing of 
 which I am not worthy, which I have not deserved ? 
 
 No, no ! I do not want your friendship ; it would console 
 me, it would agitate me, and I need rest ; I need to forget 
 you for a time. I wish to be sincere with you and with 
 myself ; and, in truth, in the trouble in which I am I fear to 
 be mistaken ; perhaps my remorse is greater than my wrong-
 
 44 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 doing ; perhaps the alarm I have felt is that which would 
 most offend the one I love. I have just received, this instant, 
 a letter so full of confidence in my feelings ; he speaks to me 
 of myself, of what I think, of my soul, with that degree of 
 knowledge and certainty which is uttered only when we 
 feel strongly and keenly. Ah, mon Dieu ! by what charm, 
 by what fatality have you come to distract me ? Why did I 
 not die in the month of September ? I could have died then 
 without regret, without the reproaches that I now make to 
 myself. Alas ! I feel it, I could still die for him ; there is 
 no interest of mine I would not sacrifice to him — but for 
 two months past I have had none to make ; I do not love 
 more, but I love better. Oh ! he will pardon me ! I had 
 suffered so much ! my body, my soul were so exhausted by 
 the long continuance of the sorrow. The news I received of 
 him threw me sometimes into frenzy. It was then that I 
 first saw you ; then that you revived my soul, then that you 
 brought pleasure into it ; I know not which was sweetest, to 
 feel it, or to owe it to you. 
 
 But tell me, is this the tone of friendship, the tone of con- 
 fidence ? What is it that is drawing me ? Make me know 
 myself ; aid me to recover myself in a measure ; my soul is 
 convulsed ; is it you, is it your departure, what is it that per- 
 secutes me ? I can no more. At this moment I have 
 confidence in you, even to abandonment, but perhaps I shall 
 never speak to you again of my life. Adieu, I shall see you 
 to-morrow ; possibly I shall feel embarrassed by what I have 
 now written to you. Would to heaven that you were my 
 friend, or that I had never known you ! Do you believe me ? 
 Will you be my friend ? Think of it, once only ; is that too 
 much ?
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 45 
 
 Sunday, May 23, J773. 
 
 If I were young, pretty, and very charming, I should not fail 
 to see much art in your conduct to me ; but as I am nothing 
 of all that, I find a kindness and an honour in it which have 
 won you rights over my soul forever. You have tilled it 
 with gratitude, with esteem, with sensibility, and all other 
 feelings which give intimacy and confidence to intercourse. 
 I cannot speak as well as Montaigne upon friendship, but, 
 believe me, we shall feel it better. And yet, if what Mon- 
 taigne says had been in his heart, would he have consented 
 to live after the loss of such a friend ? 
 
 But this is not the question here ; it is of you, of the grace, 
 the delicacy, the timeliness of your quotation. You come to 
 my rescue ; you will not let me blame myself ; you will not 
 suffer your memorj- to be a sad reproach to my heart, and, 
 perhaps, an offence to my self-respect ; in a word, you wish 
 me to enjoy in peace the friendship that you offer me and 
 prove to me with as much gentleness as gi-ace. Yes, I accept 
 it ; I make it my blessing ; it will console me ; and if I ever 
 again enjoy your society it will be the pleasure I shall feel 
 and desire the most. 
 
 I hope you have pardoned me the wrong I did not do. 
 You surely feel that it is not possible for me to suspect you of 
 an impulse against kindness and honour. Yet I accused you 
 of it ; that meant nothing, except that I was weak and cul- 
 pable, and, above all, troubled to the point of losing my 
 presence and freedom of mind. You see things too well and 
 too quickly to let me fear you could mistake me ; I am well 
 assured that your soul sees no reason to complain of the 
 emotions of mine. 
 
 I know that you did not start till Thursday at half-past five 
 o'clock. I was at your door, two minutes after your departure. 
 I had sent in the morning to inquire at what hour you left on
 
 46 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 Wednesday ; and, to my great astonishment, I learned that 
 you were still in Paris, and it was not known if you would 
 start on Thursday even. I went myself to learn if you were 
 ill ; and (what may strike you as shocking) it seemed to me 
 that I desired it. Nevertheless, with an inconsistency which 
 I will not explain I felt comforted on learning that you were 
 gone. Yes, your departure has restored my calmness ; but 
 I feel more sad. You must pardon this, and be satisfied. I 
 do not know if I regret you, but 1 miss you as my pleasure ; 
 I believe that active and sensitive souls cling too strongly to 
 pleasure. It is not the idea of the length of your absence 
 that distresses me — my thought does not go so far ; it is 
 simply the present that weighs upon my soul, depresses, 
 saddens it, and scarcely leaves it energy to desire better 
 sentiments. 
 
 But see, what honible selfishnes ! here are three pages 
 full of myself , and yet 1 l)elieve it is of you that I am think- 
 ing ; at least I feel I must know how you are, whether you 
 are well. When you read this, how far away you will be ! 
 Your person may be only three hundred leagues distant, but 
 see what strides your thought has already made ! what new 
 objects ! what ideas ! what novel reflections ! It seems to me 
 that I am speaking now to the mere shadow of you ; all that I 
 know of you has disappeared ; scarcely will you find in your 
 memory any traces of the affections which agitated and 
 excited you during the last days you spent in Paris; and it is 
 best so. You know how we agreed that too great sensibility 
 was a mark of mediocrity, and your character commands you 
 to be great ; your talents condemn you to celebrity. Yield 
 yourself, therefore, to your destiny, and tell yourself, firmly, 
 that you are not made for the soft, inward life that tender- 
 ness and sentiment require. There is only pleasure and no 
 glory in living for a single object. When we reign in one heart
 
 1778] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 47 
 
 only we cannot reign in public opinion. There are names 
 made for history ; yours will one day rouse its admiration. 
 When I fill myself with that thought the interest with which 
 you inspire me is a little moderated. Adieu. 
 
 Monday, May 24, 1773. 
 
 What say you to this folly ? Scarcely can I flatter myself 
 that you will read me when I overwhelm you with letters ! 
 But you said the other day that we should write at length to 
 friends, to those who please us, to those we would like to 
 talk with. If you spoke truly, you are obliged not only 
 to read me with interest, but with indulgence. 
 
 I have just re-read my long letter ; mon Dieu, how tiresome 
 I foimd it ! but if I write it over again it will be no better. 
 I feel myself predestined to be tiresome in more ways than 
 one. I am sad and dull ; what can one do with that ? But 
 I have questions to put to you ; answer them, and you will 
 be very amiable. Have you received a letter from Diderot ? 
 He expects to leave the 6th of June ; thus you will see him 
 in Eussia. Why did you not start on Wednesday ? Was it 
 to yourself or to some one else that you gave those twenty-four 
 hours ? Have you carried away with you that book of M. 
 Thomas ? I hope so ; it has almost the tone of your soul ; it 
 is noble, strong, and virtuous. There are, no doubt, a few de- 
 fects ; he has corrected what was turgid and exaggerated in 
 his style ; but there is too much analysis and enumeration, 
 which fatigue a little — especially when it costs us much to 
 separate from an object which fills our thoughts. I have been 
 obliged to stop reading it for several days. ^ It is the post- 
 man who decides, twice a week, all the actions of my life ; 
 yesterday he made reading impossible to me. I sought only 
 
 ^ " Essay on the Cliaracter, Manners, Morals, and Mind of Women in 
 the different Ages," by Antoine-Leonard Thomas, of the French Academy. 
 Paris, 1772.
 
 48 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 the letter I did not receive ; why look for it in M. Th(jinas ? 
 I could not find it there ! Did you not promise me news 
 from Strasburg ? Are you surprised now that you pledged 
 yourself to write to me so often ? Have you regretted the 
 facility with whicli you yielded to the interest and eager- 
 ness shown to you ? It is troublesome at a distance of 
 three hundred leagues to have to act for others ; there is no 
 pleasure except in following one's own impulse and senti- 
 ment. See how generous I am ! I offer to return your 
 promise if you now find you have made a mistake. Acknowl- 
 edge it to me, and I assure you I will not be wounded. Be- 
 lieve me, it is only vanity that makes people touchy, and I 
 have none ; I am merely a good creature, very stupid, very 
 simple, who loves the happiness and pleasure of those I love 
 better than what is mine or for me. Having that knowledge, 
 be at your ease ; write to me " un pen, beaucoup, pas du 
 tout" — but do not fancy that I shall be equally satisfied: 
 for I have even less indifference than vanity. But I have a 
 strength, or a faculty, which renders me able for all : it is 
 that of knowing how to suffer, and to suffer much without 
 complaint. 
 
 Adieu ; have you reached this point in my letter ? and is 
 it not wearisome ? 
 
 Sunday, May 30, 1773. 
 I received, yesterday, your Strasburg letter; the time 
 seemed very long since Wednesday, 19th, the day on which 
 I received your last sign of remembrance ; that which came 
 to me yesterday consoled me and did good to my soul, which 
 needs to be diverted by the entrance of a gentle sentiment 
 to which it can yield without trouble and without remorse. 
 Yes, I can now avow it to myself, I can say it to you — I 
 care for you tenderly ; your absence gives me keen regrets ; 
 but no longer have I to struggle against the feelings you in-
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 49 
 
 spire in me ; I have seen clearly into my soul. Ah ! the ex- 
 cess of my sorrow justifies me, I am not guilty, and yet, 
 before long, I shall be a victim. I thought to die Friday 
 on receiving a letter by special courier ; the trouble into 
 which it threw me took from me even the power to unseal 
 it ; I was more than a quarter of an hour without moving ; 
 my soul had numbed my senses. At last I read it, and I 
 found but a part of what I feared: I need not tremble for 
 the life of him I love. 
 
 But sheltered from the greatest of all misfortunes, oh, 
 my God ! how much remains for me to suffer ! how crushed 
 I feel beneath the weight of life ! the duration of ills is 
 more than human strength can bear ; I feel but one courage, 
 often but one need. Ought I not therefore to love you, 
 ought I not to cherish your presence ? You have had the 
 power to divert my mind from an anguish as sharp as it was 
 deep ; I await, I desire your letters. Yes, believe me, none 
 but the unhappy are worthy of friends ; if your soul had 
 never suffered never could you have entered mine. I should 
 admire, I should praise your talents, but I should keep aloof, 
 because I have a sort of repugnance to that which fills my 
 mind only : we must be calm to think ; when excited, agi- 
 tated, we can only feel and suffer. You tell me that you are 
 shaken by regrets, by remorse even ; that your sensibility is 
 all pain. I believe you, and it grieves me ; and yet, I know 
 not why, the impression that I receive from your letter is 
 the contrary of that. There seems to me a calmness, a re- 
 pose and force in all your expressions ; you appear to speak 
 of what you have felt, not of what you are feeling ; in short, 
 if I had rights, if I were sensitive, if friendship were not such 
 a facile thing, I should tell you that Strasburg is far, very 
 far from the rue Tarenne. 
 
 President Montesquieu asserts that climate has a great in-
 
 50 LETTERS OF [177.3 
 
 fluence on the moral condition ; is Strasburg more northerly 
 than Paris ? Think how much I shall have to fear Peters- 
 burg ! — No, I will not fear ; I Ijelieve in you ; I believe in 
 your friendship. Explain to me why I have this confidence, 
 but be careful not to think that vanity counts for anything. 
 My feeling for you is purged of that vile alloy which cor- 
 rupts and enfeebles all affections. 
 
 You would have been very amiable had you told me 
 whether my letter was the only one you found in Strasburg. 
 See liow generous I am. I could be willing that it were 
 changed for the one you wished to find there. Let us decide 
 our ranks, give me my place ; but as I do not like to change, 
 let it be a good one. I do not want that of the unhappy per- 
 son who is displeased with you, nor that of her with whom 
 you are displeased. I know not where you can place me; 
 but do so if possible, that we may both be content ; do not 
 bargain, give me much, you will see that I shall not abuse it. 
 Oh ! you shall see how well I know how to love ! I can 
 only love ; I know only how to love ! With moderate facul- 
 ties, we can yet do much when we centre them on a single 
 object. Well ! I have but one thought, and that thought 
 fills my soul and all my life. 
 
 You think that dissipation and new scenes and knowledge 
 will distract you but little from your friends. Know your- 
 self better ; yield in good faith and with good grace to the 
 power which your nature has over your will, over your senti- 
 ments, over all your actions. Persons who are governed by 
 the need to love do not go to Petersburg. They may go very 
 far, but if so, they are condemned to it, and they do not say 
 that they " re-enter their souls " to find there what they 
 love ; they believe they have never quitted it, be they a 
 thousand leagues away. But there is more than one man- 
 ner of being good and excellent ; yours will carry you far
 
 1773] MLLE DE LESPINASSE. . 51 
 
 along in the path of advancement in every acceptation of 
 those words. 
 
 I should pity a sensitive woman to whom you would be 
 the first object ; her life would be consumed by fears and re- 
 grets ; but I should congratulate a vain woman, a proud 
 woman : she would pass her life in applauding you, in adorn- 
 ing herself to your taste. Such women love glory, they love 
 the opinion of the world, and lustre. All that is very fine, 
 very noble, but very cold, and very far from the passion 
 which says : — 
 
 " Death and Hell appear before me ; 
 Raniire ! joyfully I go there for thee." 
 
 But I am distracted — worse than that, I am singular; 
 I have but one tone, one colour, one manner ; and when they 
 please no longer they chill and weary. You must tell me 
 which of the two effects they have produced. But you must 
 also tell me, if you please, the only news that interests 
 me, namely, how you are. 
 
 The place of governor of the Ecole Militaire is not yet 
 given. 
 
 June 6, 1773. 
 
 Ah ! how rare is that which gives pleasure, and how 
 slowly it comes ! time seems infinite since the 24th, and I 
 know not how much longer I shall have to wait for a letter 
 from Dresden. But, at least, will you promise to be in- 
 clined to write to me as often as you can ? Let me have, 
 opposed to my pleasure, against my interests, only that 
 which does not depend on you : I mean distance and the de- 
 lay of couriers. But I fret lest your curiosity, your activity, 
 in a word, your merits and your virtues should be against me. 
 That love of glory, for instance, will make your love, or 
 rather my own, one sorrow the more in my life. Yet you 
 can say to me, as the hermit said to Zadig, " I have some-
 
 52 . LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 times poured comfort into the souls of the sorrowful." Yes, 
 I owe to you that which makes the charm and the sweetness 
 of friendship; I feel that the tie is already too strong, that it 
 takes too great an ascendancy over my soul ; when my soul 
 suffers it is tempted to turn to you for consolation ; if it 
 were calm and unoccupied it might be drawn to you by an 
 impulse more active, by a desire for pleasure, even. 
 
 Am I so much to you ? Am I not better fitted to love 
 and regret you ? At best, my sentiments can only be agree- 
 able to you ; but to me, before I examined your character, 
 you were already necessary to me. But what think you of 
 a soul that gives itself before knowing whether it will be 
 accepted, before being able to judge whether it will be re- 
 ceived with pleasure or with gratitude only ? Ah ! mon 
 Dien ! if you were not gifted with feeling, what grief you 
 would cause me ! For it does not suffice me that you are 
 honourable : I have virtuous friends, I have letter still ; and 
 yet I care only for what you are to me — but truly, sincerely, 
 is there no madness, perhaps even absurdity, in believing 
 you my friend ? Answer me ; not coldly, but with truth. 
 
 Though your soul is agitated, it is not ill like mine, which 
 passes ceaselessly from convulsion to depression. I can 
 judge of nothmg ; I mislead myself continually •, I take 
 poison to calm me. You see I cannot guide myself; en- 
 lighten me, strengthen me. I will believe you ; you shall be 
 my support ; you shall succour me like reflection itself, which 
 is no longer at my service. I know not how to foresee. I 
 can distinguish nothing. Conceive my trouble. I can rest 
 only on the idea of death ; there are days when death is my 
 only hope ; but also I have other instincts, and very contrary 
 ones ; sometimes I feel myself manacled to life ; the thought 
 of grieving him I love takes from me all desire to be com- 
 forted, if it be at the cost of his peace of mind.
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 53 
 
 In short, what can I say to you ? The excess of my in- 
 consistency bewilders my mind, the weight of life is crushing 
 my soul. WTiat must I do ? MTiat will become of me ? 
 Will it be Charenton or the grave which will deliver me 
 from myself ? I make you a victim if you care enough for 
 me to take part in what I suffer, and I regret it ; but if I 
 have caused you only ennui, I shall sink with confusion. 
 Do not think you can hide this from me, whatever effort 
 you may make to do so ; you cannot deceive my interest — 
 But gratify it by telling me how you are ; have you had as 
 much pleasure as you hoped, or less ? Is your health better 
 than during the last days you were here ? You are very 
 modest, you never told me how you were celebrated at 
 Strasburg; verses were made in your honour; they were 
 very bad, it is true, but the intention was so good ! Do not 
 be angry. 
 
 Tell me, have you read " Le Conn^table " on your journey 
 [tragedy in rhyme by M. de Guibert] , not while posting, but 
 aloud in good society ? Apropos of the " Connetable," if you had 
 a certain sensibility, if you were like Montaigne and regarded 
 me like another La B^otie, how I should pity you for deny- 
 ing yourself the pleasure of giving me a mark of confidence, 
 esteem, and affection ! I do not boast of myself, but I assure 
 you I should be torn by remorse if I had treated you in that 
 way. What does that prove ? — tell me. Adieu ; I know all 
 the difference in our affections ; teach me the rcsemhlance ; 
 that game [then in vogue] will never have been played 
 with so much interest. 
 
 Sunday, June 20, 1773. 
 
 Oh ! mon Dicu ! are you dead, or have you already forgot- 
 ten how keen and soiTowful is the remembrance of 
 you in the souls you have left ? Not a word from you since 
 May 24th ! It is very difficult not to believe it is a little
 
 54 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 your fault. If that is so, you deserve neither the regret my 
 heart feels, nor the reproaches tliat it makes you. 1 knew 
 that M. d'Aguesseau had received no news of you. I in- 
 terest myself in you in a manner so true, so sincere, that I 
 should have been delighted to liave heard that you had 
 given him the preference over me. He deserves it, doubt- 
 less in all respects ; but it is not justice that rules feeling. 
 Do you believe that if that virtue governed me I should be 
 uneasy at your silence, and need so many proofs of your 
 friendship ? Alas, no ! I cannot even explain to myself 
 why I am su concerned about you at this moment, for I heard 
 yesterday some news which engulfs my soul in sorrow ; I 
 have passed the night in tears ; but when my head and all 
 my faculties were exhausted, when I gained one moment 
 which was not a pain, I thought of you, and it seemed to me 
 that had you been here I should have written you what I 
 suffered and perhaps you would have come to me. Tell me 
 if I deceive myself. When my soul suffers am I wrong to 
 seek consolation in yours ? 
 
 In the midst of travel and many interests so different 
 from those that touch and affect the heart, can you still hear 
 a language which is foreign to most men carried away by 
 dissipation or intoxicated by vanity ? Nor is that language 
 better known to those who, like you, are filled with the 
 desire for knowledge and a love of fame. You are so con- 
 vinced that sensibility is a sign of mediocrity that I faint 
 with fear lest your soul should close itself wholly to this emo- 
 tion. It is fifteen days since I wrote to you, and I believed 
 yesterday that I would not write to you again until I heard 
 from you. Suffering has softened my soul and I yield to it. 
 At five o'clock this morning I took two grains of opium ; I 
 obtained a calmness better than sleep ; my pain is less rend- 
 ing; I feel myself crushed, with less force to resist. The
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 55 
 
 violence of the soul is moderated ; I can speak to you, I can 
 moan, but yesterday I had no power of expression. I could 
 not have told you that I fear for the life of him I love ; I 
 could have died sooner than pronounce those words that 
 froze my heart. 
 
 You have loved; conceive, therefore, what such terrors 
 are. Until Wednesday next I am left in an uncertainty that 
 horrifies me, but commands me, nevertheless, to live. Yes, 
 it is not possible to die so long as we are loved — but it 
 is dreadful to live. Death is the most urgent need of my 
 soul, yet 1 feel myself manacled to life. Pity me ; forgive 
 me for abusing the kindness you have shown me. Is it in 
 you or in me tliat I find the confidence that draws me on ? 
 
 They say that you cannot have found the King of Prussia 
 in Berlin. Have you gone to Stettin to join him ? he was to 
 be there till the 20th. I am so anxious ; it seems to me 
 we could have had news of you from Berlin. How wrong 
 of you if you have shown the slightest negligence. You 
 know well that you gave me- your word of honour that some 
 one should write to me if you were ill. But do not make 
 use of that pretext which may content ordinary friendship 
 which does not tvish to be made uneasy ; that would be detest- 
 able ; I do not wish to be spared ; I wish to suffer through 
 my friends, for my friends ; and I treasure a thousand times 
 more the troubles that come to me through them than 
 all the happiness on earth that is not derived from them. 
 Good-bye ; the opium is still in my head ; it affects my 
 sight ; perhaps it makes me more stupid than usual — what 
 matter if it does ? it is not my mind, only my sorrows that 
 interest you. 
 
 Monday evening, June 21, 1773. 
 
 I wrote to you yesterday, and I write to you again to- 
 night. If I waited three days, that is, till Wednesday, per-
 
 56 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 haps I should never answer your letter of the 10th, which 
 M. d'Aguesseau brought me to-day. In the first place (for 
 there may still, perhaps, be a future for me), I must ask you 
 to address your letters direct to me ; to send them through 
 M. d'Aguesseau is to put one risk the more against me ; he 
 may go into the country, or travel, etc. ; in short, it is enough 
 that we are three thousand miles apart ; add nothing to them. 
 Oh ! I shall surely seem mad to you : I am going to speak to 
 you with the frankness, the self-abandonment one would 
 have if death were certain on the morrow; listen to me, 
 therefore, with the indulgence and the interest that we have 
 for the dying. 
 
 Your letter has done me good ; I expected it still, but I 
 had ceased to desire it, because my soul could no longer 
 have an emotion that resembled pleasure. Well, — shall I 
 say it ? — you have given diversion for a few moments to the 
 horror which absorbs my whole existence. Ah ! my God ! 
 I fear for his life ; mine is fastened to his, yet I have need to 
 talk with you. 
 
 Can you conceive what it is that impels me, that drags me 
 towards you ? Nevertheless, I am not content with your 
 friendship ; I find a coldness, a carelessness in not telling me 
 why you did not write to me from Dresden as you promised ; 
 and besides, you make me feel in too marked a manner that 
 your regret at not finding in Berlin what you hoped for has 
 destroyed the pleasure you would otherwise have felt at the 
 expression and proof of my friendship ; and then too, — shall 
 I say it ? — I am wounded that you have not thanked me for 
 the interest that I take in you. Do you think it any answer 
 to this that I am very unjust, very difficult to please ? No, I 
 am nothing of all that ; I am very true, very ill, and very 
 unhappy — oh, yes, very unhappy. 
 
 If I did not tell you what I feel, what I think, I could not
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 57 
 
 speak to you at all. Do you believe that in the trouble in 
 which I. am one has the power to restrain one's self ? For 
 example, ought I to be touched by your manner of saying to 
 me, as to the chief interest of my life, " Answer me on all 
 this what you can, and what you like " ? Oh ! yes, what I 
 like ! you leave me great liberty, but you see how I employ 
 it, — not in criticising you, only in proving to you what 
 you know even better than I : that we have the tone and 
 expression of what we feel, and if I am not satisfied, it is 
 not your fault — I know that well. 
 
 But I claim nothing, unless it be that species of consola- 
 tion which we so seldom allow ourselves : that of speaking 
 out our whole thought. People are always restrained by a 
 fear of the morrow ; I feel myself as free as though there 
 were no morrow for me ; and if, by chance, I should live on, 
 I foresee that I could forgive myself for having told you the 
 truth at the risk of displeasing you. Is it not true that our 
 friendship must be great, strong, and complete, our intimacy 
 tender, solid, close, or else, nothing at all ? Therefore, I can 
 never repent having shown you the depths of my soul. If 
 that is not what you want, if there be any contempt for it, 
 well ! let us be sincere ; let us not be shamed or embarrassed ; 
 let us return whence we started, and believe that we have 
 dreamed. We can add this clause to the chapter of experi- 
 ence, and behave in future like those well-bred persons who 
 know it is not polite to tell their dreams. We will keep 
 silence about them ; silence is pleasant when it comforts 
 self-love ! 
 
 You will not tell me what rank you give me ; are you 
 restrained by a fear of gi^dng me too much or too little ? that 
 may be just, but it is not noble. Youth is so magnificent, it 
 loves to give lavishly ; yet here you are as miserly as if you 
 were old or rich. You ask the impossible ; you want me to
 
 58 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 pity you liecause you do your own will ; 1 am to combat you 
 to restore your native spirit. Eh ! mon Dieu ! a little while 
 and I will answer for it that your nature will govern you 
 despotically ; the habit of conquermg will strengthen it, and 
 there is little need of that ! You have said to yourself (I 
 have long been sure of this) that it mattered nothing 
 whether you were happy so long as you were great. Let 
 things happen ; I will answer for it that you will be consist- 
 ent; there is notliing vague or wavering about you except 
 your feelings; your thoughts, your projects are fixed in an 
 absolute manner. I am much deceived if you were not born 
 to make the happiness of a vain soul and the despair of a 
 feeling one. Own to me that what 1 am now saying does 
 not displease you ; you will forgive me for loving you less 
 when I prove to you that others will admire you more. 
 
 You ask me a singular question, truly. You say, " Are 
 there better reasons than myself for his absence ? " Yes, 
 there are better, — one indeed that is absolute ; one that if 
 he succeeds in subduing it, the sacrifice of my whole life 
 cannot repay the debt. All the circumstances, all events, 
 all moral and physical reasons are against him ; but he is so 
 ardent for me that he will not permit me to have a doubt of 
 his return. Nevertheless, I shudder at what I may hear on 
 Wednesday : he spits blood ; he has been bled twice ; at the 
 moment when the courier left him he was better ; but the 
 hemorrhage may return ; and how can I be calm with that 
 thought before me ? He himself fears the result ; though 
 he tries to reassure me, I detect his fear. Tell me if you 
 know of whom I speak ; and further, did you know it when 
 I wrote to ask you for " Le Coundtable " I Is it delicacy or 
 caution which makes you seem to ignore a name I have not 
 mentioned to you ? 
 
 But I am not speaking to you of your journey. If I could
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 59 
 
 believe that I shall live and that you will not go to Eussia, 
 I should eagerly desire that you might be detained in Berlin. 
 But as I think that you always feel the need of doing diffi- 
 cult things, I would like, now that you are once started, that 
 you should make the tour of the world, — in order that it 
 might once be done ; and then, could there be repose in the 
 future ? Hardly would you return before you would start 
 for Montauban [where his father lived] ; and after that, other 
 projects ; for you cannot endure rest unless it be to make 
 plans for travelling a thousand leagues. Yes, on my honour, 
 I think it was a great misfortime for me the day that I spent 
 one year ago at Moulin-Joli.^ I was far indeed from needing 
 to form a new attachment ; my life and my soul were so 
 filled that I was very far from desiring a new interest ; and 
 you, you had no need of this additional proof of what you 
 can inspire in an honoural)le and sensitive person. Oh ! it 
 is pitiful ! Are we free agents ? Can what is be otherwise ? 
 Were you not free to tell me that you would write to me 
 often ? As for me, I am not free to cease to desire it eagerly. 
 Having thus scolded you, I must add that you were very 
 kind to write to me on your arrival; I deserved it, — yes, 
 indeed I did. 
 
 Thursday, June 24, 1773. 
 Three times in one week ! It is too much, much too 
 much, is it not ? But it is because I care for you enough to 
 believe that I have made you uneasy. You must be feeling 
 some impatience to know if I am still living. Well, yes ! 
 I am condemned to live ; I am no longer at liberty to die ; 
 I should do harm to one who desires to live for me. I have 
 news of him to the 10th ; it does not altogether reassure 
 
 1 The house of the painter and litte'rateur, Watelet, on the banks of 
 the Seine, where she met M. de Guibert for the first time. The gardens 
 of this place were famous as among the first to be laid out in the English 
 style. — Fr. Ed.
 
 60 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 me, but I hope that his hemorrhage may not have fatal 
 results ; I even hope it may hasten his return ; but this hot 
 vi^eather is a mortal injury to him, and I must wait. 
 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! always to see pleasure deferred, disap- 
 pearing ! always to be engulfed, overwhelmed by sorrow ! 
 If you knew what need I have of repose ! for one year I 
 have been upon the rack. You alone, perhaps, have had the 
 power to suspend my sorrow for a few instants; and that 
 blessing of a moment has bound me to you forever. 
 
 But tell me, — my last letter, did it displease you ? Do I 
 not stand ill with you ? I should be grieved were it so ; 
 but I am not like Mme. du Ohatelet ; I know no repentance. 
 Answer me with the same frankness that I employ to you ; 
 esteem me enough not to tell jue half the truth ; tell me all 
 the evil you think of me ; and it is not, as M. de la Eoche- 
 foucauld says, for the pleasure of hearing myself spoken of 
 that I ask you to tell me this ; it is to judge if you are my 
 friend, if — in a word — you can he my friend. I attach enough 
 value to our intercourse to wish urgently to know what there 
 may have been of sudden surprise, or mistake, in that which 
 drew us to each other. It is said that nothing is stronger or 
 better founded than the sentiments for which -we can give 
 no reason. If that is true, I ought to rely upon your friend- 
 ship ; but you will not have it so ; why is that ? Shall I 
 not be satisfied with it ? Do you not know that the natural 
 impulse after we have acquired a new possession is to 
 examine it, to observe it on all sides ; this occupation is 
 perhaps the highest joy that possession gives ; but you, you 
 do not know all the details and all the pleasures of sensi- 
 bility. Whatever is elevated, whatever is noble, whatever is 
 grand, that is your sphere. The heroes of Corneille fix your 
 attention ; scarcely do you cast your eyes on the little swains 
 of Gessner. You love to admire, and I, I have but one need,
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 61 
 
 oue will, — to love. What does it matter ? "We may not 
 have the same language, but there is a sort of instinct that 
 supplies all ; nothing, however, can fill the chasm of a thou- 
 sand leagues of distance ! 
 
 I was so troubled the last time I wrote that I did not tell 
 you Diderot was in Holland; he likes it so well, he has 
 already so many friends whom he never saw before, that it 
 is quite possible that he may not return to Paris, and even 
 forget that he was on his way to Russia. He is an extraor- 
 dinary man, not in his place in society : he ought to be the 
 leader of a sect, a Greek philosopher, teaching, instructing 
 youth. He pleases me very much, but nothing about him 
 reaches my soul ; his sensibilities are only skin-deep ; he 
 never goes farther than emotion. I like nothing that is half 
 and half, nothing that is undecided and not thorough. I 
 cannot understand the ways of people in society ; they 
 amuse themselves and yawn, they have friends and they 
 love no one. All that seems to me deplorable. Yes, I 
 prefer the torture that consumes my life to the pleasure that 
 numbs theirs; with that fashion of being we may not be 
 lovable, but we love, and that is a thousand times better than 
 pleasing. 
 
 How I should like to know if you are going to Eussia. I 
 hope not, because, as you say, I desire it. Letters seem to 
 me to come more slowly from Russia than from any other 
 part of the world. I have re-read, twice, thrice, your letter ; 
 first because it was difficult to read, next, because I was diffi- 
 cult to please. Ah ! if you knew what faults of omission I 
 found in it ! But why should you not make them ? 
 
 M. d'Alembert is awaiting a letter from you with great 
 impatience. M. de Crillon forestalled you. Your friend, M. 
 dAguesseau seemed to me, at least on the day he brought me 
 your letter, very extraordinary ; he had the air of a person in
 
 62 LICT'J'KRS OF [1773 
 
 trouble ; his movements had something convulsive about them. 
 He said he was ill, and I believe it ; he has a project of going 
 to Spa. I do not know if he will, but 1 am glad he will not 
 be with ycm. Adieu ; 1 have overwiielined ytju with (|ues- 
 tions to which you do not iei)ly. I do not ask if y(ju would 
 like me to send you the news, because it would be out of my 
 power to put my mind to such things; but I know some- 
 tliing that the public does not yet know, namely : that 
 M. d'Aranda is appointed ambassador from Spain in place (jf 
 M. de Fuentfes [father of the Marquis de Mora] and that the 
 latter is given the first place at his Court. All this is of no 
 interest to you, and it may astonish you that it is of great 
 interest to me. Must 1 not be foolish to interest myself in 
 things that happen in ]\Iadrid ? Adieu again. My style of 
 folly is e(|ual to your piety. Send me news of yourself often 
 and at length ; share, if you can, the pleasure that it will give 
 me. How many letters do you receive that you are more 
 eager to open than mine ? — three ? ten ? 
 
 Thursday, July 1, 1773. 
 Oh ! if you knew how unjust I am ! how I have accused 
 you ! how I have told myself that I ought -to expect and 
 desire nothing of your friendship ! And the cause of it all 
 was merely that I received no letters from you. Tell me why 
 we expect, why we exact so much from one on whom we do 
 not rely. Ah ! truly, I believe you will forgive my incon- 
 sistencies ; but I, I must not be so indulgent ; they hurt me 
 more than they do you. I no longer know what I owe to 
 you ; I no longer know what I give you ; I only know that 
 your absence is heavy upon me ; yet I cannot assure myself 
 that your presence would do me good. Ah ! mon Dieu ! what 
 a horrible situation is that in which pleasure, consolation, 
 friendship, all, in short, becomes poison ! \Miat must I do ?
 
 i::3] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 63 
 
 tell me ; how recover calmness ? I know not where to look 
 for strength to resist impressions so deep and so diverse. 
 Oh ! how many times we die before death ! All things dis- 
 tress and injure me ; yet the liberty to deliver myself from 
 the bm'den that is crushing me is taken from me. Laden 
 with sorrow, there is one who wishes me to live ; I am torn 
 both ways — by despair, and by the pity that another makes 
 me feel. 
 
 Ah ! my God ! can it be that to love, to be loved, is not a 
 good ? I suffer every pain, and, more than that, I trouble the 
 repose, I make the unhappiiiess, of the one I love. My soul 
 is exliausted by sorrow ; my bodily frame is destroyed, and 
 yet I live, and I must live. AVHiy do you require it ? what 
 niatt€rs my life to you ? of what value do you reckon it ? 
 what am I to you ? Your soul is so busy, your life so full 
 and so active, how can you find time to pity my woes ? and 
 have you indeed enough feeling to respond to my friendship ? 
 All ! you are very amiable ; you have the tone of interest, but 
 it seems to me it is not I who inspire it. My letters are neces- 
 sary to you ; perhaps that is true — yes, as you say so ; but 
 why be so long iu writing to me ? and why not send yom^ 
 letters direct ? Strasburg delays them for two or three days. 
 
 I am enchanted (and it was thus I intended to begin my 
 letter) that you have been satisfied with the King of Prussia. 
 AMiat you tell me of that magic vapour that surrounds him 
 is so charming, so noble, so just, that I cannot be silent about 
 it ; I have read it to all those who deserved to hear it. Mme. 
 Geoffrin asked me to give her a copy. I have sent it far and 
 near, and it will be felt. So you are not going to Russia ? I 
 am glad. Let me tell you again how charming I find your 
 friendship ; you answer me, you converse, you are still beside 
 me though a thousand leagues distant. But how comes it 
 that that woman does not love you to madness, as you wish
 
 64 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 to be loved, as you deserve to be ? haw else can she employ 
 her soul and her life ? Ah ! she has neither taste nor sensi- 
 bility ; of that I am sure. She ought to love you, if only 
 from vanity — but why do I meddle in all this ? You are 
 satisfied, or if you are not, you love the ill she does you ; why, 
 therefore, should I pity you ? But that other unhappy person ! 
 it is she who interests me ; have you written to her ? is her 
 pain as deep as ever ? I must tell you that the other day at 
 Mme. de Boufflers much was said of you and " Le Connd table," 
 and the yoimg Comtesse de Boufflers told me that she believed 
 you were very much in love, and this belief had made her 
 watch Mme. de . . . with great attention. A man present 
 assured us that you no longer loved her; j'ou had done so, 
 but the feeling had worn out, and he thought you would 
 never be long happy or unhappy for the same woman ; he 
 said the activity of your soul did not allow it to fix itself 
 long on one object ; and from that arose a witty discussion 
 on matters of feeling and passion. The Comtesse de Boufflers 
 finally said that she did not know who it was with whom 
 you were in love, but it certainly was no longer Mme. de . . . 
 and she judged, by the notes she had received from you at 
 the time of your departure, that you were strongly attached 
 to some one and that your absence from her rent your soul ; 
 but then came the natural reflection : " Why does he go to 
 Russia ? " Perhaps to cure himself, perhaps to stifle the 
 feelings of the woman he loves. At last, after many conjec- 
 tures of no interest, I was asked if I liked you, if I knew you 
 well, for until then I had not said a word : " Yes, I like him 
 much ; after knowing him a little there is only one way of 
 liking him." " Well, then, you know his intimacies ; who is 
 the object of his passion ? " " No, truly, I know nothing ; 
 except that he is now in Berlin and is well ; that the King of 
 Prussia has received him admirably and is to show him his
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 65 
 
 troops ; after that, he goes to Silesia ; that is all I know, and 
 all that interests me." After this we talked of the Opera, of 
 Madame la Dauphine and of a thousand " interesting " things. 
 I tell you all this to show you that I do not like society to 
 gossip about your affections, your dislikes, your inconstancies. 
 I like to hear only of your merit, your virtue, your talents ; 
 am I wrong ? 
 
 I have written three times to Berlin since the 6th of June. 
 No doubt they will forward your letters; I remember 
 the desire you will have to receive certain letters, " the de- 
 privation of which turned your head." For pity's sake do 
 not treat me so well ; do not write to me first, because then 
 (without being aware of it) you will write to me merely for 
 the sake of saying )0u have written. Do not come to me 
 until you have nothing more to say to lier ; that is in the 
 order of things ; friendship comes after, sometimes at a great 
 distance, sometimes very near — too near perhaps — the un- 
 happy love ! We love so much that which comforts us ! it is 
 so sweet to love that which gives us pleasure. I do not know 
 why it is, but something warns me that I shall say of your 
 fiiendship what Comte d'Argenson said on seeing, for the 
 first time, his pretty niece. Mile, de Berville. "Ah!" he 
 cried, " she is very pretty ! let us hope she will give us 
 many griefs." 
 
 What do you think of that ? But you are so strong, so 
 moderate, and above all so occupied, that you are equally 
 sheltered from great sorrows and little giiefs. That is how 
 minds should be, how talents should be ; it is that which 
 renders human beings superior to events. And when, with 
 that, a man is as honourable and, above all, as feeling as you 
 are, he is no doubt painfully affected, — enough so to satisfy 
 ordinary friendship ; but he is soon diverted from the emo- 
 tions of his soul when his head is eagerly and deeply
 
 66 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 occupied. I predict this of you, and I am glad of it : 
 you will never experience those sorrows which convulse 
 the soul; you are young enough to still receive a few 
 slight shocks, but, I answer for it; you will soon recover 
 ywur balance ; ah, yes ! I answer for it, and you will make 
 a great career and have a great celebrity — I shall horrify 
 you, I shall show you a very paltry and common soul, but I 
 cannot bear that idea. Every time that I think of you in the 
 future I have an icy feeling ; it is not because what is great 
 attracts admiration and crushes me, but because that which 
 is great so rarely deserves to be loved. 
 
 Admit that I am almost as silly as I am wild ; I am much 
 worse than either. I have that particular style which Vol- 
 taire (I venture to name him) sajs is the only bad style ; 
 I fathom you so well that I know I need not tell you it 
 is the xDearying style. The difference in our affections is 
 this : you are at the other end of the world, you are 
 calm enough to enjoy everything ; while I am in Paris, 
 I suffer, and I enjoy nothing ; " that is all," as Marivaux 
 says. 
 
 I have received many details regarding liim. I see there 
 is nothing now to fear from this last hemorrhage ; but ask 
 yourself if it is possible to have a moment's peace while 
 trembling for the life of one to whom one would sacrifice one's 
 own life at every instant. Ah ! if you did but know how lov- 
 able he is, how worthy of being loved ! His soul is gentle, 
 tender, strong ; I am certain he is the man in all the world 
 who would please and suit you most. . . . 
 
 It is you who give me faults ; you have that exclusive 
 privilege. I am with all my other fi-iends the best and 
 easiest of beings ; they always favour me, they forestall 
 me in every way ; I spend my life in tlianking them and 
 praising tliem, and I c<in) plain of you — but only to you.
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 67 
 
 I criticise you, I disapprove of you ; wliy that difference ? 
 Can you believe that it is only one year since we first knew 
 each other ? It seems to me impossible, 
 
 Wednesday evening, July 14, 1778. 
 
 Ah ! how amiable you can be, and how you surprise me by 
 returning to me, being so occupied, so dissipated as you are ! 
 How is it that you even think of one who can have no other 
 merit in your eyes than that of seeming capable of loving and 
 suffering ? Of what use to you are those sad faculties ? You 
 have no need of being loved, and you would be sorry to make 
 me suffer ; what value can j^ou place upon an intimac}' where 
 all the advantage is on my side only ? 
 
 You ask me questions which I am not in a state to answer. 
 Alas ! one must needs be calm to answer the questions of in- 
 difference. Sorrow, the duration of suffering, have given me 
 a species of stupidity which deprives me of the power of 
 thinking ; all the reason left to me is enough (and no more) 
 t(j judge myself, to condemn my emotions, and be sorry for 
 all my feelings. My soul has continual fever with par- 
 oxysms which lead me often to delirium. Oh! if it were 
 true that excess of ill gives birth to good, I might hope 
 for some relief. No, I can no longer bear the diverse 
 agitations that rend my heart, but I reproach myself for 
 the weakness that drags me into showing you what I 
 suffer. It seems to me that I cannot excite your interest; 
 I have no claim on your sensibilities ; and if I had, it is 
 not with my sorrows that I ought to nourish them. No, 
 you owe me nothing, and I will prove it to you : I detest, 
 I abhor, the fatality which forced me to write to you 
 that first note; yet at this very moment, perhaps, it is 
 dragging me onward with the same power. I did not wish 
 to speak to you of myself; I meant simply to thank you
 
 68 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 for wi'iting to me before you reached Vienna. I meant 
 to answer you, not speak to you from myself. 
 
 Of your praises I accept none, and I shall amaze you ; the 
 reason is that they do not praise me. What matters it to 
 me that you judge I am not silly ? It is strange, but never- 
 theless true, that you are the man in the world whom I least 
 care to please. Explain to me that singularity ; explain to 
 me why I judge you with intolerable severity; why I find 
 myself continually unjust to you ; why, not believing in 
 your friendship, I cavil at all its expressions ; why, in short, 
 having reason to praise you, I am so tempted to find fault ? 
 My reason tells me I ought to ask your pardon because my 
 thoughts insult you constantly, and my soul revolts at the 
 mere feeling that you may be showing mercy to me. No, 
 no ! I do not want it ; judge me severely ; see my injustice, 
 my inconsistency, and let yourself follow the impulse that 
 such a sight must inspire in you. Ah ! as I have already 
 told you, we cannot make of all this the friendship of Mon- 
 taigne and La B^otie. They were calm ; they simply gave 
 themselves up to the sweet and mutual impressions they 
 received ; but we — we are ill, yet with this difference, that 
 you are a sick man full of strength and reason, who will act 
 in a manner to soon enjoy the best of health ; while I — I 
 am attacked by a fell disease in which all the reliefs that I 
 have sought have turned to poison, and have served only to 
 render my sufferings more acute. These are strange indeed ; 
 they deprave my reason, they lead astray my judgment, for 
 I do not desire to be cured ; I am conscious only of the want 
 to die. Ah ! my God ! how sorry I should be to travel, to 
 devour a hundred volumes in two months of time! how 
 "grieved I should be to be worth as much as you, to be des- 
 tined to such success, such glory ! If you only knew how 
 small my soul is ! it sees but one thing only in all the world
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 69 
 
 that is worthy to occupy it. Caesar, Voltaire, the King of 
 Prussia seem to it sometimes worthy of admiration, but 
 never of envj. I should horrify you too much if I told you 
 the fate I should prefer to all else that breathes ; yes, I am 
 like Felix — in Polyeucte : — 
 
 " I enter upon feelings tbat are not believable, 
 Some I have are violent, others are pitiable; 
 I have even some — " 
 
 But you cannot understand that language ; I should make 
 you blush for having thought that my soul had relations with 
 yours. You do me too much honour in raising me to your 
 level ; but avoid ever putting me beside the women you most 
 esteem ; you would annoy them, and do me harm. You do 
 not know all my value ; reflect that I can suffer and die, and 
 then ask yourself if I resemble those women who please and 
 amuse themselves. Alas ! the one is as repugnant to me as 
 the other is impossible. I dislike whatever comes to distract 
 and turn me from my one thought ; there are objects that 
 nothing can make me lose from sight. What I hear called 
 dissipation, pleasure, only stupefies and wearies me ; and if 
 any one had the power to part me a moment from my sorrows, 
 I believe that, far from feeling gi-ateful, 1 shoidd hate him. 
 What think you of that ? you who talk to me of my " happi- 
 ness," and who lead me to hope that, if it depends on your 
 friendship, you will give it to me. No, monsieur, your friend- 
 ship will not give me happiness, for that is impossible ; it will 
 console me, it may, perhaps, make me suffer, and I do not 
 know whether I shall hereafter felicitate or pity myself most 
 for what I owe to you. 
 
 Why do you take the tone of justifying yourself for hav- 
 ing read aloud the " Conn^table " ? It would have been 
 disobliging to refuse a pleasure you could give and receive. 
 The King of Prussia wrote a charming letter to M. d'Alem-
 
 70 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 bei't, full of your praises, and he counted on hearing }-ou read 
 the ." Conn^table." I am certain he will be delighted with 
 it ; its tragedy is on the tone of his own soul in many ways. 
 Adieu ; give me frequent news of you, and form no plan of 
 writuig me four lines. Keep that intention for your acquaint- 
 ance ; some friends, even, may be content with it, but I am 
 hard to satisfy. Tell me if you have received my letters. 
 
 Paris, July 25, 1773. 
 
 No, no ! do not deceive yourself ; the greatest distances 
 are not those that Nature marks with milestones ; the Indies 
 are not so far from Paris as the date of June 27 is far from 
 that of July 15 ; there is verital)le remoteness, horrible sepa- 
 ration, forgetfulness of the soul ! it resembles deatli, but is 
 worse, because it is felt so long. But do not think I reproach 
 you — ah ! vion Dieu ! I have not the right ; you owe me 
 nothing, and I ought to return you thanks for any mark of 
 your remembrance. 
 
 I knew from Baron de Kock that the camp manoeuvres 
 would not take place. It is thought here that the Emperor 
 and the King of Prussia have given themselves a rendezvous 
 in some town of their new possessions ; but you have filled 
 your time in a useful manner, so that you will regret the 
 camps but little. What ! smcerely, do you really wish me 
 to reduce you to my dimensions ? Is it because you find it 
 easier to bend yourself than to raise me ? but from whatever 
 level I look at you, you retain your own height, which is sucli 
 that few men reach it. Permit me not to regard as a result 
 of confidence and friendship what you tell me of your char- 
 acter. Alas ! . do you know what you reveal to me by disclos- 
 ing the inconsistencies which agitate you ? It is that I am 
 stujnd, that I see nothing, observe nothing ; for, if you are 
 neither false nor dissimulating, I ought to have discovered
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 71 
 
 what you think you now disclose to me of your own accord. 
 Do you wish me to tell you something of profound wisdom ? 
 It is that neither you nor I know you perfectly : you, because 
 you are too near, and because you observe yourself too much ; 
 and I, because I have always regarded you with fear and 
 embarrassment. Oh ! if ever I see you again, I will look 
 better into you ; it seems to me that my sight is growing 
 keener. 
 
 "VMiat you say about the cause of your continental journeys 
 is charming, full of wit and grace, and that is surely enough 
 to make us do without trutli. " I fill my youth in order that 
 my old age may not blame me for neglecting to employ it." 
 You see you are like the miser, who, while his children are 
 dying of hunger, justifies his cruelty in his own eyes by say- 
 ing that he amasses wealth that they may enjoy it after him. 
 Let us be more candid ; let us not seek a pretext to justify 
 our tastes and our passions : you go to the ends of the eartli 
 because yoin- soul is more eager than tender. Well, what 
 harm in that ? You are young, you have known love, you 
 liave suffered, and you conclude from that that you have sen- 
 sibility : it is not so. You are ardent, you can be impassioned, 
 you are capable of all that is strong, of all that is grand, but 
 you will never do any but things of movement ; that is to say, 
 actions, detached deeds ; and such is not the way of sensibil- 
 ity and tenderness. They attach, they bind, they fill the 
 whole life; they leave no place for aught but sweet and 
 peaceful virtues ; they evade distraction ; all that separates 
 and removes them from then object seems to them misfor- 
 tune or tyranny. Consider and compare these things. As 
 I have already told you, nature has not made you to be 
 happy ; she has condemned you to be great ; submit, there- 
 fore, without a murmur. 
 
 For the rest, I believe what you tell me about the advan-
 
 72 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 tage of this country over that of all others. I do not know 
 if you will bring back from your travels a disgust for travel- 
 ling, but I am very sure you will have lost the power to settle 
 yourself anywhere. You will have judged with justice and 
 accuracy that which is good, that which is better, but you will 
 do as the Italians do with music ; they prefer novelty to excel- 
 lence. I beg your pardon for contradicting your words, but 
 you must agree that I am truly on the tone of your soul. Do 
 you wish me to talk to you of mine ? Here is the state of it. 
 Have you ever watched those who are attacked by slow, incur- 
 able diseases ? When you inquire of those who are nursing 
 them, the answer is, " As well as can be expected ; " which 
 means : " He must die, but he has a few moments of respite." 
 That is precisely the state of health of my soul. To a most 
 violent storm a calm has succeeded. The soul's condition of 
 him I love is such as I could wish it, and according to my 
 heart, but his health is alarming. Nevertheless, I am sure 
 that he makes no mistakes of regimen. He clings to life 
 because it gladdens him to love and to be loved ; he lives for 
 that only. Oh ! if you knew how winning he is ! Yes, you 
 might love me a little, but you would not think well of me 
 for being capable of a faithless feeling to him. Oh ! who are 
 you to have turned me for an instant from the most delight- 
 ful, the most perfect of mankind ? Yes, if you knew him — 
 when you know him — you will see that in the judgment I 
 pronounce upon him there is neither illusion nor l)ias. 
 
 The Chevalier d'Aguesseau will have written you that I 
 had lost all patience. I sent to him to ask news of you and 
 he had none at the moment, but as soon as he received your 
 letter of the 8tli he sent me word that you were well. I was 
 tempted to write and tliank you for having a friend to relieve 
 me of anxiety ; but tlieu 1 thought it better to wait till I 
 heard from you.
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 73 
 
 Yes, I desire to wait for }'ou — always. \VTiy should I go 
 faster than you ? I should only weary myself and clog your 
 steps. I desire that no affections shall henceforth agitate me 
 painfully : it is too much. I know not how I have sufficed 
 so far. It is true that I have concentrated my strength on a 
 single point. All nature is dead for me, except certain objects 
 which fill and vivify every moment of my life. I exist for 
 nothing else : things, pleasures, distractions, vanity, social 
 opinion, all that is no longer of use to me ; I regret the time 
 that I gave to it — though indeed it was very short, for I knew 
 sorrow early, and it has this of good about it ; it averts many 
 follies. I was trained by that great teacher of men, misfor- 
 tune. That was the language that pleased you ; it touched 
 the feeling spot of your soul, from which dissipation and the 
 amiable social tone of this country is forever removing you. 
 You were glad to have me bring you back to what you once 
 loved, what you once suffered. Y^es, there is a species of 
 suffering which has such charm, which brings such sweetness 
 into the soul, that we are ready to prefer that woe to all that 
 is called " pleasm'e." I taste that joy — or that poison — 
 twice a week ; and that sort of nourishment is more needful 
 to me than the air I breathe. 
 
 The Comtesse de Bouffiers talks to me much of you and 
 of what she writes to you ; she likes you because you wrote 
 " Le Connetable," and that is indeed enough on which to found 
 a liking. Oh ! how small and narrow my soul is ! I hate 
 the Patagonians and the Liliputians equally — but what are 
 my likes and dislikes to you ? 
 
 Y"ou are very amiable to have thought of making your writ- 
 ing larger ; but I am inclined to complain of it, for it cuts me 
 off a few lines. In God's name, stay what you are ; scribble 
 as you please, travel round the world, but begin in Paris ; in 
 a word, do not change a hair from your style of being. I do
 
 74 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 not know if it is the best, but it is the most agreeable to me. 
 Ts not such praise insipid ? Do not laugh at me ; I am very 
 silly, but I do assure you I am a good soul — am I not ? 
 
 Sunday evening, August 1, 1773. 
 
 You are too good ; you surprise me with kindness. It is 
 delightful to have a pleasure on which we did not coimt, and 
 I am charmed to owe you an emotion which has done good to 
 my soul. I received yesterday a letter from you dated the 
 18th; I was much pleased to see that your dates are getting 
 closer ; you no longer put fifteen days' interval between them ; 
 and I do not owe this change to the regrets I expressed to you, 
 but to you yourself, to your friendship : I like far better that 
 which it gives me than that which I obtain myself. I wanted 
 to thank you, to tell you feebly that which I feel so keenly, 
 and now I am made more happy still, — I have received to- 
 day another letter from you ! 
 
 My first emotion (I know not why) was fear; the habit 
 of ill-fortune spoils all things. But I was soon reassured. I 
 found you kind, full of feeling, close to my soul. It seemed 
 to me I ought to be glad for having suffered, as my suffering 
 was of interest to you. Oh ! with how many regrets you 
 fill my life! I might enjoy your friendship; it might be 
 my consolation, it might be my pleasure, but you are a 
 thousand leagues away ! I cannot escape the fear that so 
 many new objects, a life so filled and occupied as that you 
 are forced to lead, may destroy, or at least weaken a tie and 
 an interest to which there is lacking, perhaps, that degree of 
 warmth which makes it a need of the heart, or, at any rate, 
 a habit. I admit that I set but little value on that last tie, 
 which is the sentiment of those who have none ; but see the 
 baneful disposition of my soul : I fill myself with fears, re- 
 grets, when I ought to enjoy these testimonies and proofs of
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE; 75 
 
 your friendship. It is so sweet, so indulgent — that friend- 
 ship ; you forgive me all my injustice ; I have Llamed you 
 a thousand times, but I have never repented giving myself 
 up to you in the closest confidence. With you it is impos- 
 sible to feel one's self mistaken, and thus one is sheltered 
 from great evils ; for remark that all tragedies are founded on 
 misunderstandings, and that almost all misfortunes have the 
 same cause. But do not punish me for having been unjust by 
 no longer telling me of that wliicli interests you. Tell me all 
 you feel and experience and I promise to share it, and to tell 
 you the impression it makes upon me. I love you too well 
 to impose the least restraint upon m}-self ; I prefer to have to 
 ask your pardon rather than commit n( > faults. I have no self- 
 love with you ; I do not comprehend those rules of conduct 
 that make us so content with self and so cold to those we 
 love. I detest prudence, I even hate (suffer me to say so) 
 those " duties of friendship " which substitute propriety for 
 interest, and circumspection for feeling. How shall I say it ? 
 I love the abandonment to impulse, I act from impulse only, 
 and I love to madness that others do the same by me. 
 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! how far I am from being equal to you ! 
 I have not your virtues, I know no duties with my friend ; I 
 am closer to the state of nature ; savages do not love with 
 more simplicity and good faith. The world, misfortunes, 
 evils, nothing has corrupted my heart. I shall never be on 
 my guard against you ; I shall never suspect you. You say 
 that you have friendship for me ; you are virtuous ; what can 
 I fear ? I will let you see the trouble, the agitation of my 
 soul, and I shall not blush to seem to you weak and incon- 
 sistent. I have already told you that I do not seek to please 
 you ; I do not wish to usurp your esteem. I prefer to de- 
 serve your indulgence — in short, I want to love you with all 
 my heart and to place in you a confidence without reserve.
 
 76 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 No, I do not think you "sly" [fin] ; I think, as you do, 
 that slyness is always a proof of famine of mind ; but I do 
 think you stiipid for not understanding that which has been 
 clearly designated to you. What matters his name ? enough 
 that it does not injure that which I have told you of himself. 
 What surprises me is that I have named him to you a score 
 of times ; this proves to me, what I did not believe, that I 
 can mention his name like that of any other man ; but I 
 shall be still more surprised if, when you return, you cannot 
 distinguish him among the others ; for I assure you he is not 
 made to be lost in a crowd ; you will see. 
 
 I saw the Chevalier d'Aguesseau to-day, and was proud 
 to be able to give him news of you. With the other persons 
 wl;o expect to hear from you I have a contrary feeling. I 
 fear to seem to them more fortunate than they, and thus get 
 you blamed ; for most women have no need of being loved, 
 they only want to be preferred. 
 
 I shall be very glad to see the Chevalier de Chastellux 
 once more ; still, if I could add to his journey what I desire 
 to subtract from yours, I should not see him soon. (3bserve, 
 I beg of you, how I reverse the chronological order : I have 
 loved the chevalier these eight years. Adieu ; I have not told 
 you that I am ill as a dumb animal ; but my soul suffers less, 
 therefore I must not complain. 
 
 Sunday, August 8, 1773. 
 
 What folly to go in search of you, to send my letter to 
 await you in Breslau, where you will be occupied with the 
 king, the troops, your successes, etc., and nothing will incline 
 you to cast your eyes on Paris. I am wrong ; Paris is too 
 grand to be forgotten, but me you would overlook in the 
 crowd. Nevertheless, if I did not fear to grieve you I 
 should say : " There is no one who regrets you more sincerely 
 than I." Every one is busy or dissipating. I alone, I believe.
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 77 
 
 cannot lose from sight that which distresses me, or that 
 which I desire. I do not know how persons manage to grow 
 used to privations ; those that touch the soul are so keen ! 
 they have no compensations. 
 
 I cannot believe that it is only three months since you 
 departed ; still less can I conceive how I can wait for }-ou 
 till the end of November. Your presence could not fail to 
 comfort me ; I regret it as my pleasure. Ah ! friendship, 
 that blessing of nature, is it to me a fresh sorrow ? Does all 
 that affects my soul turn to poison ? You were to me a charm- 
 ing acquaintance ; your tone, yom' manners, your mind, they 
 all pleased me ; a higher degree of interest in you has spoiled 
 all : I yielded myself up to the good you did me. Ah ! why 
 have you penetrated within my soul ? Why did you show me 
 yours ? Why establish so intimate an intercourse between 
 two persons whom all things separate ? Is it you, or is it I, 
 who are guilty of the species of pain from which I suffer ? 
 Sometimes I am arrested in my desire for your return by the 
 fear that you will wound my friendship ; and yet it is not 
 exacting. You will be so occupied, so carried-away, so dissi- 
 pated, that, perhaps, you may be as far from me in Paris 
 as at Breslau. Well, so be it ; I shall see you seldom and 
 await you often ; that will be something. 
 
 But are you not thinkmg to shorten your journey rather 
 than prolong it ? W^hat can you see better or more inter- 
 esting than what you are now seeing in Silesia ? And then 
 if you go to Sweden and do not write from there you will 
 receive no letters ; we may be three months without news of 
 you, and that would no longer be absence, it would be death. 
 In a word, be it justice or generosity, I must have news of you, 
 and there is neither reason nor pretext which can justify you 
 for being so long without writing to me as you were between 
 Prague and Vienna. Reflect that you owe much to my con-
 
 78 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 dition ; I am ill, I am unhappy ; does not that solicit your 
 goodness ? What it grants will be repaid by infinite grati- 
 tude. Good God ! what a poor motive ! what a pitiable 
 sentiment ! Do you not think so ? 
 
 I have just read an extract from the " Eulogj' on Colbert " 
 now competing at the French Academy. The tone of it 
 seemed to me so firm, so noble, so lofty, so original, that I 
 suddenly wished it were yours. I do not know if the rest is 
 as worthy, but you would not disavow the little I have seen 
 of it.^ I have had fever for some days; the last time I 
 wrote to you I finished my letter while trembling in a chill. 
 There is a certain postman who, for the past year, has given 
 fever to my soul, Ijut now it has attained my poor body. I 
 feel destroyed ; and I have always been so unfortunate that 
 something tells me I shall die at the moment when my mis- 
 fortunes end. Eeturn, and at least I shall be sure of having 
 tasted before I die a cons(jlation very sweet to my soul. I 
 reproach myself for ever having been unjust to you. Mon 
 Dieu ! you have suffered, and you will pardon me ; there are 
 situations which ask for so mucli indulgence ! 
 
 I have read the long-expected book of M. Helvetius [" Of 
 Man; his Intellectual Faculties and his Education," a post- 
 humous work]. I was alarmed at its size ; two volumes, of 
 six hundred pages each ! Your voracity would have made an 
 end of it in two days ; but as for me, I can no longer read 
 with interest ; my affections withhold my attention ; I read 
 what I feel, and not what I see. Ah ! mon Dieu ! how the 
 mind shrinks by loving ! it is true that the soul does not, 
 but what can one do with a soul ? I forgot to answer you 
 aljout the affair of Comte de C . . . ; it is even less advanced 
 than at first; you could hardly believe what a poor creature 
 he is on whom the matter depends ; he is not stupid, but the 
 
 ^ It was by M. Neeker, and Utok tlii' prize. — Fr. Ed.
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 79 
 
 silliest of men. His wife is better than he ; but the absorp- 
 tion she has in herself absorbs all her faculties. On the 
 whole, they are persons whose real merit is to have a good 
 cook. How many people of whom the world speaks well 
 have no other value ! No, the human species is not wicked ; 
 it is only silly, and in Paris it is as vain and frivolous as it 
 is silly; but no matter, provided what one loves is kind, 
 amiable, and excellent. 
 
 Ah ! if )'ou knew what amuses and attracts the public ! — 
 a tragedy by M. Dorat (devoid of wit, interest, and talent), 
 and next a comedy by M. Dorat, which is a masterpiece of 
 bad taste and bad style ; it is an imintelligible jargon. The 
 applause given to it really saddened me the other day ; it 
 is enough to discourage talent. 
 
 Sunday, August 15, 1773. 
 
 Listen to me, and once for all l)elieve that I cannot wrong 
 you, and you know why I cannot wrong you. I have not 
 been negligent ; this is my fifth letter since July, 3d. I do 
 not see why you had not received mine of Jul}- 15th on the 
 3d of August. I cannot endure the irregularities of the 
 post ; they are the torment of my life ; but you surprise me, 
 you, by attaching such importance to my letters. How could 
 you have the idea that I meant to harass you ? Pimish you ? 
 — and for what ? Supposing, what is assuredly not so, that 
 I were dissatisfied with your friendship, have I the right to 
 complain of it ? Would it not be the height of imperti- 
 nence to imagine that the loss of my letters was a painful 
 privation to you ? If I tell you that I am not so foolishly 
 vain as most women, you are not obliged to believe me ; but 
 know me better and you will find that I receive as a favour 
 that which is given me ; that I enjoy it with feeling, and 
 respond to it with all the tenderness and sincerity of my 
 soul ; but never do I feel myself prompted by the sort of
 
 80 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 confidence that is found, not in the heart, but in a vanity that 
 exacts from those we love, and sometimes dares to put them 
 to the proof. Intercourse with the world has not altered the 
 simplicity and truth of my sentiments. Eemark that I am 
 not praising, but defending myself. 
 
 I am sorry and uneasy about the pain in your leg ; you 
 do not take care of it, though you say you do; and I am 
 more uneasy at that than for the pain itself. Alas ! the 
 great evil of absence is ignorance of the details that touch 
 us closely. While saying much, still more is left unsaid ; 
 and it seems to me that my friend always omits tliat which 
 I most need to know. Why do you wear yourself out with 
 fatigue ? The loss of sleep exhausts the brain, and, strong as 
 you may be, I am certain that b}- sitting up all night you do 
 not get the best of the things and objects you are seeking to 
 observe — not to speak of the risk you run of weakening 
 your health. To reach the object for which you aim, you 
 must not only live, but keep well ; in exalting the soul to 
 the point of sacrificing all to its love of glory, I believe it is 
 well to preserve the stomach. Ah ! if you knew how physi- 
 cal sufferings belittle the soul you would not squander as 
 you do 3'our sleep and your strength. I am speaking a very 
 trivial language to you, but it is that of friendship. Eemark 
 that those who wish to please never say a word of all this. 
 The tone of interest has no grace, it is ponderous, it repeats 
 itself — but it does not weary those who feel it for one who 
 deserves it so well. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that the uueasmess in which you 
 were when you wrote to me disturbed your judgment a little. 
 You urged me to write to you without telling me where to 
 address my letter. I know that you were not in Vienna 
 after the 12th at the latest, yet I must send my letter there ; 
 there is no sense in that. And another thing, equally sense-
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 81 
 
 less, was writing to you at Breslaii. But why, when making 
 the tour of the world, should any one desire to hear from his 
 friends ? Yes, you are very inconsistent ! in fact, there are 
 moments when I am so weary that I am tempted to leave 
 you on the way. I am ill, I am sad, and it seems to me that 
 I should serve you best by letting myself be forgotten. The 
 more kindness, the more feeling you might show me, the 
 more I should dare to tell you that you will often repent 
 havmg yielded yourself too quickly to an intimacy from 
 which I alone obtain advantage. 
 
 There is a clause in your letter on which I dared not rest 
 my eyes, though my soul fastened on it. Mon Dieu I what 
 word was that you said ! it froze my blood ! No, no, my soul 
 shall seek for yours no more. Ah ! that thought will kill 
 me ! Be my consolation ; calm, if you can, the trouble of my 
 soul ; but do not think that I could, for one iastant, sur\dve a 
 disaster the very fear of which fills my life with a terror that 
 has-destroyed my health and disturbs, incessantly, my reason. 
 
 Adieu, I cannot continue ; my heart is wrung ; if I compose 
 my mind I will resume ; because I must justify myself on 
 the matter of which you speak, and ask your pardon, though 
 I am not guilty. 
 
 Still Sunday. 
 
 I intended to warn you that I had repeated your remark 
 on the King of Prussia, which was so charming that I 
 thought I might do so without impropriety. It was thought 
 what it is, and it went far and wide until it reached Mme. 
 du Deffand, who thought it very bad, and twisted and 
 commented upon it, and foimd, as she thought, many con- 
 tradictions to it. She ended by saying that if your " Conn^- 
 table " were another " Athalie " it would not prevent her from 
 thinking the form and basis of that thought of yours de- 
 testable. Some days later she spoke of it in the same 
 
 6
 
 82 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 tone to the , Neapolitan ambassador [Caraccioli] ; this 
 made him angry, and he told her that when people criti- 
 cised they ought to quote honestly, and by changing the 
 words of the speech he thought her criticism as unjust as it 
 was severe. Mme. de Luxembourg and Mme. de Beauvau, 
 before whom this occurred and who were against Mme. du 
 Deffand, asked the ambassador for a copy of the actual 
 remark ; he promised it ; then he came and told me the 
 whole of this silly dispute, and I own that the pleasure of 
 confounding Mme. du Deffand made me yield to his request. 
 I copied the three lines for him and he went off' triumphant. 
 Mme. du Deffand was confounded ; at any rate she dared no 
 longer disparage that which everybody else thought charm- 
 ing. Until then, there had been no question to whom you 
 had written it. She now took it into her head to ask 
 that question ; the ambassador refused to reply, and this 
 increased her curiosity. Finally, he said it was written to 
 me, and added : " No doubt it was a presentiment that made 
 you condemn a saying so full of wit and grace." — There 's 
 a long tale ; I should have told you earlier, but it seemed 
 to me rather paltry to send a thousand leagues. I must 
 add that the ambassador brought the copy back to me, and 
 I burned it. Just see what silly things occupy these people 
 of the world ! what empty minds it proves ! Yes, unhappi- 
 ness is good for something; it corrects the little passions 
 which agitate the idle and the corrupt. Ah ! if they could 
 only love they would all become good. 
 
 You can see, now, whether I was guilty of indiscretion. 
 If you say I was, I shall believe it ; but do not tell me that 
 people will think " we wa-ite to each other to say witty 
 things." Ah ! what matter to us if fools and malicious peo- 
 ple tliink so ? They are strong only when they are feared ; 
 I hate and flee them, but I fear them no longer. For sev-
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 83 
 
 eral years I have so weighed and estimated those who judge 
 that I dare not tell you the contempt I have for opinion. I 
 do not wish to brave it, and that is all. There is a passion 
 that closes the soul to all the miseries which torture the 
 people of the great world ; I have the sad experience of 
 it. A great woe kills all the rest. There is but one in- 
 terest, one pleasure, one misfortune, and a single judge 
 for me in all creation. Oh ! no, I am not petty. Eeflect 
 that I hold to life at one point only ; if it escapes me, 
 I shall die. From this inward conviction, profound and 
 permanent, you can readily believe that all else is annihi- 
 lated for me. I know not by what fatality — or what 
 good fortune — I became susceptible of a new affection : 
 searching within myself I can neither find nor explain its 
 cause ; but, such as it is, its effects have brought sweetness 
 to my life. It seems to me an astounding thing that my 
 sorrows should interest you ; it proves to me the goodness, 
 the sensibility of your heart. I reproach myself, just now, 
 for the remorse I have felt in yielding to my penchant for 
 you : sorrow makes one severe to one's self ; I feel guilty 
 for the good you do me. Is it now, or was it then that I 
 made myself illusions ? On my honour I do not know. 
 But you, whose soul is not convulsed by trouble, you can 
 judge me better ; and when I see you, you will tell me if I 
 ought to rejoice or despair at the feelings you inspire within 
 me. — I received yesterday news of him which alarms me ; 
 his health does not improve ; he is perpetually threatened by 
 a fatal attack from which he has been twice at death's door 
 within a year ; how is it possible that he should live ? Adieu ; 
 send me news of youi"self. 
 
 Monday, August 16, 1773. 
 I open my letter to tell you how conscious I am of yx)ur 
 kindness in being so uneasy at receiving no letter from me.
 
 84 LETTERS OF (1773 
 
 I cannot imagine why ; for my friends take my letters them- 
 selves to the general post-office. Why have you renounced 
 your journey to the North ? I cannot believe it is solely to 
 shorten the period of your absence. To whom are you mak- 
 ing the sacrifice of Sweden ? If some one has exacted it, you 
 are doubtless content. Well, if your return is hastened I 
 will love the person or thing that is the cause of it. But 
 next year ? must you go to Eussia ? and must you not go at 
 once to Montauban ? and then to that country-seat where you 
 will find pleasure and seek happiness, and then — and then 
 — but no matter, anythmg is better than Sweden; and I 
 know not — that is, something tells me not to be anxious 
 about what may happen next year ; as you say yourself, 
 there is time between now and then to die a hundred 
 times. 
 
 You have made me a reproach ; I have a mind to return it : 
 are you guilty of what the Chevalier de Chastellux has writ- 
 ten to me, namely, that I love you deeply ? How does he 
 know it ? I have given my secret to none but you and him 
 to whom I tell all. Can it be that you have told the Cheva- 
 lier ? If it were so, I could only thank you, and complain. 
 
 M. d'Alembert is at this moment with Mme. Geoffrin. I do 
 not doubt she will think it a pleasure to write to the King 
 of Poland [Stanislas-Poniatowski]. It occurs to me that in 
 this long letter*! have omitted a rather interesting point : my 
 health ; it is detestable ; I cough friglitfully, and with such 
 effort that I spit blood. I spend a part of my life unable to 
 speak ; my voice is extinct, but this of all inconveniences is 
 the one that suits the inclinations of my soul the best ; I like 
 silence, meditation, retirement. I do not sleep, or scarcely 
 so, and I am never dull. You will think from this that I 
 must be very happy. If I add that I would not change my 
 condition for that of any other living being you will think
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. • 85 
 
 me in paradise — and you will be wrong ; to go there one 
 . must die, and that is what I wish to do. But come ; and 
 write me often, often. 
 
 August 22, 1773. 
 I received yesterday your letter of the 10th, and it has 
 done me good. If you only knew what I have suffered dur- 
 ing the last eight days! how wrung with grief my heart has 
 been ! in what distress, in what alarms my life is spent ! I 
 have no longer the liberty to free myself; it is awful; and 
 it is not in the power of him I love to make my troubles 
 cease. He knows them, he suffers from them, he is still 
 more unliappy than I, because his soul is stronger, and has 
 more energy, more sensibility than mine. For one whole 
 year every moment of his life has been marked by misfor- 
 tune ; he must die of it, yet he wills that I shall live. Oh ! 
 my God ! my soul cannot suffice for what it feels and what 
 it suffers. See my weakness, see how sorrow makes one 
 selfish and indiscreet; I make you think of me, I sadden 
 you perhaps. Ah ! forgive me ; this excess of confidence 
 comes from my friendship, my tender friendship for you. 
 You have shown me such kindness, such indulgence that it 
 seems to me I cannot abuse it. If you, alas ! were to suffer, 
 who could feel and share it more than I ? You see within 
 my soul, you know what it has for you. Ah ! I feel, at the 
 summit of woe, invoking death at every instant, that it will 
 cost me a regret to leave you ; you console me, and yet I 
 sink beneath the weight of my sorrows — No, no ! they 
 are not mine that rend me, they are his, for which I have 
 neither remedy nor consolation : that is the torture of a 
 feelmg and devoted soul. You have loved, you will under- 
 stand and pity me. 
 
 After what you wrote to M. d'Alembert I counted on 
 seeing you by the end of September, and now I find you
 
 86 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 will not be here till the end of October ; but will you be 
 here then ? Alas ! I know not if I may dare to hope so far 
 before me. Perhaps I am speaking to you now for the last 
 time. I dare not permit myself either hope or project. Ah ! 
 I had suffered much from the injustice and malignancy 
 of men ; they reduced me to despair ; but I here avow that 
 there is no sorrow comparable to that of a deep, unhappy 
 passion : it has effaced my ten years' early torture. It seems 
 to me that I live only since I love; all that affected me, all 
 that rendered me unhappy until then is obliterated ; and yet 
 in the eyes of calm and reasonable people I have no sorrows 
 but those I have ceased to feel; they call passion a ficti- 
 tious sorrow. Alas ! it is because they love nothing, because 
 they live only for vanity and ambition, and I, I live only to 
 love ; no longer have I the tone or the feelings of society. 
 More than that, I am uicapable of fulfilling its duties ; but 
 fortunately I am free, I am independent, and in yielding 
 myself up wholly to my inclinations I have no remorse, 
 because I harm no one. But see how little you ought to 
 think of me ; I reproach myself often for the kindness and 
 the esteem that is shown to me ; I usurp so much in society ; 
 people judge me too favourably because they do not know 
 me. It is true that I have been so great a victim to calumny 
 and the malice of enemies that I feel my present position to 
 be a sort of compensation. 
 
 May I make you a reproach ? my friendship misses your 
 confidence ; you no longer tell me of yourself ; why is that ? 
 I was unjust to you once, I know ; is it thus you punish me ? 
 How is it that if you love you have nothing to say to me ? 
 You suffer, you hope, you enjoy ; why, then, do you tell me 
 nothing ? You speak to me so little of yourself that your 
 letters might go to nearly every woman of your acquaint- 
 ance. It is not so with mine; they can go to but one
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 87 
 
 address. Am I wrong ? is it too much to exact equality in 
 confidence ? This is the fourth letter you have still to 
 acknowledge, do not forget that. I think it was folly to 
 have written to you at Breslau ; you may not have thought 
 of the post and my letter will still be there. You must 
 burn all my letters. I fancy that I see them falling in great 
 bundles from your pockets ; the disorder in which you keep 
 your papers affects my confidence — but you see it does not 
 check it. Adieu. I have pain in my chest. Is your leg 
 cured ? Send me news of yourself. 
 
 Monday, September 6, 1773. 
 
 Your silence hurts me. I do not blame you, but I suffer, 
 and I can scarcely persuade myself that if your interest were 
 equal to mine I should be one month without hearing from 
 you. Mon Dieu ! tell me, what value do you place on friend- 
 ship if absence and travel distract you from it wholly ? Ah ! 
 how fortunate you are ! A king, an emperor, troops, camps, 
 can make you forget the one who loves you and (more touch- 
 ing perhaps to a feeling soul) tlie person whom your friend- 
 ship sustains and consoles. No ; I do not blame you ; I 
 even wish that your forgetfulness did not seem to me a 
 wrong ; I should like to find within me the disposition that 
 approves of all, or suffers all without complaint. 
 
 I know not why I was persuaded that I should hear from 
 you at Breslau whether you received my letter, or whether 
 it were lost ; my hope was balked. Oh ! I hate you for 
 making me know hope, fear, pain, pleasure ; I had no need 
 of those emotions — why did you not leave me in repose ? 
 My soul had no need to love ; it was filled with a tender senti- 
 ment, profound, participated, mutual, but sorrowful neverthe- 
 less ; and that son-ow was the emotion that drew me to you. 
 I meant that you should only please me, but you have
 
 88 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 touched me ; in consoling me you have bound me to you, 
 and the singular thing is that the good you have done me, 
 which I received without consenting to it, far from rendering 
 me supple, docile, like other persons who receive favours, 
 seems, on the contrary, to have given me the right to be 
 exacting on your friendship. You, who judge from heights 
 and see into depths, tell me if that is the action of an 
 ungrateful soul, or of one too sensitive : whatever you say of 
 it I shall believe. 
 
 Keturn speedily ; I see the days slip by with a pleasure 
 I cannot express. They say the past is nothing; but as for 
 me, it crushes me ; it is precisely because I have suffered so 
 much that it is so dreadful to me to suffer still. Ah ! but 
 there is madness in promising myself some sweetness, some 
 consolation in your friendship ; you will have gained so 
 many new ideas, your soul lias been agitated by so many 
 diverse sentiments that no trace of the impression you 
 received of my sorrow and my confidence will remain. But 
 come, come at any rate ; I shall judge, and I shall see clear — 
 for illusions are not for the sorrowful. Besides, you have as 
 much openness as I have truth ; we shall not for one 
 moment deceive ourselves ; come, therefore, and do not bring 
 back from your journey the melanclioly impressions the 
 Chevalier de Chastellux has brought from Italy. He speaks 
 of all that he has seen without pleasure, and all that he now 
 sees gives him but little more. I would not change my 
 ways of thinking for his, and yet I pass my life in convul- 
 sions of fear and pain ; but then, what I expect, what I 
 desire, what I obtain, what is given to me, has such value to 
 my soul! I live, I exist with such force that there are 
 moments when I find myself lovmg madly to my own 
 unhappiness. Ought I not to cling to it ? ought it not to be 
 dear to me ? It caused me to know you, to love you, and,
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 89 
 
 perhaps, to have one friend the more — for you tell me so. 
 If I had been calm, reasonable, cold, all this would not have 
 happened. I should vegetate with the other women, who 
 flirt their fans and discuss the sentence on M. de Morangies 
 and the arrival of the Comtesse de Provence. 
 
 Yes, I repeat it : I prefer my griefs to all that people in 
 society call happiness and pleasure. I may die of them per- 
 haps, but that is better than never having lived. Do you 
 understand me ? are you on my key ? have you forgotten that 
 you too have been as ill, but more fortunate than I ? Adieu ; 
 I do not know how it is, I meant to write you four lines only, 
 but my pleasure in doing so has led me on. How many 
 persons are there whom you will see on your return with 
 greater pleasure than you will me ? I will give you the list : 
 Madame de . . . , the Chevalier d'Aguesseau, the Comte 
 de Broglie, the Prince de Beauvau, the Comte de Eocham- 
 beau, etc., etc., and Mesdames de Beauvau, de Boufflers, de 
 Rochambeau, de Martin ville, etc., etc. ; then the Chevalier de 
 Chastellux, and then I, at last, the last. Ah ! see the differ- 
 ence : I can name but one against your ten ; the heart does 
 not conduct itself by law and justice ; it is despotic and 
 absolute. I forgive you ; but — return. 
 
 M. d'Alembert awaits you with impatience. The Cheva- 
 lier de Chastellux is absorbed by the comedies at Mme. 
 d'Epinay's, but his tone is cold and sad. Adieu ; do you really 
 think that I shall see you in a month ? That is too far off 
 to feel any pleasure from it yet. 
 
 November, 1773. 
 
 Here I am : courage failed me ! When I have not what I 
 love I prefer to be alone : I talk then to my friends more 
 intimately, — more unreservedly. I have just written for 
 three hours, and I am blinded by it, but not wearied. Mme. 
 de Boufflers permits me to ask you for a copy of her letter ;
 
 90 LETTERS OF [1773 
 
 bring it to ine to-morrow, I beg of you ; and bring me also the 
 continuation of your journey which gives me such infinite 
 pleasure. Is it in the morning or is it in the evening that I 
 am to see you ? I should like the morning, because that is 
 sooner, and the evening, because that is longer, but I shall 
 like whatever you choose to give me. Adieu ; I did not sleep 
 last night. 
 
 Ilalf-past eight o'clock, 1773. 
 
 Mon ami, I shall not see you, and you will tell me that it 
 is not your fault ! but if you had had the thousandth part of 
 the desire I have to see you, you would be here, and I should 
 be happy. No, I am wrong, I should suffer ; but I should 
 not envy the pleasures of heaven. Mon ami, I love you as 
 one should love, to excess, to madness, with transport and 
 despair. All these last days you have put my soul to the 
 torture ; I saw you this morning, and 1 forgot it all ! It seems 
 to me that I cannot do enough for you in loving you with all 
 my soul, in being in the mind to live and die for you. You 
 are worth more than that ; yes, if I only loved you, it would 
 be nothing ; for what is sweeter and more natural than to 
 love wildly that which is perfectly lovable ? Mon ami, I 
 can do better than love, I know how to suffer ; I know how 
 to renounce my pleasure for your happiness. But there is 
 one who troubles the satisfaction I should have in proving 
 to you that I love you. 
 
 Do you know why I write to you ? Because it pleases me ; 
 you would never think it if I did not tell you. But oh ! 
 where are you ? If you are happy I must not complain that 
 you have taken happiness from me. 
 
 December, 1773. 
 
 Good-morning, mon ami. Have you slept ? how are you ? 
 shall I see you ? Ah ! take nothing from me ; the time is so 
 short and I set such value on that which I spend in seeing
 
 1773] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 91 
 
 you. Mon ami, I have no opium in my head, nor in my 
 blood ; I have worse than that, I have that which would 
 make me bless heaven and treasure life if he I love were 
 inspired with the same emotion ; but alas ! what we love is 
 made to be the torment, the despair of the soul that feels ? 
 Good-bye ; I want to see you, you ought to come and dine 
 with me at Mme. GeoiTrin's. I dared not tell you so last 
 night. Yes, you ought to love me passionately ; I exact 
 nothing ; I pardon all ; and I have never had an angry 
 feeling, mon ami ; I am perfect, for I love you in perfection. 
 
 Four o'clock, 1773. 
 
 You have not started ; at least, I hope not. This is what 
 I fancy you will have said to yourself : " The weather is 
 dreadful; I will go to-morrow to the country, I will be 
 driven there ; I will see her this afternoon ; I will go and 
 spend the evening with Mme. de V . . ." Mon ami, if you 
 can reason thus, M. d'Alembert will permit you to argue 
 in future, and you will not be reduced to making or not 
 making Conn^tables. Racine would never have allowed 
 any one to prevent him from writing his " Letters " on the 
 Visionaries or his " History of Port-Royal." Here are the 
 two volumes ; I warn you that if you lose them you will 
 be lost in M. d'Alembert's opinion. Here is also Plutarch ; 
 that is mine ; but, if it is all the same to you, I would rather 
 it were not lost or torn. 
 
 I saw Mme. de M . . . at mass and spoke to her. Her 
 face and figure satisfy the most fastidious and exacting taste ; 
 but her tone, her manner, ah ! how repulsive they are ! Am 
 I wrong? But her friend does not resemble her; yes, I 
 believe this, and I even desire it ; is this feeling generous ? 
 tell me. 
 
 No, you shall never know all that the ambassador wrote
 
 92 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 to me ; but hear this : he said that, judging by appearances, 
 M. de G . . . had obtained that which M. de M . . . had 
 desired to obtain ; and then he added : " I am not afraid lest 
 his piercing eyes shoukl see these words ; I consent that those 
 of M. de M . . . should read this letter as he reads your 
 soul," etc. ; adding a hundred lively little jests very gay and 
 clever ; he is certainly charming, but quite undeserving of 
 being loved. — Mon ami, you advised me yesterday not to 
 love you ; is it I or yourself whom you wish to save from that 
 misfortune ? — tell me. I liave an infallible remedy : how 
 sweet it will be to me if I can think that I do anything for 
 you. 
 
 Mon ami, this soul which is like a thermometer, now at 
 freezing, then at temperate, and a moment after at the burn- 
 ing heat of the equator, this soul, thus carried away by an 
 irresistible force, finds it hard to curb and calm itself; 
 it longs for you, it fears you, it loves you, it wanders 
 in a wilderness, but always it belongs to you and to its 
 regrets. 
 
 1774. 
 Mon ami, yesterday, coming home at midnight, I found 
 ycnir letter. I did not expect such good luck ; but what 
 grieves me is the number of days that must pass without my 
 seeing you. Ah ! if you knew what the days are, what the 
 life is, stripped of the interest and the pleasure of seeing you ! 
 Mon ami, amusements, occupations, activity are all you need, 
 but I, my happiness is you, and only you ; I would not wish 
 to live if I could not see you, could not love you at every in- 
 stant of my life. Send me news of yourself, and come and 
 dine to-morrow with Comte C . . . He asked me to change 
 from Sunday to Saturday; I said yes; but come there, I 
 entreat you. I was to dine to-day at the Spanish ambas- 
 sador's, but I have excused myself ; if you were to be there
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 93 
 
 I would not have done so. Good-bye. I am expecting the 
 letter you promised me. I am much hurried. 
 
 1774. 
 I yield to the need of my heart, mon ami: I love you ; I 
 feel as much pleasure and anguish as if it were the first and 
 the last time in my life that I should say those words to you. 
 Ah ! why have you condemned me to say them ? Why am 
 I reduced to do so ? You will know some day — alas ! you 
 will then understand me. It is dreadful to me to be no longer 
 free to suffer for you and through you. Is that loving you 
 enough ? Adieu, man ami. 
 
 At all the instants of my life. 1774. 
 Mon ami, I suffer, I love you, and I await you. 
 
 Tuesday, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, you make me prove that we like better to give 
 than to pay our debts. I have several letters to answer, and 
 to come to them I must begin by talking with you. Mon 
 ami, have you given me, since last night, one minute, two 
 minutes ? Have you said, " She suffers, she loves me, and I 
 must blame myself for a part of her sorrows " ? It is not to 
 distress you or to give you remorse that I say that, but to 
 make you kind, indulgent, and not angry when a few cries 
 of pain escape me. As for me, I have thought of you, and 
 much, but my time has been occupied. — Good God ! was there 
 ever such pride, such disdain of others, such contempt, such 
 injustice, in a word, such an assemblage and assortment of 
 all that peoples hell and lunatic asjdums ? All that was 
 last night in my apartment, and the walls and ceilings did 
 not crumble down ; a miracle ! 
 
 In the midst of the sorry writers, smatterers, fools, and 
 pedants, among whom I spent my day, I thought of you alone
 
 94 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 and of your follies ; I regi'etted you ; I longed for you with 
 as much passion as if you were the most amiable, most 
 reasonable being that existed. I cannot explain to myself 
 the charm that binds me to you. You are not my friend ; 
 you can never become so : I have no sort of confidence in 
 you ; you have caused me the deepest, sharpest pain that can 
 afflict and rend an honest soul ; you deprive me at this mo- 
 ment, and perhaps forever, of the only consolation that 
 heaven granted to the few remaining days I have to live, — 
 how shall I say it ? You have filled all ; the past, the pre- 
 sent, and the future present me nothing but pain, regrets, 
 remorse. Ah ! mon ami, I see, I judge it all, yet I am drawn 
 to you by an attraction, by a feeling which I abhor, but which 
 has the power of a curse and a fatality. You do well not to 
 consider me ; I have no right to require anything of you ; for 
 my most ardent wish is that you were nothing to me. What 
 would you say of the state of a most unhaj)py being who 
 showed herself to you for the first time agitated, convulsed 
 by feelings so diverse and contradictory ? You would pity 
 her ; your heart would be stirred ; you would want to suc- 
 cour, to comfort that unfortimate creature. Mon ami, it is 
 I ; this sorrow, it is you who have caused it ; this soul of 
 fire and pain is your creation (ah ! I still think you godlike), 
 and you ought to repent of your work. 
 
 When I took my pen I did not know one word of what I 
 should say to yoil ; I meant only to tell you to come and 
 dine to-morrow, Wednesday, at Mme. Geoffrin's. I meant to 
 show you that you alone of all my friends oblige me to wait 
 for what I earnestly desire, " Le Conn^table." It is mine ; I 
 might have refused to give it to you, and now it is I who 
 persecute you to return it. Ah ! mon Dieu ! neither cares, nor 
 interest, nor attentions, nor any desire to please, — occasion 
 ally a kindness that resembles pity ; and with it all, or ivith-
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. &5 
 
 out it all, I love you wildly. Pity me, but do not tell me 
 so. Bring back my letters ; yes, do that. 
 
 Three o'clock, 1774. 
 
 It was not myself who answered you. If you love me it 
 must have made you uneasy, and I shall be grieved to have 
 caused you a pain I could have avoided. I was in a state of 
 anguish, like the agony of death, preceded by a fit of tears 
 which lasted four hours. No, never, never did my soul feel 
 such despair. I have a sort of terror which bewilders my 
 reason. I await Wednesday, and it seems to me that death 
 itself is not sufficient remedy for the loss I fear ; it needs no 
 courage to die, but it is awful to live. It is beyond my 
 strength to think that, perhaps, the one 1 love, he who loved 
 me, will hear me no more, will never come again to succour 
 me. He views death with horror because the thought of me 
 is added to it. He wrote me on the 10th, " I have in me 
 that which will make you forget all that I have made you 
 suffer ; " and that very day the fatal hemorrhage struck him 
 down ! 
 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! you who have known passion, despair, can 
 you conceive my soitow ? Pity me so long as I shall live, but 
 never regi-et the unhappy being who has existed eight days 
 in a state of suffering to which thought cannot attain. Adieu. 
 If I must live, if my sentence is not pronounced, I may still 
 find sweetness, charm, and consolation in your friendship ; 
 will you preserve it for me ? 
 
 1774. 
 
 I distrustful, and of you ! Think with what complete sur- 
 render I have given myself to you ; not only have I put no 
 distrust, no caution, into my conduct, but I should not even 
 know regret or remorse if it were my happiness alone that I 
 had compromised. Oh ! mon ami ! I know not if I now
 
 96 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 love better, but he who made me unfaithful and guilty, he for 
 whom I live after losing the object and interest of every mo- 
 ment of m}^ life, is he who has had most empire over my soul, 
 he who has taken from me the liberty to live solely for an- 
 other and to die when neither hope nor desire remains to me ! ^ 
 No doubt I have been held to life by the same spell that drew 
 me towards you, that potent charm attached to your pres- 
 ence, which intoxicates my soul and bewilders it to such ex- 
 cess that the memory of my sorrow is effaced. Mon ami, 
 with three words you have created a new soul within me, 
 you have filled it with an interest so keen, a sentiment so 
 tender, so profound, that I lose the faculty to recall the past 
 and to foresee the future. 
 
 Yes, mon ami, I live in you ; I exist because I love you ; 
 and that is so true that it seems to me impossible not to die 
 if I should lose the hope of seeing you. The happiness of 
 having seen you, the desire, the expectation of seeing you 
 again aid and sustain me against my grief. Alas ! what would 
 become of me if, instead of hope, I had only the sorrowful 
 regret of not seeing you ? Mon ami, with you I have not 
 been able to die, without you I neither could — nor would I 
 — live. Ah ' if you knew what I suffer, what dreadful 
 laceration my heart feels when I am left to myself, when 
 your presence, or your thought no longer sustains me ! Ah ! 
 it is then that the memory of M. de Mora becomes a senti- 
 ment so active, so piercing, that my life, my feelmgs cause 
 me horror. I abhor the aberration, the passion that made 
 me guilty, that made me cast trouble and fear into that 
 sensitive soul that was all my own. 
 
 Mon ami, do you conceive to what point I love you ? You 
 
 1 The Marquis de Mora died at Bordeaux, May 27, 1774, on his way 
 from Madrid to I'aris, drawn there by his passionate desire to return to 
 Mile, de Lespinasse. — Fr. Ed.
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 97 
 
 divert the regrets, the remorse, that rend my heart : alas ! they 
 would suffice to deliver me from a life I hate ; you alone and 
 my sorrow remain to me in this wide world ; I have no more 
 interest in it, no ties, no friends, and I need none : to love 
 you, to see you, or to cease to exist — that is the last and 
 only prayer of my soul. Yours does not respond to it, I 
 know ; but I do not complain of that. By a strange caprice, 
 which I feel but cannot explain, I am far from desiring to 
 find in you that which I have lost : it would be too much ; 
 what human being has better felt than I all the value of 
 that life ? Is it not enough to have blessed and cherished 
 that nature once ? How many thousands of men have 
 crossed this earth without compare to him ! Oh ! how I 
 have been loved ! A soul of fire, full of energy, which had 
 judged all things, estimated all things, and then, turning 
 away revolted by all, gave itself up to the need and joy of 
 loving — mon ami, that is how I was loved. 
 
 Several years went by, filled with the charm and the 
 sorrows inseparable from a passion as strong as it was deep, 
 and then you came to pour poison into my heart, to ravage 
 my soul with trouble and remorse. My God ! what have 
 you not made me suffer ! You tore me from my feeling, 
 but I saw you were not mine. Do you not see the wliole 
 horror of that situation ? How is it that I have lived through 
 such woe ? How can one still find gentleness to say : " Mon 
 ami, I love you, and with such trath and tenderness that it 
 is not possible your soul be cold as it hears me " ? Adieu. 
 
 Friday, after post time. 
 You are " displeased ; " see if you ought to be ; what soul 
 have you ever inspired with a stronger or more tender feel- 
 ing ? Mon ami, in whatever way you regard and judge my 
 soul, I defy you to find anythicg in it to displease you. Oh ! 
 
 7
 
 98 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 I am sure of it ; never have you been so loved. But do not 
 make me say why — I cannot write to you ivhere you are ; I 
 dare not acknowledge to myself tlie reason ; it is a thought, 
 an emotion, on which I do not wish to dwell ; it is a sort of 
 torture which horrifies me, which humiliates me, and one 
 which I have never yet known. 
 
 You ask me how I liked the habit of seeing you daily. 
 Oh, no ! it was not a habit ; it never could become one. 
 How cold such colours are, how monotonous ! they cannot 
 be compared with the violent and rayjid emotions which the- 
 name and presence of the one we love excite. No, no, I have 
 not been happy enough to give myself the illusion that you 
 would come and see me ; thus I did not hear the opening 
 and closing of my door. But without interests, without 
 desires, what matters it what people see or hear ? Given 
 over to my regrets, I feel but one need ; I implore either 
 you or death. You soothe my soul, you fill it with so tender 
 a sentiment that it is sweet to live during the time that I 
 see you ; but there is nought but death that can deliver me 
 from misery in your absence. 
 
 Midnight, 1774. 
 
 So you have forgotten, abandoned, that fury, so foolish 
 and so wicked both ! but had yon left her in hell itself she 
 would not complain; the heat and activity of that abode 
 would make her live. Instead of that, the unhappy creature 
 spent her day in purgatory; she awaited a consoling angel 
 who did not come. He was no doubt making the happiness 
 and joy of some celestial being, himself intoxicated with the 
 joys of heaven. In that condition what could recall me to 
 him ; and if in truth he is really happy, I desire, from the 
 bottom of my soul, that nothing may remind him of me ; for 
 I am sufficiently unjust to detest his happiness and to wish 
 that remorse and repentance may pursue him perpetually.
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPlNASSE. 99 
 
 I wish him worse still, namely : that he may love no more, 
 and that he may henceforth inspire indifference only. Those 
 are the prayers, that is the wish of the soul that has loved 
 him best and has the greatest need of extinction forever. 
 
 1774. 
 
 I am alone at this moment and I wish to tell you at once 
 that I do not coimt upon you to go to the Duchesse d'An- 
 ville's. You will be always agreeable to me, but seldom 
 useful, and I wish I could add, little necessary. In trying to 
 restore my confidence, you prove to me how justly my dis- 
 trust was founded ; for I still miss three letters, one, espe- 
 cially, in which I spoke to you of Gonsalve [M. de Mora]. 
 You will doubtless find those three letters in some pocket of 
 your portfolio ; perhaps they are with that fourth volume 
 that I ought to receive to-day. 
 
 I notice that you make it your pleasure to pay attentions 
 to Mme. de . . . ; you give, and lend her, whatever gives 
 you pleasure; to me, it is the opposite extreme, — negligence, 
 forgetfulness, refusal. It is three months since you promised 
 me a book which belongs to you; I have now borrowed 
 it from some one else. No doubt it is best that this dis- 
 obliging maimer should fall on me ; that is only right, and I 
 complain solely of the excess of it. Good-night ! If work 
 costs you your nights, you must regret veiy much the use- 
 less visits that fill your days. Among the letters you have 
 sent back to me one is not mine ; but I swear that I will 
 never return it to you. 
 
 1774. 
 
 Return to me the two old letters. I am not asking you for 
 those of Cicero or Pliny. I desire not to see you, never to see 
 you again. Eegret is better — is it not ? — than remorse. 
 
 At the moment when you receive this I will wager that
 
 100 LETl^ERS OF [1774 
 
 you have already received a note in which you were told 
 ... I don't know what. 
 
 Eh ! mon Dieu ! believe her, give her peace, and if it is 
 possible, be happy yourself: that is the wish, that is the 
 prayer of the unhappy woman who has always before her 
 eyes the dreadful inscription on the portal of liell : " Give up 
 all hope, ye who enter liere." I have no hope, and I wish 
 for none. I ought to have annihilated myself on the day I 
 was left solitary. You prevented it, and you cannot now 
 console me. 
 
 May 11, 1774. 
 
 You do not know me yet ; it is almost impossible to 
 
 wound my self-love ; and the heart is so indulgent ! In fact, 
 
 the party of last night was like those insipid novels which 
 
 make the author and the readers yawn together. However, 
 
 one must say with the King of Prussia, on a rather more 
 
 memorable occasion, " We will do better next time." That 
 
 which makes an epoch remains in the memory, and you will 
 
 never forget in future that the day on which Louis XV. 
 
 died you spent the evening at a party in a sound sleep. 
 
 Believe me, there are recollections more painful than that. 
 
 Good-bye. 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night. 1774. 
 
 I will wager that you are not as sleepy to-day as you were 
 yesterday at the same hour ; and the reason is very simple ; 
 you are being amused, interested, and you have the desire to 
 please. Mon ami, you were not made for privacy ; you need 
 expansion; movement and the hurly-burly of society is 
 necessary to you ; this is not a need of your vanity ; it is 
 that of your activity. Confidence, tenderness, forgetfulness 
 of self and of vanity, all those blessings felt and appreciated 
 by a tender and passionate soul, clog and extinguish yours. 
 Yes, I repeat it : you have no need of being loved. What a
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 101 
 
 strange mistake was mine ' and / dare to blame certain per- 
 sons for lack of discernment ! / dare to tell them that they 
 observe nothing and do not know men. All ! how misled I 
 was ; mistaken to excess ! How is it that my intelligence 
 did not check my soul ? How can it be that, judging you 
 incessantly, I was, nevertheless, always carried away ? You 
 do not know the half of your ascendency over me ; you 
 do not know what you have to conquer each time that 
 I see you ; you have never suspected the sacrifices that I 
 make to yoii ; you do not know the degree to which I 
 renounce my own self in order to be yours. I say to 
 you with Phfedre, " Often was I forced to deprive myself 
 of tears." 
 
 Yes, mo7i ami, I deprive myself, with you, of all that is 
 most dear to me. I never speak to you now of my regrets, 
 nor of my memories ; and, what is more cruel still, I let you 
 see but a part of the feelings with which you fill my heart. 
 I restrain the passion you excite in my soid. ; I say to myself 
 incessantly : " He will not respond to it, he will not under- 
 stand me, and I should die of pain." Can you conceive, mon 
 ami, the species of torture to which I am condemned ? I 
 have remorse for what I give you, and regrets for what I am 
 forced to keep back. I give myself up to you, but I do not 
 give myself up to my own feeling for you ; yielding to you, 
 I nevertheless battle within myself. Ah ! can you under- 
 stand me ? can you know through thought what I feel, and 
 what you have made me suffer ? Yes, you will have a 
 return towards me, because you have the sensibility that 
 feels an interest in the mdiappy and pities them. 
 
 But I know not why I thus unbosom myself for an in- 
 stant; I know that I shall find no comfort in your heart. 
 Mon ami, it is empty of tenderness and feeling. You have 
 but one means of lifting me from my troubles : it is that of 
 
 L!Bi<AHY 
 UNaTRSlTi ^r CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 102 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 intoxicating me, and that remedy has been the greatest of 
 my misfortunes. 
 
 Good-night, mon ami ; send me news of yourself ; my foot- 
 man has orders to return for your answer. Tell me what 
 you expect to do to-morrow ; tell me if I shall see you : I 
 would rather it were not in the morning, because I must 
 then receive a long and wearisome visit ; but I want to see 
 you nevertheless. Eemember that on Saturday and Sunday 
 I shall be deprived of that happiness. 
 
 Adieu again ; I am much fatigued. I have seen, I think, 
 forty persons to-day, and I desired to see but one — one 
 whose thoughts very certainly have not been turned even 
 once to me. Mon ami, if you were happy I would approve 
 of your manner of living; but this vagueness, this void, 
 this agitation, this perpetual movement, this habit of being 
 neither occupied by work nor inspired by feeling, this con- 
 tinued expenditure which impoverishes, with no return in 
 pleasure, or reputation, or interest, or fame ! — ah ! mon ami, 
 you do not deserve that Nature should have treated you so 
 well ; she has been prodigal towards you, and you are but a 
 spendthrift. But I, I ruin myself for you, and it oppresses 
 without enriching you. Yes, I weary you; you feel a dis- 
 gust for my letters, and in that I admire the correctness and 
 delicacy of your taste ; but while I esteem such good taste I 
 grieve that you have almost no indulgence or kindliness. 
 
 Four hours after midday, 1774. 
 Certainly, mon ami, I do not keep to the lex talionis at 
 this moment, for it is not with me that you are occupied. 
 Eh ! mon Dieu ! how could you think of me in the midst of 
 so many and such charming objects of distraction, when I 
 cannot keep your thoughts fixed when we are tete a tete ? 
 Do you know why 1 prefer to see you in the evening ? Be-
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 103 
 
 cause those hours put a stop to your activity. There is no 
 way then of going to see Madame Such-a-one, or Gluck, etc., 
 or of doing a hundred useless things, in which you seem to 
 take an interest solely to leave me earlier. Do not think 
 that these are reproaches ; they are only remarks which I 
 cannot, with the degree of interest that I feel, prevent myself 
 from making. But I am so far from wishing to exact any- 
 thing that I tell myself, a hundred times a day, it is myself 
 over whom I ought to hold empire ; I ought to reduce my 
 feelings to the point where, not having sufficient force to 
 wring the soul, we claim nothing and are grateful for all ; in 
 other words, if passion be in my soul I ought to conquer 
 it rather than seek to make you share it. And do you know, 
 mon ami, what it is that may enable me to find the strength 
 to do so ? It is the inward conviction which I have that 
 it is not in you to make, the happiness of an active and pas- 
 sionate soul. I shall not say to you what it would be so 
 natural to think, namely : that I am not made to inspire 
 a deep sentiment ; that I ought not to pretend to please, to 
 fix a heart. All that is true, no doubt ; but it is not that 
 which makes me tell you that it is not in you to make the 
 happiness of a strong and feeling soul. I will give to that 
 soul the face of Mme. de Forcalquier, the nobleness of Mme. 
 de Brionne, the graces of Aglae, and the wit of Mme. de . . . 
 adorned, or rather, grafted with that of Mme. de Boufflers, 
 and when I have composed that perfect being I say again 
 that it is not in you to make her happiness. Why so ? 
 Ah ! why ? — because, with you, loving is a mere incident 
 of your age, and is not a part of your soul, though it agitates 
 it occasionally ; your soul is, above all things, lofty, noble, 
 grand, active, but it is neither tender nor impassioned. 
 
 Ah ! believe me, I am in despair at seeing to such depths ; 
 I have such need of loving, such pleasure in loving that
 
 104 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 which I find worthy of love. It is so impossible for me to 
 love moderately that the greatest misfortune that could hap- 
 pen to me would be to discover in you that which alone 
 could arrest, and perhaps extinguish, my feeling ; .for, I will 
 own it honestly, I do not find it in me to love alone. Witli 
 the opposite conviction I have the strength of the martyrs ; 
 I fear no sort of sorrow. While suffering, and suffering 
 much, I can still cherish life, still adore and bless him who 
 makes me suffer ; but only on condition of being loved — 
 loved from attraction ; not from gratitude, from delicacy, 
 from virtue, — all that is detestable ; it can only wither and 
 cast down a feelmg soul. Ah ! let us never make of the 
 greatest blessing that Nature has bestowed upon man a thing 
 of pity. 
 
 Mon ami, there are moments when I feel myself your 
 equal. I have strength, elevation, and a sovereign contempt 
 for all that is vile and unworthy ; and I have also a con- 
 tempt for death so fixed in my soul that, under whatever 
 aspect it presents itself, it cannot frighten me for an instant ; 
 in fact, it is almost always an active want within me. 
 
 From this knowledge that I have of myself and of you, I 
 say to you again : Let us love each other, or let us part 
 forever ; let us put truth and generosity into our conduct, 
 and esteem ourselves enough to believe that all is possible 
 to us except deceiving each other and living in that state of 
 trouble and fear which comes, necessarily, from the uncer- 
 tainty of being loved. In that state, mon ami, one has 
 confidence neither in one's self nor in the one we love ; we 
 enjoy nothing. For example : at this moment I desire pas- 
 sionately that you may return to-night from Auteuil [Mme. 
 de Bouffler's country-seat], and then, a moment later, it 
 seems to me tliat I wish you to remain there. Can you 
 conceive the sviffering caused by this inward combat between
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 105 
 
 the desire of the soul aud a will which comes only from re- 
 flection ? Co7idusio:i : I love you to frenzy, aud something 
 tells me it is not thus that you ought to be loved. That some- 
 thing makes such noise around my soul that I am ready to 
 hush all else, and give myself up comj)letely to that dreadful 
 truth. 
 
 Mori ami, I send you back your works that you may be 
 yourself their censor : put the last touches to them, and be 
 assured that no one in the world attaches as much value as I 
 to all that you do, and all that you are capable of doing. 
 Without being vain, it seems to me one could put one's 
 vanity, pride, vutue, pleasure, in short, one's whole existence, 
 into loving you ; but that is not what I was saying just now. 
 No, but then I was saying what I thought, what I knew, and 
 now I am carried away into telling you what I feel. My soul 
 is so strong to love, and my mind is so small, so weak, so 
 limited, that I ought to forbid myself all expressions aud 
 actions that do not come from my heart. It is my heart that 
 speaks when I say to you : " I await you, I love you, I would 
 faiu be wholly yours, and die." 
 
 Adieu ; here come \dsitors. I am so occupied with you, I 
 am so deeply filled with my regrets, that society is nothing 
 more to me than importunity and constraint. There are 
 ]jut two ways of living that now seem good to me, — to see 
 you, or to be alone ; but alone, without books, without lights, 
 without noise. I am far from complaining of my sleepless- 
 ness, it is the good time of my twenty-four hours. Observe, I 
 beg of you, how much it costs me to quit you ; whereas you 
 have no impulse towards me — not a thought ! Are you 
 the happier for that ? Yes. 
 
 Friday, 1774. 
 
 How kind of you to send me an account of what you do, of 
 what you are thinking, of what occupies you ! How I love
 
 106 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 the ardour, the activity of your soul aud of your mind ! Mon 
 ami, you have so many ways of attaining glory that you 
 ought not to desire that of war. Give yourself up to your 
 talent, your genius ; write, and by enlightening and interest- 
 ing men you will acquire the most flattering of all fame to a 
 sensitive and virtuous soul ; by thus doiiuj good you will enjoy 
 the best-deserved celebrity, — in trutli, the only desirable 
 celebrity in this age, where the choice lies between that and 
 baseness and frivolit}^ Ah ! how dreadful it would be to 
 me to live again the life I led for ten years. I saw vice in 
 action so closely, was so often the victim of the base and 
 petty passions of persons of society, that I still retain an in- 
 vincible disgust and fear, which make me prefer complete 
 solitude to an odious existence. 
 
 I am dying of a desire to see your play ; you must have 
 created the subject [Anne Boleyn], for in itself it does not seem 
 to me to admit of interest and action in more than a few 
 scenes. You will have all the more merit in seizing and 
 interesting attention during five acts ; Eacine had that magic 
 art in " Bf^rdnice." Your subject is grander and nobler, and 
 well on the tone of your soul. You will not need to rise to 
 heights, for you are always, without effort, on the level of 
 what seems exalted to common and vidgar souls. 
 • Yes, 7non ami, my days are as usual ; but I shall soon be 
 alone : all my friends are leaving Paris, and for the first time 
 in my life their departure does not cost me a regret ; and, if 
 it did not seem too ungi'ateful, I should tell you that I could 
 see M. dAlembert depart with a sort of pleasure. His pres- 
 ence weighs on my soul ; it makes me dissatisfied with my- 
 self : I feel myself unworthy of his affection and his virtues. 
 Judge, therefore, of my condition of mind, when that which 
 ought to be a consolation adds to my unhappiness — but I do 
 not want to be consoled ; my regrets, my memories are dearer
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 107 
 
 to me than all the attentions and the support of friendship. 
 Mon ami, my soul must either be lifted wholly out of its 
 sorrow (and none but you have the power to do this) or it 
 must make that sorrow its sole nourishment. If you knew 
 how empty and cold books seem to me ; how useless I feel it 
 to talk and answer ! My first impulse is to say to myself : 
 AVhy should I ? what is the good of it ? and I have not yet 
 found an answer to that question ; which results sometimes 
 in my being two hours without saying a word, and for a month 
 past I have not touched a pen except to write to you. I 
 know well that such a manner rebuffs friends : but I consent 
 to that ; my soul is inured to hardships, it fears no little woes. 
 Ah ! how sorrow concentrates us ! how little we need when 
 we have lost all! A\Tiat blessings I owe you, mon ami; 
 what mercies I ought to return to you ! You have restored 
 life to my soul ; you have made me feel an interest in await- 
 ing the mon'ow ; you promise me news of yom"self : that 
 hope fixes my tlioughts. You promise me still more ; I am to 
 see you ; but I shall say to you like Andromaque, " To less 
 favours than that the unhappy lay claim." 
 
 Adieu ; I abuse both your time and your kindness ; but it 
 is sweet, it is natural to forget all with those we love. My 
 wound is so sharp, my soul is so sick, my body so suffering 
 that, were you susceptible of pity only, I am sure you wouW be 
 beside me, seeking to pour into my heart the balm of tender- 
 ness and consolation. 
 
 Thursday, after post time. 
 
 Well ! I have had no letter, and that surprises me less 
 than it grieves me. 
 
 You have seen the chevalier and he will have given you 
 news of me. I was not well the day he came. I am better 
 now, but yesterday I received a violent shock. I had a con- 
 versation, I heard the details, I saw his hand-writing once
 
 108 LEITERS OF [177-1 
 
 more, and I read words which I ought not to survive. 
 Ah ! my blood, my life would be a poor i»rice to pay for 
 such feelings as his; see, therefore, how 1 must judge of 
 yours. 
 
 The Abbd Morellet told me a few days ago, in the inno- 
 ceuce of his heart, that you were in love with the young Com- 
 tesse de Boufllers ; that you were really mucli occupied with 
 her ; that you had the strongest desire to please her, etc., etc. 
 If it is not all true, it is so probable that it seems to me I ought 
 to complain only that you did not take me into your confi- 
 dence. To acquit you towards me I ask of you only one 
 thing, and that is, U) tell me the truth. Believe that there 
 is no truth, none, tliat I cannot bear. I may seem to you 
 feeble, enough so to make }ou think you ought to spare me, 
 but it is not so. On the contraiy, never did I feel more 
 strength. I have the strength of suffering, and I can fear 
 nothing more in this world, not even the harm }(ju think 
 yourself obliged to do me. Adieu. 
 
 July G, 1774. 
 
 How little I see of you, how badly I saw you to-day, and 
 how painful it is to me not to know where you are at this 
 moment ! I hope at Kis, and that you will return by to- 
 morrow evening. They say the Comte de Broglie is expected 
 here to-morrow morning. It is singular that I should be led 
 to concern myself about his return, and to deske it may be 
 earlier than his friends themselves desire. 3Ion Dieu ! how 
 a sentiment, a feeling changes and upsets all ! That " I " of 
 which r^nelon speaks is a myth. I feel in a positive manner 
 that I am not /, I am you ; and in order to be you, I have no 
 sacrifice to make. Your interests, your affections, your happi- 
 ness, your pleasures, — in them, mon ami, is the / that is dear 
 to me, that is within me ; all else is external and foreign to 
 me ; you alone in the universe can hold and occupy my
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 109 
 
 being. My thought, my soul can henceforth be filled by you 
 alone, and by my harrowing regrets. 
 
 No, it is not when I compare you with myself that 1 fear, 
 that I grieve lest I be not loved. Alas ! it is when 1 think 
 of what I was, and of him by whom I was — but to that un- 
 speakable happiness I had no claim, and you see now that I 
 did not deserve it. Oh ! how my soul suffers, how painful 
 these memories are ! Mon ami, what will become of me when 
 1 see you no more, when I await you no more ? Do you be- 
 lieve that I could live ? the thought kills me. 
 
 But tell me why I need no courage to die, and yet have not 
 the strength to say to myself that a day will come, a moment, 
 when you will speak to me a word that wUl make me shud- 
 der. Man ami, never speak it ; it brings evil ; that dreadful 
 word will l»e my dttom ; if I hear it, I die. 
 
 How can you praise me for loving you? Ah! the merit, 
 the virtue would have been in resisting the inclinaticjn, the 
 attraction that drew me to you. But how could I fear, how 
 foresee when guarded by a sentiment, by a grief, and by the 
 inestimable blessing of being loved ]\y a perfect being ? ^fon 
 ami, it was this that suiTounded my soul, this that defended 
 it when you ])rouglit into it the turmoil of remorse and tlie 
 heat of passion ; and you praise me for loving j'ou ! Ah ! it 
 was a crime ; and the excess of it does not justify me. But 
 I shall horrify you; I am like Pyrrhus, and I "yield to the 
 crime as a criminal." 
 
 Yes, to love you, or cease to live — 1 know but that one 
 virtue and law of nature ; and the feeling is so true, so in- 
 voluntary, and so strong, that, in truth, you owe me nothing. 
 Ah ! how far I am from exacting, from claiming ! Mon 
 ami, be happy ; find pleasure in bemg loved, and I acquit 
 you. — I am beside myself, I cannot speak to you of what I 
 feel ; I want to tell you that I have seen the chevalier. He
 
 110 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 asked news of you ; he asked if I were satisfied with you ; 
 how kind of him ! he wants all my friends to love me as well 
 as he does ; could you do that ? He came yesterday and re- 
 turned this evening. 
 
 So we sliall go to Auteuil Thursday ; be punctual to the 
 rendezvous at my house from midday to half-past twelve. 
 Come, mon ami, come. Be kmd, be generous, and give me 
 all the moments tliat are not employed in your pleasures 
 and your affairs; I wish, I ought, to come after those. 
 
 1774. 
 
 I have four letters to answer; I have tried to write, but it 
 is impossible. My mind is occupied with you. I do not 
 know if I love you, but I feel, only too mucli, that you 
 trouble, you agitate my soul in a painful and sorrowful way 
 when I do not see you, or am not buoyed up by the pleasure 
 and activity of expecting you. Mon ami, in the days when 
 people believed in witchcraft I should liave explained all 
 that you have made me experience bj' saying that you had 
 the power to throw a spell upon me which lifts me out of 
 myself. But if that were so, if you had that power, how 
 cruel I should think you for not prolonging the illusion 
 which makes me fancy, at least for a few moments, that 
 life could be a blessing. Yes, a blessing ! I owe it to 
 you that I have tasted that pleasure which intoxicates 
 the soul to the point of taking all feelings of pain and 
 sorrow from it. 
 
 But ought I to render thanks to you for that ? the charm 
 ceases the moment that you leave me ; I find myself again 
 overwhelmed by regret and remorse; the loss that I have 
 met with rends me. All that I have read is feeble and cold 
 in comparison with the love of M. de Mora; it filled his 
 whole life; you can judge, therefore, how it filled mine.
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. Ill 
 
 Eegret for such a love would sufiBce to make the sorrow and 
 the despair of a tender soul. Ah ! but I suffer more cruelly 
 still from the remorse that weighs upon my soul ; I see 
 myself guilty, I feel myself unworthy of the happiness I 
 once enjoyed : I failed a man, the most virtuous, the most 
 tender of men ; in a word, I failed my own self, I lost my 
 own esteem ; judge, therefore, if I ought to claim yom-s ; and 
 if you do not esteem me is there any means of blinding me 
 to the point of believing that you can love me ? 
 
 After this knowledge of myself and the reflections it 
 brings with it, do you think there can ever be a creature 
 more unhappy ! Ah ! man ami, that mobility of soul for 
 which you blame me, and which I admit, serves me only 
 when I see you. It is that which has brought my life to a 
 single point : I live in you, and by you ; but, besides that, 
 do you know what that mobility does for me ? It makes me 
 experience in one hour all the classes of torture which can 
 rend and cast down the soul. Yes, that is true : I feel 
 sometimes the torpor, the despondency of death, and at the 
 same moment the violent convidsions of despair. This mo- 
 bility is a secret of nature which makes one live with gi-eater 
 force in a single day than the majority of men would feel in 
 a lifetime of a himdred years. It is true that this same 
 mobility, which is only one curse the more to sorrow, is 
 sometimes the source of much pleasure to a calm disposition ; 
 it is even, perhaps, a means of being agreeable, because it is 
 one way of making vanity enjoy itself and of flattering self- 
 love. I have felt a hundred times that I pleased by the 
 impression I received of the charms and wit of the persons 
 with whom I was; and, in general, I am loved because 
 others believe and see that they are making an effect on me; 
 and not because of the effect I make on them. That proves 
 both the insufficiency of my mind and the activity of my
 
 112 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 soul, and in tliese observations there is neither vanity nor 
 modesty — but Inith. 
 
 Man ami, I wcjuld like Ui tell you the secret of my heart 
 as to the slight impression you say ycni made upon me with 
 the idea of a separation for four montlis. Here is what I 
 promised myself : to } ield wh(»lly to my grief and to the 
 invincible distaste that 1 feel for life. 1 believed that when 
 my soul floated no longer between the liope and the pleasure 
 of seeing you, of having seen you, it would iiave more strength 
 llian it ncciU'd to deliver nie fmni a life that can offer me 
 henceforth nothing but regrets and renmrse. That, I swear 
 to you, is the thought that has filled my mind for the last 
 two months; and this dee]> and active need to be de- 
 livered fioiii Miy ticuhlt's has sustained me and protects 
 me still against the grief that your absence would make 
 me feel. 
 
 Do not conclude from this that 1 l<tve you with much 
 passion: no, moii ami; it i)roves only that I cling ardently 
 to my pleasure, and that this gives me the strength to suffer. 
 I have already told you that two sayings are graven on my 
 heart, and they pronounce my sentence : to love yon, to see 
 you, or to cease to exist. After that, sa}- all the harm you 
 will of my sensibility; never have I sought to combat your 
 ill opinion of me ; I have not thought you se\ere or unjust. 
 You alone in the world have the right to disesteem me and 
 to doubt the force and truth of the passion that inspired me 
 during five vears for him who loved me. 
 
 Four o'clock, 1774. 
 
 I left you last night because I thought I wearied you 
 with talking so long of myself ; but listen to me now, be- 
 cause it is of you that I wish to speak ; but firet and above 
 all, believe, I entreat you, that I am not seeking to re-
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 113 
 
 proach you ; I Jo not think I have the right to do so, and 
 I should be grieved to displease you. The interest that I 
 bear you makes me suffer from a thousand things that are of 
 no account to you ; one must love, to be aware of the harm 
 one does to those who love us ; the mind alone does not 
 give the delicacy with which one ought to treat a sick and 
 unhappy soul. But exordiums are wearisome ; let us come 
 to the fact. 
 
 Mon ami, you wish to keep the object of your journey a 
 secret from me ; if it is a good object why do you fear to tell 
 it to me ? And if this journey will shock my heart, why 
 make it ? If you do hot owe your love to me, you owe 
 it to yourself to be honouralde and not deceive me. Never 
 d<» you give me an unreserved confidence; wliat ycm say to 
 me seems to escape you, and as ii you hardly consented to 
 let it do so. You started }-esterday, and you diil not tell me 
 where you were going; I do not now know where you are ; 
 I am completely ign(»rant of }ou, and of your actions.^ Moii 
 ami, is that the behaviour of even the commonest friend- 
 ship ? And do you believe that 1 can think without pain, 
 that (jf your own free will you will be twelve da}S without 
 hearing of me ? Do you suppose tliat I was not distressed 
 when, knowing you were about to leave me, you would not 
 give me your last evening in Paris? If you loved me you 
 would have seen the hurt you gave me when you told me, 
 Saturday evening, that the next day you should spend with 
 Mme. d'Archambal. I did nut find a word to say in reply, 
 but I suffered. 
 
 1 M. (le fiuiljert liad gone to the country-seat of the father of tlie yonnp 
 laily he tliouglit of marrying. The name of tlie phice was Courcelles, 
 near Gien, and the name of the lady, who soon after became tlie Cora- 
 tesse de Guibert, was Alexandrine-Lonise Boutinon des Hays de Cour- 
 celles. Her portrait by Greuze is celebrated, and has been in various 
 Exhibitions. — Fr. Ei>. 
 
 8
 
 114 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night, 1774. 
 
 I have no news of yoii ; 1 IiojkmI fur none, and yet I 
 awaited some. Ah ' inoii Dim ! how can you say that pain is 
 uo longer in n)y soul ? I fainted from it yesterday ; 1 had a 
 crisis of despair which gave me convulsions that lasted four 
 hours. Mon ami, if I must tell you what I lielieve, what is 
 true, it is that I love y(ju to madness, to the ]"»iiit (jf Ijeliev- 
 ing that T never loved hctter, Imt — 1 have need of your 
 presence to luve }-ou ; all the rest (jf m\ life is s]>ent in 
 remembering, in regretting, in weeping. 
 
 Yes, go: tell me that you love another; I desire it, I 
 wish it ; 1 have a wound so deep, so lacerating, that I can 
 hope for no relief but that of death. The relief that you 
 have given me is like the effect of opium ; it suspends my 
 sorrow, but does not cure it ; on the contrary, 1 am feebler 
 and more sensitive in consequence. You are right, I am no 
 longer capable of love; I can only sufl'er. I did find hope in 
 }ou, and I gave myself up to it ; 1 thought that the pleasure 
 of loving you would calm my sorrow, Alas 1 in vain do I 
 flee it ; it recalls me incessantly ; it compels me ; it leaves me 
 but one resource. Ah ! do not speak to me of that which I 
 find in society ; society has become to me an intolerable re- 
 straint ; and if I could induce M. d'Alembert not to live with 
 me, my door would be closed. How can you suppose that 
 the productions of the mind would have more empire over 
 me than the charm, the consolation of friendship ? I" have 
 the most worthy friends, the most feeling, the most virtuous. 
 Each, in his own way and according to his ovm tone, would 
 faia reach my soul ; I am filled with a sense of so much 
 kindness but — I remain unhappy: you alone, mon ami, 
 have the power to make me know happiness. Alas ! it holds 
 me to life while invoking death ! 
 
 But why have you set such value on being loved by me ?
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 115 
 
 You had no need of it ; you knew well that you could not 
 return it. Have you played with my despair ? Either fill 
 my soul, or torture it no longer ; act so that I may love you 
 always, or that I may never love you ; in short, do the im- 
 possible, — calm me, or I die. 
 
 At this moment what are you doing ? You are bringing 
 trouble into a soul that time was calming ; you abandon me 
 to my sorrow. Ah ! if you had feeling, you would be to be 
 pitied, mon ami, }ou would know remorse. But at least, if 
 your heart cannot fix itself, devote yourself to your talent, 
 occupy yourself, work to some purpose ; for if you continue 
 this desultory, restless life, I fear you will some day be re- 
 duced to say, — 
 
 "The desire for fame has worn out my soul." 
 
 Saturday, in the evening. 
 
 It was not mitil tliis morning that I received news of you, 
 and I do not know whence or how it came ; certainly not by 
 the post. Believe me crazy if you choose, think me unjust, 
 in short, what you please ; but it will not ja-eveut me from 
 telling you that I tliink I never in my life received so sharp, 
 so blasting an impression as that your letter made upon me. 
 I felt crushed by having ever given to any one the right to 
 say to me what I was reading; and to say it with such ease 
 and so naturally that I must conclude the writer was simply 
 pouring out his soul in s|)eaking to me, without one thouglit 
 that he insulteil me. Oil ! how well you have avenged ]\I. 
 de Mora ! How cruelly you punish me for the delirium, the 
 distraction that dragged me towards you ! How I detest 
 them! 
 
 I will enter into no details ; you have neither enough kind- 
 ness nor enough feeling to allow my soul to lower itself 
 to complaint ; my heart, my self-love, all that inspires me,
 
 116 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 all that makes me feel, think, breathe, in a word, all that 
 is I, is shocked, wounded, and offended forever. You have 
 restored to me enough strength, not to endure my son-ow (it 
 seems to me gi-eater and more crushing than ever), but to se- 
 cure myself from ever again being tortured and made unhappy 
 by you. Judge of the excess of my crime and the greatness of 
 my loss. I feel, sorrow does not deceive me, that if M. de 
 Mora were living and could have read your letter he would 
 forgive me, he would console me, and hate 3"0u. 
 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! leave me my regrets ; they are a thousand 
 times more dear to me than what you call your sentiment ; 
 that is dreadful to me ; its expression is contemptuous, and 
 my soul repels it with such horror that that alone assures 
 me my soul is worthy of virtue. Were you even to think 
 that you have done justly by me, I prefer to leave you in 
 that opinion rather than enter upon any explanation. The 
 matter is ended ; be with me as you can, as you please ; for 
 myself, in future (if there is a future for me) I shall be with 
 you as I ought always to have been, and, if you leave no 
 remorse within my soul, I hope to forget you. I feel that the 
 wounds of self-love chill the soul. I do not know why I 
 have let you read what I wrote you before I received your 
 letter ; you will see there all my weakness ; but you will 
 not see all my misfortune : I hoped nothing more from 
 you ; I did not seek to be consoled. Then why should I 
 complain ? Ah, why ! because the patient doomed to death 
 continues to expect his doctor ; because he lifts his eyes to 
 his, still seeking hope; because the last impulse of pain 
 is a moan, the last accent of the soul is a cry : that is the 
 explanation of my inconsistency, my folly, my weakness. 
 Oh ! I am punished !
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 117 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1774. 
 
 Have the delicacy to cease persecuting me. I have but 
 one wish, I have but one need : it is not to see you again in 
 private. I can do nothing for your happiness, I know nothing 
 with which to console you : leave me therefore, and do not 
 any longer take pleasure in torturing my life. I make you 
 no reproaches ; you suffer, I pity you, and I shall not speak 
 to you again of my sorrows. But in the name of that which 
 still has some empire over your soul, in the name of hon- 
 our, in the name of virtue, leave me, and count no longer 
 upon me. If I can calm myself, I shall live ; but if you con- 
 tinue to act as you do, you will soon reduce me to the strength 
 of despair : spare me the grief and the embaiTassment of order- 
 ing my door to be closed to you during the hours when I am 
 alone. I request you, and for the last time, not to come to 
 me except between five o'clock and nine. 
 
 If Mme. de . . . could read my soid, I assure you she 
 would not hate me ; at the most, I have put a few regrets 
 into hers : but you and she have made me feel the tortures 
 of the damned, repentance, hatred, jealousy, remorse, con- 
 tempt of myself, and sometimes of you — m short, all the 
 misery of passion, but never that which makes the hap- 
 piness of an honourable and sensitive soul. This is what 
 I owe to you : but I forgive you. If I clung to life I should 
 not be so generous ; I should vow to you an implacable ha- 
 tred. But soon I shall no more cling to you than I do 
 to life, and I wish to employ my soul, my sensibility, all 
 that remains to me of existence in loving, adoring the only 
 being who ever truly filled my soul, and to whom I owe 
 more happiness and pleasure than almost any one who ever 
 walked this earth has felt or could imagine — and it is you 
 who made me guilty towards that man ! that thought sickens 
 my soul ; I turn away from it. I wish to calm myself, and.
 
 118 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 if 1 can, to die. I repeat to you, and it is the last cry of 
 my soul to you : in pity, leave nie ; if not, you will know 
 remorse. 
 
 1774. 
 
 Mon Dicu ! how you trouble my life ! you make me pa.ss 
 through in one day the most c(mtrary conditions ; sometimes 
 I am carried away by passionate emotion ; then I turn to ice 
 at the tliought that you will not respond to me. Then this 
 last reflectitm makes me angry with my own nature, and to 
 recover a little calmness, 1 abandon myself to the heart- 
 rending memory of him whom I have lost. Presently my 
 soul is filled with gentler feeling ; I am in a state to dwell 
 on the few moments of happiness that I have tasted in 
 loving. All these thoughts, which ought to take me farther 
 from you, bring me closer. I feel that I love you, and so 
 much that I can have no hope of repose except in death. 
 That is my only support, the only help that I expect, the 
 need of which I feel in almost all the moments of my life. 
 
 Mon ami, you have shed a balm on the little wound I 
 gave myself last night; this proves the truth of what M. 
 d'Alembert asserts, that there are circumstances in which 
 pain is not pain. Yes, you shall have the Eulogy before 
 midnight. I have sent to the Archbishop of Toulouse 
 [Lom^nie de Brieime] to return it. Adieu, once more, 
 mon ami; you cause my silence, my sadness, my unliap- 
 piness ; in a word, it is you who give life to my soul, 
 and my soul drags me onward. I dare not tell you to what 
 point I love you. 
 
 Ten o'clock, 1774. 
 
 You do not care to see me again to-day ; you are sufficiently 
 indifferent to me, so that I need not fear to disturb the interests 
 that are agitating you. Listen to me, and let us make a com- 
 pact with each other, such as Mme, de Montespan proposed
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 119 
 
 to Mme. de Maintenon. Being forced to take a rather long 
 journey with her tete a tete, "Madame," she said, "let us 
 forget our hatred, our quarrels, and be good company to one 
 another," Well ! I say to you : " Let us forget our mutual dis- 
 pleasure, and do you be docile enough to bring back to me 
 what I asked you for." Yes, it is I who am speaking to you, 
 and I am not mad ; at any rate, my madness is of a kind less 
 
 harsh and more unhappy. 
 
 August 25, 1774. 
 
 Yes, mon ami, that which has most force, most power in 
 nature, is assuredly passion; it has just imposed upon me 
 privation, and it enables me to bear it with a thousand-fold 
 more courage than reason or virtue could inspire. But pas- 
 sion is an absolute tyrant ; a tyrant that makes slaves of 
 those only who hate and treasure, by turns, their chain, and 
 never have strength to break it. It commands me to-day 
 to pursue a conduct absolutely the contrary to that I have 
 prescribed to myself for the last two weeks. I see my own 
 inconsistency ; I am ashamed of it, but I yield to the need 
 of mv heart. I tind a sweetness in being weak, and though 
 you may abuse it, mon ami, I will love you, and will say it 
 to you sometimes with pleasure, oftener with pain when I 
 think you will not respond to it. 
 
 Listen to all I have suffered since you left me. An hour 
 after your departure, I learned that you had hidden from 
 me that Mme. de . . . had started the night before. Then 
 I believed you had delayed your departure on her account. 
 I judged you with a passion the true character of which is 
 never to see things as they are. I saw and believed all that 
 could distress nde most : — I was deceived ; you were guilty, 
 you had come to bid me adieu in the very act of abusing my 
 tenderness. That thought roused my soul to indignation, it 
 irritated my self-love; I felt myself at the summit of un-
 
 120 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 happiness; I could love you no longer; I abhorred the mo- 
 ments of pleasure and consolation which I owed to you. You 
 had snatched me from death, tlie sole resource, the sole sup- 
 port which 1 had promised myself when I trembled for tlie 
 life of M. de Mora. You made me survive that dreadful 
 moment; you iilled my soul with remorse, and you made me 
 experience a greater misfortime still — that of hating you ; 
 yes, vion ami, hating y(m. For eight days I was filled by 
 that horrible sentiment, although during that time I received 
 your letter from Chartres. The need of kn(»wiug how you 
 were in health made me break a resolution I had formed to 
 open no more of your letters. You told me that you were 
 well ; you informed me that, in spite of my request, you had 
 taken some of my letters, and }()U quoted a verse from 
 " Zaire," which seemed to sneer at my unhappiness ; and 
 then — what hurt me most of all — the regrets expressed in 
 the letter seemed vague, and more fitted to relieve your 
 soul than to touch mine. In a word, I made poison of all 
 you said to me, and more than ever I resolved not to love 
 you, and to open no more of your letters. I kept that reso- 
 lution, which rent my heart and made me ill. Since your 
 departure I am changed and shrunken as if I had had a great 
 illness. Ah ! this fever of the soul, which rises to delirium, 
 is indeed a cruel illness; there is no bodily frame robust 
 enough to bear such suffering. Mon ami, pity me ; you have 
 done me harm. 
 
 I received your letter from Eochambeau only on Saturday. 
 I did not open it, and as I put it away in my portfolio, my 
 heart beat ^dolently : but I commanded myself to be strong, 
 and I was. Ah ! how much it cost me to keep that letter 
 unopened ! how many times I read the address ! how often I 
 held it in my hands ! at night, even, T felt the need of touch- 
 ing it. In the excess of my weakness I told myself I was
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 121 
 
 strong, that I resisted my greatest pleasure, and — see my 
 sort of madness ! — I loved you then more actively than ever. 
 Nothing, for six days, could distract my mind from that 
 sealed letter ; if I had opened it the moment I received it, 
 its impression could not have been so sharp nor so profoimd. 
 At last, at last, yesterday, receiving no letters from Chante- 
 loup, from which place you had promised to write to me, I 
 was struck with the thought that you might be HI at 
 Eochambeau, and, without knowing what I was doing, 
 nor to what I yielded, your letter was read, re-read, wetted 
 with my tears, before 1 thought that I was not to read 
 it. Ah ! moil ami, how much I might have lost ! I adore 
 your sensibility. 
 
 "Wliat you tell me of Bordeaux opened a wound that is not 
 yet closed, and never will be.^ No, my life wUl not be long 
 enough to mourn and cherish the memory of the most sensi- 
 tive, most virtuous man who ever existed. What an awful 
 thouglit ! I troubled his last days. Fearing to have to com- 
 plain of me he exjxjsed his life to come to me, and his last 
 impulse was an action of tenderness and passion. I do not 
 know if I shall ever recover strength to read again his last 
 words. If I had not loved you, mon ami, they would have 
 killed me. 1 shudder still ; I see them ; and it is you who 
 made me guilty ; it is you who made me live ; it is you who 
 brought trouble into my soul ; it is you that I love, that I hate, 
 you who rend and charm a heart that is wholly yotirs. Mon 
 ami, do not fear to be sad with me ; that is my tone ; sadness 
 is my existence ; you alone — yes, you alone have the power 
 to change my disposition ; your presence leaves me neither 
 memories nor pain. I have experienced that you can divert 
 even my physical sufferings. I love you, and all my faculties 
 are employed and spell-bound when I see you. 
 
 1 M. de Mora died at Bordeaux. — Tr.
 
 122 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 Friday morning, August 26, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami. I was interrupted yesterday. There is so much 
 news, so much going and coming, such j(jy, that one hardly 
 knows whom to listen to. 1 should like to be glad, but that 
 is impossible. A few months ago I should have been trans- 
 ported at both the good to be hoped and tlie evil from 
 which we are delivered ; at the present moment I am glad 
 only by thought, and by reflection of the tone of all I see 
 and all I hear. You know that M. Turgot.is made controller- 
 general [in place of tlie Abb^ Terrai], — he enters the Council; 
 M. dAngevilliers has the department of buildings; M. de 
 Miromesnil is Keeper of the Seals ; the chancellor is exiled 
 to Normandy ; M. de Sartine has the navy, but they say it is 
 only wliile awaiting the department of M. de la VriQifere; 
 M. Lenoir is lieutenant of police ; M. de Fitz-James does not 
 go to Bretagne ; it is the Due de Penthifevre who is to hold 
 the State Assembly with M. de Fourgueux — But I am 
 really as piipiante as M. Alarm, from whom they have taken 
 the Gazette to give it to an Abb^ Aumont, because he told 
 old news. Not to return to this matter I must add that the 
 Baron de Breteuil goes to Vienna, and M. de la Yauguyon 
 to Naples. 
 
 Now let us pass to social news. Yesterday M. d'Alem- 
 bert had the greatest success at the Academy. I was not a 
 witness of it, being too ill ; I had only strength to sit .in my 
 usual chair. He read his Eulog)^ on Despreaux [Boileau] 
 and some anecdotes about Fenelon, which they say were 
 delightful. I would not listen to them this week, having 
 my head full of that letter I did not open. One needs calm- 
 ness to listen ; consequently, I listen very little. Mon ami, 
 they are printing a life of Catinat: the author is a M. Turpin, 
 who did the " Life of the Great Conde." M. d'Alembert has 
 read it, and from what he says I judge it will take neither
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 123 
 
 the piquancy nor the merit from your " Eulogy of Catinat ; " 
 as soon as it appears I will send it to you. 
 
 I have seen a great deal of Mme. de Boufflers since your 
 departure, and I shall either humble or exalt your vanity by 
 telling you that she never once named you. If that is 
 natural, it is very cold ; if there is a plan, it is very warm. 
 We spent an evening with her, we went to the fair together, 
 she came to see me, and we are all going to the catafalque. 
 But for my benefit alone are some excellent pine-apples which 
 she has sent me, and a letter of four pages on public affairs, 
 on the glory with which the Prince de Conti has covered 
 himself, and on her step-daughter, — not to speak of very 
 flattering praises for me. I shall make you die of jealousy 
 some day when I read it to you ; but before then you will 
 coquet and please and fascinate so many that my successes 
 will seem nothing. But, mon ami, why did you not write 
 me from Chanteloup ? ^ have you already nothing to say to 
 me ? The post leaves every day, and if it did not, what 
 matter ? the letter would be in tlie post, and you need not 
 be a century deprived of the pleasure of talking with one 
 who loves you : remark that I dare not say " one whom you 
 love." If you arrive Tuesday after the courier from Bor- 
 deaux, I shall have to wait till Wednesday, and that is hold- 
 ing me in purgatory after keeping me for fifteen days in hell. 
 
 If you receive this letter in Bordeaux, as I do not doubt 
 you will, I retract and will ask you to go and see that con- 
 sul : perhaps I shall thus obtain more details. He will tell 
 you of the most lovable, most interesting of beings, whom I 
 ought to have loved solely, whom I should never have injured 
 if, by a fatality I detest, I had not been unable to escape a 
 
 ^ Where M. de Guihert often went, as was then the fashion, to visit the 
 Due de Choiseul in his popular exile to his country-seat of that name. — 
 Fb. Ed,
 
 124 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 new form of evil — for there is little that I have not experi- 
 enced. Some day, rtion ami, I will tell you things that are 
 not to be found in the novels of Prc^vost or Kichardson. My 
 history is made up of fatal circumstances which prove to 
 me that the true is often the most unlikely. The heroines 
 of novels have little to say about their education; mine 
 deserves to be written down for its singularity. Some even- 
 ing, next winter, when we are very sad and inclined to reflec- 
 tion, I will give you the pastime of listening to a written 
 paper which would interest you if you foimd it in a book, 
 though it will inspire you with a great horror of the 
 human species. Ah ! how cruel mankind are ! tigers are 
 kind compared with them. I ought naturally to devote 
 myself to hating; I have ill-fultilled my destiny; I have 
 loved much and hated little. Mon Dieu !■ mon ami, I am a 
 hundred years old; this life of mine which looks to be so 
 uniform, so monotonous, has been a prey to all misfortunes, 
 exposed to all the villanous passions which stir the un- 
 worthy — but where am I wandering ? wholly given to you 
 whom I love, who sustain and defend my life, why do I 
 cast my eyes on objects which made me detest it ? 
 
 Saturday, August 27, 1774. 
 Mon ami, I have no news of you. I said to myself a 
 hundred times : " He must have arrived very late ; he would 
 not think of the value of a single hour to me." That 
 makes a difference of four days ; I am now postponed till 
 Wednesday ! Well ! the pains I have taken not to let my 
 soul rest on that hope have served for nothing. The courier 
 has arrived ; I received three letters ; but I could not read 
 them because yours was missmg. Mon Dieu ! you are neither 
 happy enough nor unhappy enough to experience that feel- 
 ing. Mon ami, if I do not hear from you next Wednesday,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 125 
 
 I will not wi'ite to you again. You have done me one wrong, 
 but if you do me a thousand more, I here declare to you 
 that I will not forgive you, and that I shall not love you less. 
 You see that I am talking to you of the impossible : the 
 logic of the heart is absurd. In God's name, act so that I 
 shall never reason more wisely. 
 
 How much you are missed at this moment ! the excite- 
 ment is general, mon ami. There is this difference between 
 my state of mind and that of all the persons I see : they are 
 transported with joy at the happiness they foretell, while I 
 only breathe the freer for our deliverance from evil. Mon 
 Dieu ! my soul cannot rise to joy ; it is filled with regrets 
 and heart-breaking memories ; it is stiiTed by a sentiment 
 that troubles it ; that often gives it ^^iolent emotions, but 
 very rarely any pleasure. In such a state, public joy is only 
 felt by thought and reflection ; reasonable pleasures are so 
 moderate ' my friends are displeased that they cannot drag 
 me into enthusiasm. " I am very sorry," I say to them, " but 
 I have no longer the strength to be glad." Nevertheless, I 
 am very pleased that M. Turgot has already dismissed a 
 scoundrel, the man of the wheat affah [treasurer of the 
 king's granaries]. I must tell you of a compliment the fish- 
 women paid to the king [Louis XVI.] on his fete-day : 
 " Sire, we have come to compliment Your Majesty on the 
 hvnt you had yesterday ; never did yuui grandfather have a 
 better." The Comte de C . . . , who is at Martigny with M. 
 de Trudaiue, has written me three pages full of enthusi- 
 asm and transport. How happy they are ! hope keeps them 
 young. Alas ! how old one feels when one has lost it, when 
 nothing remains but to escape despair ' 
 
 Tell me if you are writing many verses ; if you are getting 
 a habit of making haste sloivly, if you have resolved to do like 
 Racine, who wrote poetry reluctantly. Mon ami, I impose
 
 126 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 upon you the pleasure of reading, and re-reading every morn- 
 ing a scene of that divine iiuisic; then you must walk about, 
 and tlien compose verses, and with the talent that nature has 
 given you to think and feel strongly, I will answer for it 
 that you will make very noble ones. But what am I doing ? 
 Advising a man wlio has a great contempt for my taste, who 
 thinks me a fool, wlio has never seen me sensible about any- 
 thing, and who, judging me thus, may perhaps be sensible 
 himself and show as nnich accuracy as justice. Adieu, mon 
 ami. If you loved me I should not be so modest; I should 
 feel I had nothing in all nature to envy. 
 
 ■ I wrote you a volume yesterday to Bordeaux. That name 
 is dreadful to me ; it touches the sensitive and painful nerve 
 of my soul. Adieu, adieu. 
 
 Monday, August 29, 1774. 
 
 You know that M. Turgot is controller-general, but what 
 you do not know is the conversation he had with the king 
 on the subject. He had shown some reluctance to accept 
 the office when M. de Maurepas offered it to him on behalf 
 of His Majesty. The king said to him, " So you do not wish 
 to be controller-general?" "Sire," replied M. Turgot, "I 
 must admit to Your Majesty that I should have preferred to 
 keep the ministry of the navy, because it is a safer office and 
 I could be more certain of doing well in it ; but at such a 
 moment as this it is not to the king I give myself, it is to 
 the honest man." The king took both his hands, and said, 
 " You shall not be mistaken." M. Turgot added : " Su-e, I 
 must represent to Y. M. the necessity of economy, of which 
 Y. M. ought to set the first example ; the Abbd Terrai has no 
 doubt already said this to Your Majesty." "Yes," replied 
 the king, "he has said it, but he has never said it in the 
 way that you have." All this is just as if you had heard 
 it, for M. Turgot never adds a word to the truth. This emo-
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 127 
 
 tion of the soul of the king gives great hope to M. Turgot, 
 and I think that you will have as much as he. M. de 
 Yaines is given the place of M. Leclerc [head-clerk of the 
 Treasury] ; but there will be no luxiny, no show, no valet 
 de chambre, no audience, in a word, the gi-eatest simplicity, 
 that is to say, the style of M. Turgot. Yes, I assure you, 
 you are much missed here ; you would have shared the trans- 
 ports of the universal joy. People begin to feel the need of 
 silence to compose themselves and let them think of all 
 the good they expect. The personal interests remain, which 
 must always be counted for something. 
 
 The Chevalier d'Aguesseau has just gratified and shocked 
 my heart at one and the same time; he knows that you 
 were twenty-four hours at Chanteloup, that you are quite 
 well, and that you reached Bordeaux on the 2 2d. After that, 
 it was natural that your friends should hear from you on 
 Saturday, 27th. I do not complain of the preference that 
 you have given them ; but, mon ami, it would be sweet to be 
 able to congratulate myself and to thank you for an atten- 
 tion I should have felt so much and of which my soul had 
 need. Adieu ; here are three letters in a very short time. 
 If I do not have one from you on Wednesday 1 believe that 
 I shall be able to keep silence. All my friends ask news of 
 you with mterest, especially M. d'Alembert. 
 
 I think I have not told you of the success of the Chevalier 
 de Chastellux m a trip of four days which he has just made 
 to Villers-Cotterets [country-seat of the Due d'Orl^ans]. 
 He gave six readings there, though he had but four plays 
 with him ; he read two of them twice. He thinks that " Les 
 Pretentions " was not much liked ; I scolded the Archbishop 
 of Toulouse, who was present, for this. If you knew how be 
 justified himself you would die of laughmg. The chevalier 
 related his successes to me with much naivete. I rejoiced ;
 
 128 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 but I am sorry to see him looking ill ; I am afraid his health 
 is seriously threatened. M. Watelet is quite ill with a 
 chest affection ; he is taking asses' milk. I am very ]X)orly 
 the last few days, but that is almost my hal)itual condition ; 
 the duration of my trouble takes from me even the consola- 
 tion of complauiing of it. 
 
 Adieu again. Did 1 n<U tell you that I had been to hear 
 Millico sing ? He is an Italian. Never, no never was the 
 perfection of singing so united with sensibility and expres- 
 sion. What tears he made me shed ! what trouble he 
 brought into my soul ! No singing ever left so deep, so sensi- 
 tive, so heart-breaking an impression ; I could have listened 
 to him till it killed me. Oh ! how preferable such a death 
 to life ! 
 
 Thursday, September 5, 1774. 
 
 Perhaps you will never read what I am going to write; 
 perhaps, however, you will receive it immediatel}'. The letter 
 that 1 expect Saturday will, 1 think, decide whether to burn 
 what I now write, or send it to you. 
 
 Listen to me : it seems to me that all the passions of my 
 soul are calmed ; it has returned, it is restored to its first, its 
 only object. Yes, mon ami, 1 do not deceive myself; my 
 memories, my regrets even, are dearer, closer, more sacred 
 to me than the violent sentiment I have had for you and 
 the passionate desire 1 have had to see you share it. I have 
 gathered myself together ; I have re-entered myself ; 1 have 
 judged myself, and you also ; but I have pronounced judg- 
 ment on myself only ; I have seen that I was seeking the 
 impossible, namely : that you shoidd love me. 
 
 By an unspeakable good fortune, which seldom happens, 
 the most tender, the most perfect, the most charming being 
 who ever existed gave me, abandoned to me his soul, his 
 thought, and all his existence. However unworthy I was
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 129 
 
 of his choice and of the gift he made me, I rejoiced in it, 
 with amazement and transport. When I spoke to him of 
 the vast distance which nature had placed between us, I 
 grieved his heart ; and he soon persuaded me that all was 
 equal between us because I loved him. No, never could 
 beauty, charm, youth, virtue, merit be flattered and exalted 
 to a higher degree than M, de Mora would fain have 
 made my vanity enjoy; but he saw my soul; the passion 
 that filled it cast me far indeed from the enjoyments of 
 vanity. I tell you all this, moii ami, not from a weakness 
 that would be too silly and too unworthy of the regrets 
 which rend my heart, but to justify myself to you — yes, 
 justify myself. 
 
 I have loved you with transport; but this cannot excuse 
 in your eyes the wish 1 dared to form of seeing you share 
 my feeling ; that pretension must have seemed to you mad- 
 ness ! 1, to fix a man of your age, who joins to all agi'eeable 
 qualities the talents and the wit which must make him an 
 object of preference to all the women who have the most 
 right to please, fascinate, and attach ! Mon ami, I am filled 
 with confusion in thinking to what a point you must have 
 thought my vanity blind and my reason astray. Yes, I 
 blame myself sorrowfully : the liking you inspired in me, 
 the remorse which tortured me, the passion felt for me by 
 INI. de ]\Iora, all that combined has led me into an eiTor I 
 ablior, — for I must confess to you that m)- thoughts went 
 farther still ; I was convinced that you might love me, and 
 that convicti(m, so foolish, so self-conceited, dragged me into 
 the abyss. 
 
 No doubt it is late, too late, to tell myself of my mistake. 
 I detest it, and in despising myself I have tried to hate you ; 
 in fact, you have excited in me tliat horrible emotion; I 
 have even written to you to that effect; it was the last 
 
 9
 
 130 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 result, tlie last effect of the passion which agitated me. 
 1 am far from making for myself a merit of the calmness to 
 which I have returned ; it is, in fact, another blessing from 
 the man I adored. I will not explain to you all that has 
 passed within me during the last fifteen days ; sufficient to 
 say that I know myself no longer : the thought of you no 
 longer fills my mind, and if remorse were not beside my 
 grief, I believe the thought of you would be very far away 
 from me. Not that I could ever cease to feel a friendship 
 for you, and an interest in your happiness; but this will be 
 a tempered feeling, which may, if you respond to it, give me 
 many moments of sweetness without ever troubling or tor- 
 turing my soul. Oh ! with what horrors it has been filled ! 
 It seems to me miraculous that I have not succuml^ed to the 
 despair to which I have been brought. But this shock by 
 depressmg my body has given tone to my soul : it remains 
 tender, but it feels no passion. No longer do I feel hatred, or 
 vengeance, or — Ah, man Dieu ! what word was I about to 
 utter? one that was no more allied to my thought than to 
 the memory of M. de Mora. I still owe to him all that my 
 heart can feel that is most consoling, most tender, regrets 
 and tears. All the details that you have sent me have been 
 bathed in my tears. I thank you for them ; I owe to you a 
 sensation which I prefer to all pleasure that does not come 
 from my thoughts of M. de Mora. 
 
 I have read and re-read your letters, that from Bordeaux, 
 and that of the 8tli from Montauban. I pity you sincerely 
 for being so agitated and tormented without any absolute 
 reason for it ; but vague troubles are fugitive, at least I hope 
 so, for I desire your peace and happiness with all my soul. 
 I cannot trouble either the one or the other, though your 
 delicacy may make you suffer for the harm you have done 
 me. I forgive it from the bottom of my heart ; forget it,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 131 
 
 never speak to me about it, and leave me to believe that 
 you think me more unhappy than culpable. You are not 
 obliged to believe me, and I have lost the right of convinc- 
 ing you ; but I shall still venture to say with Jean-Jacques, 
 " My soul was never made for degi'adation." The strongest 
 passion, the purest, inspired it too long; he who was the 
 object of that passion was too ^dl•tuous ; his soul was too 
 great, too lofty to let him desire to reign in mine, if mine 
 had been abject and contemptible. His prepossession, his 
 'passion for me raised me to his level. Man Dieu ! how I 
 have fallen ! how sunken I am ! but he never knew it. My 
 misery is dreadful ; he would have shared it. He died for 
 me. I should have made him live unhappy. Oh, my friend ! 
 if in the region of the dead you still can hear me, be tender 
 to my sorrow, my repentance. I have been guilty, I have 
 wronged you, but my despair, has it not expiated my crime ? 
 I have lost you : I live, yes, I live ; is not that being punished 
 enough ? 
 
 Forgive me the impulse that has led me to him whom I 
 fain would follow. Adieu. If I receive a letter from you 
 on Saturday I will add a few words ; but I forgive you in 
 advance for whatever you may say that is offensive to me ; 
 and I retract, with the strength and reason that remain to 
 me, all that I have written in the con\'ulsit)ns of despair. 
 It is now that I place in your hands my true profession 
 of faith ; I promise and pledge myself to exact no more 
 and expect no more from you. If you preserve to me 
 your friendship I shall enjoy it with peace and gratitude ; if 
 you do not think me worthy of it I shall grieve, but I shall 
 not consider you unjust. Adieu, mon ami ; it is friendship 
 that now employs that word ; it is the dearer to my heart 
 now that it can no longer trouble it.
 
 132 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 Saturday, eleven o'clock at night. 
 
 Here is your answer : it is such as I could have wished, 
 cold and restrained. Mon and, we shall now understand 
 each other ; my soul is in the key of yours ; my letter did 
 not offend you; you have judged marvellously well; you 
 have had over me the advantage of a reasonable man over 
 an impassioned natm-e. You had coolness, I had frenzy, but 
 it was the last paroxysm of a dreadful malady, of which one 
 had better die than recover, because the violence of these fits 
 of fever blasts and lays low the strength of the unliappy' 
 patient — but enough, too much, no doubt, on what you call 
 my " injustice " and your " delicacy." Mon ami, do you 
 know what is delicate ? It would have been to suppress the 
 six or seven pages you had written me before you received 
 my letter. 
 
 What superiority reason has over passion ! how it rules 
 conduct ! It brings and sheds peace on all ; in a word, it is 
 so decorous, so circumspect, that I ought to thank you to-day 
 for what you have said and what you have not said to me. 
 Mon ami, your Friday letter is amiable ; it is gentle, obliging, 
 reasonable ; it has the tone and charm of confidence ; but it 
 is sad, and I am sorry if that is the disposition of your soul. 
 I have not in me the wherewithal to rouse you ; I have not 
 even the strength to talk with you to-night. Adieu ! you 
 expect no further news of me, do you ? 
 
 Monday evening, September 19, 1774. 
 I wish to write to you. I want to answer you ; if I miss 
 to-morrow's courier I must wait till Saturday; meanwhile 
 my soul is dead. I have just re-read your letter ; I thought 
 it would revive me, but not so. ... I feel an awful sterility 
 within me, and if I were to let myself go this is how I 
 should answer you : " All the reflections that 3^ ou make on
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 133 
 
 your present situation are very reasonable ; but if you con- 
 cern yourself about the future you are even more sure to find 
 subjects for hope than motives for fear. It seems to me 
 that men of merit never had finer chances before them ; 
 with virtue, ideas, and talent they can pretend to anything. 
 This is not the moment for discouragement ; on the contrary, 
 they should come forward now with confidence, not to seek 
 favours, but to make themselves known and to get justice 
 done to them." 
 
 With regard to the late complete upsetting in the domains 
 [the matter of " farms " and farmers-general], I find it diffi- 
 cult to believe that M. Turgot will, ui any respect, follow or 
 execute the projects of the Abb^ Terrai. If, however, the 
 impossible happens, and he should choose to carry out that 
 plan, M. de Vaines will be in tlie way of doing you service. 
 He will do the impossible to oblige you ; he has a particular 
 attraction towards you ; I never see him that he does not 
 ask for news of you ; the day of your departure I received a 
 note from him in which were these words : " I entreat you 
 to send me news of yourself and of M. de Guibert, who 
 greatly interests those who love a frank and ardent soul that 
 springs on all sides towards glory." I wanted to send you 
 these words, and then I was deterred by an interest that does 
 not allow of words. You ought to write to M. de Vaines ; 
 not on his good fortune, for it is just the reverse; he has 
 sacrificed his own interests to his friendship for M. Turgot 
 and his love for the public good ; in a word, he was led away 
 by his desire to assist in that good ; he has had the activity 
 of virtue ; but now that a little calmness has returned he 
 sees himself burdened with a sad labour. 
 
 I do not contend against your projects for the future, — it 
 does not exist for me ; from that you will rightly believe that 
 I cannot rouse myself to foresee or fear for others. In gen-
 
 134 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 eral, I tliiiik you would do Itest not to marry ir: the provinces. 
 That would be a way, of course, to settle your uncertainties, 
 but it would also be a misfortune to deprive yourself of the 
 greatest blessing, which is hope. Mon ami, I cannot con- 
 ceive why you have not strength enough to bear ill-fortune. 
 Paris is the place in the world where one can be poor with 
 the least privations ; none but fools and tiresome people 
 need to be rich. — You see now that it was folly to think 
 you must make the tour c»f the world iu order to write a 
 good work. Begin it now ; and before it is finished you may 
 be rich euougli to travel. In short, I want you to regard the 
 lack of fortune as a contrariety, not a misfortune. Mon ami, 
 if I looked down from tlie moon I should prefer your talent 
 to the wealth of M. Beaujon ; I should better like the love 
 of study than the post of grand-equerry of France. In 
 other words, being condemned to live, and not being able to 
 choose the life of a worthy Normandy farmer, I should ask 
 to have the mind and talent of M. de Guibert ; but I should 
 wish to be inspired to make more use of them. 
 
 What you tell me of the children of your sister is full of 
 interest and feeling ; but, mon ami, here you are again tor- 
 menting yourself about the future. They are well at present, 
 those children ; you see what they have lost, and that worries 
 you. The future of the little boy is less embarrassing ; you 
 know betjter than I that the education of a provincial college 
 is just as good and just as bad as that of a college in Paris ; 
 and then, mon ami, if he enters a regiment at sixteen it is 
 all the same whether he has been brought up in Bordeaux 
 or in Paris. What false ideas we have on the first interest 
 of life — happiness ! Ah ! good God ! is it in sharpening the 
 mind, is it in widening ideas, that the happiness of individu- 
 als is made ? — though both are useful in general. But why 
 must your nephew be made happy in your way ? — I feel
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESFINASSE. 135 
 
 that I am replying \evj stiffly, very stupidly, to the details 
 into which your friendship and confidence made you enter ; 
 but what can I do ? Nothing comes to me ; my soul is a 
 desert, my head as empty as a lantern. All that I say, all 
 that I hear, is utterly indifferent to me ; I can say to-day, like 
 the man who was blamed ^for not killing himself, since he 
 was so detached from life, " I do not kill myself because it 
 is all the same to me whether I live or die." That is not 
 quite true with me, however, for I suffer, and death would be 
 a relief ; but I have no energ}\ 
 
 September 20, 1774. 6 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 To compensate for the flatness and dryness of my letter of 
 last night, it occurs to me to send you two little folios of Vol- 
 taire and the " Eulogy on La Fontaine," which I have read with 
 as much pleasure as I should have had in listening to them. 
 Notice that I do not praise to exaggeration, therefore you are 
 free to have your own opinion and to think detestable what 
 I thought good. An edict is to be issued within a few days 
 on the domestic commerce in grains ; it will state its causes : 
 that is a new system, and it seems to me it will certainly 
 please the multitude ; but knaves and partisans will still 
 find something to criticise. 
 
 It was said yesterday that the archbishopric of Cambrai 
 would be given to Cardinal de Bernis and that the Due 
 de La Kochefoucauld would go as ambassador to Eome. 
 Perhaps the Abb^ de V^ry may be first appointed, but 
 only to get him made a cardinal and prepare the way for 
 M. de La Eochefoucauld ; that was the talk of yesterday 
 at my fireside, and if I were to name to you the persons 
 present you would see that if that news does not become 
 true, it was at least not absurd. The Chevalier de Chas- 
 tellux, whom I often see, but always on the run, has no
 
 136 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 time to ask me news of you ; he is busier, more dissipated, 
 more in tlic suite of all the princes than ever. Today he 
 is in the country ; he will hear news of you there ; with 
 tact and knowledge of the ways of the world a man is 
 always in the tone and thought of those he is with. 
 
 M. d'Alembert and all your friends speak to me often of 
 you ; they address themselves to me to liear about you ; but 
 it is I who must have recourse to them in future, must I 
 not ? Ah ! moti Dicu ! how crazy passions are ! and how 
 stupid 1 For the last fifteen days I feel the greatest horror 
 at them. But I must also be just and admit that in adoring 
 calmness and reason I scarcely exist ; I have strength to feel 
 only my utter annihilation : my body, my soul, my head, all 
 myself is in a state of exhaustion ; and that state is not very 
 pamful, although it is new to me. 
 
 Good-night, mo9i ami; for though it is morning 1 have not 
 yet slept. No one, I think, has thought of writing about 
 sleep, about its influence on the mind and on the passions. 
 Those who study nature ought not to neglect that interesting 
 part of the life of the mihappy. Alas ! if they only knew 
 how much the privation of sleep can add to other woes ! In 
 approaching those who suffer, those who are imhappy, the 
 first question asked should be, " Do you sleep ? " the second, 
 " How old are you ? " 
 
 Begun Thursday, September 22, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, if I still had passion, your silence would kill 
 me; and if I- had only vanity it would wound me and I 
 should hate you with all my strength. Well ! I live, and 
 I hate you no longer. But I shall not conceal that 
 I see with grief, though without astonishment, that it was 
 my impulsion that led you on — you were forced to answer 
 me. You do not know what to say to me now, when you be- 
 lieve that my feeling has ceased; you feel no regret, and you
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 137 
 
 ■ find nothing in you which gives you the right to reclaim what 
 you have lost. Well, mon ami, I am sufficiently calm to be 
 just ; I approve of your conduct, though it grieves me ; I es- 
 teem you for allowing nothing to take the place of truth. 
 And, in fact, of what could you complain ? I have relieved 
 you ; it is dreadful to be the object of a feeling we do not 
 share; we suffer, and we make the other suffer: to love and 
 to be loved is the happiness of heaven ; when one has 
 known it and lost it, what remains but to die ? 
 
 There are two things in this life that do not admit of medi- 
 ocrity — poesy and . . . But I do not deceive myself ; the 
 feeling that I had for you was not perfect. First, it caused 
 me to blame myself, — it cost me remorse ; and then — I 
 know not if it was the trouble in my conscience that over- 
 threw my soul and changed, absolutely, my manner 
 of being and of loving — I was ceaselessly agitated by 
 feelings I condemned; I felt jealousy, disquietude, dis- 
 trust ; I blamed you incessantly ; I imposed a law upon 
 myself to make no complaint ; but that coercion was 
 dreadful to me ; in sliort, that way of loving was so 
 foreign to my soul that it became a torture. Mo7i ami, 
 I loved you too much, and not enough. Thus we have 
 both gained by the change that has been wrought in 
 me, and which was neither your work nor mine. I saw 
 clear for a moment, and in less than half an hour I felt 
 the end of pain, I became extinct, and then I resuscitated. 
 WTiat is inconceivable is that on coming to myself, I 
 found only M. de Mora ... the faintness that came 
 u]X)n my brain had obliterated the traces of all else. You, 
 mon ami, who, fifteen minutes earlier filled all my thoughts, 
 never once re-entered my mind for twenty-four hours ; and 
 then I saw that my sentiment was only a memory. 
 
 I remained thus several days without recovering the
 
 138 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 strengtli Lo suffer or Lo love, until at last I regained the 
 degiee oi" reason which enables us to estimate all things 
 at nearly their true value, and made me feel that, if 1 could 
 hope for no pleasuie, there was little misfortune left for me 
 to fear. 1 liuve recovered calmness; but 1 do not deceive 
 myself: it is the calm of death; and before long, if I live, 
 I can say, like that man who lived alone for thirty years and 
 had never read anything but Plutarch, when they asked him 
 how he felt, " Almost as happy as if I were dead. " Alon 
 anil, that is my state of mind ; nothing that I see, that I hear, 
 nothing that I do or have to do, can rouse my soul to an emo- 
 tion of interest ; that manner of existing has hitlierto been un- 
 known to me. There is but one thing in the world that does 
 me good ; it is music : but it is a good which others would 
 call pain. I long to hear a dozen times a day that air which 
 rends me, and puts me in jiossession of all that I mourn : 
 J'ai ])erdu mo/i Eurydice . . . 
 
 I go constantly to the " Orpheus and Eurydice " [Gluck's 
 opera], and I am there alone. Last Tuesday I told my friends 
 that I intended to pay visits, but I shut myself up in a box. 
 On returning home that evening I found a note from the 
 Comte de Crillon telling me that he had had a letter from 
 you the evening before. I waited till the next day and 
 fortunately found him at Mme. Geoffrin's. He read me 
 your letter ; you spoke of me, and did so three times ; that 
 was kind, but very much colder than if you had not named 
 me at all. However, won ami, I am content ; it is just 
 what I wish of you. Mon Dieu ! why should I be hard to 
 satisfy — I, who can no longer love except with a reason- 
 ableness and a moderation hitherto unknown to me ? 
 
 I have seen M. Turgot and spoken to him about what you 
 fear as to the domains. He told me that no course had been 
 decided on as yet ; that M. de Beaumont, intendant of
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 139 
 
 finances, was engaged on the matter, and that meanwhile the 
 companies created by the Abb^ TeiTai were forbidden to act. 
 M. Turgot added that as soon as he was informed by M. de 
 Beaumont, he would tell me if anything was planned or 
 decided in relation to the domains ; but he could now say, in 
 general, that the greatest respect would be shown to property. 
 I did not stop there : I spoke of your affair to M. de Vaines, 
 and he answered me clearly : " Tell him to be easy ; the Abbe 
 Terrai's project will never be carried out l»y M. Turgot ; I 
 answer for that." There, inoji ami, are the answers of two 
 men which ought to reassure you ; though tlicy are not alike, 
 they mean, it seems to me, the same thing. I send you the 
 verdict of wliich I have already told you ; I add to it a letter 
 from M. de Condorcet, which I think so good that I have had 
 it copied. Mon ami, do not thank me for the pains I have 
 taken to send you what pleases me : it is not done for your 
 sake ; it is to hear you spoken of ; for I still retain much lik- 
 ing for your mind, which is excellent and very natural. 
 Adieu. 
 
 Friday, September 23, 1774. 
 Mon ami, I make you a victim ; I write to you so nuich 
 that I oppress you. It is the only occupation that makes me 
 believe I still live ; and, though I think that to be quite dead 
 is a better state, I find, while suffering, a certain sweetness in 
 turning toward you. If you do not imderstand me you will 
 hear me at any rate, and answer me, for it is very sad to 
 have no letters from you. Here are two couriers missed, 
 Monday and Wednesday, and it is I who have done myself 
 that harm ; for, without loving me, you would certainly have 
 continued to write to me punctually. Ah ! good God ! to 
 what excess I have been carried ! I loved you and hated you 
 with fury. It was only the last transport of a soul about to 
 vanish forever — and in truth I have not felt it since ; I do
 
 140 LETTKKS OF [1774 
 
 iKil know what has become of it. I thought y<ju wcjuld have 
 written ou Wednesday to M. d'Aleinheit ; uiy first words on 
 coining home that evening were to ask him if he had had a 
 letter ; he said he did not know — for he has the excellent 
 habit of not opening his letters till the next morning. I soon 
 knew that he had received none from you, and my suffering 
 increased so much that I w^as obliged to take an anodyne, and 
 then, by dint of reason and arguments, I came, not to care 
 no longer, luil, at least, to cease to torture myself. 
 
 You know that M. de Muy, nnnister of war, is to marry in 
 a few days M me. de Saint-Dlancard, a (lerman chanoinesse, 
 whom you may have known during the late war. They say 
 she is amiable, has been pretty, and loves M. de Muy. This 
 marriage gives me a very good opinion of him ; it is an 
 excellent employment of his wealth. The Comte de Broglie 
 is at liufl'ec; is that very far from Montauban ? I should be 
 sorry to have you go there ; he would agitate your mind and 
 give you no help in bringing to good conclusion the projects 
 of fortune he would put into your head. Man ami, you 
 should fix your thoughts, you ought to see much of M. de 
 Muy. He must know you, and if he has intelligence he will 
 seek the aid of your ideas and your talents. Above all, bring 
 back with you your father ; his i)resence will be useful to you, 
 and besides, if his fortune is capable of amelioration he ought 
 to show himself ; no one seeks the merit that conceals itself. 
 
 I strongly applaud the horror you feel at provincial life ; 
 but the country is not provincial ; I would rather live in a 
 village among the peasantry than in a town like Montauban 
 and the good company of that society. But, moii Dieu ! in 
 Paris how many provincial towns there are ! how man}^ fools 1 
 how many sham " importants." Good is so rare everywhere 
 that I am not sure if it is not a great misfortune to have known 
 it, and to have made it one's " daily bread."
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 141 
 
 We may say of the habit of living with persons of intellect 
 and high merit what ^L de La Rochefoucauld said of the Court: 
 " It does not make us happy, but it prevents us from finding 
 happiness elsewhere ; " that is precisely what I feel now every 
 time I find myself in society. 
 
 My friend, guess if you can — but I must tell you it is no 
 happiuess, no pleasure, not even a consolation to be loved, 
 even deeply loved by any one who has" veiy little mind. Ah ! 
 how I hate uiyself for not being able to love that which is 
 excellent 1 how difficult to please 1 have grown ' But is it 
 my fault i see what an education I have received. Mme. du 
 Deffaud (because for intellect she must be cited) President 
 Ht^uault, the Abb6 Bon, the Archbishop of Toulouse, the Arch- 
 bishop of Abe, M. Turgot, M. dAlembert, the Abb^ de Bois- 
 mont, M. de Mora, — those were the persons who taught me to 
 think and speak, and who deigned to consider me as some- 
 thiny : after tbat, how could I turn my thoughts to being 
 l(jved by ... ? But, mon ami, do you think people can 
 love when they have little or no mind ? I know very well 
 that you think me crazy or imbecile ; but what does that 
 matter ? 1 had it on my heart to say to }ou what I have just 
 said. Good-night : I keep a little place in my letter to tell 
 you to-morrow that I have no news from you. Mon ami, 
 forgive me, but that seems impossible. 
 
 Saturday, after post time. 
 You are ill, you have fever ! Ah ! mon ami, it is not my 
 interest that this news awakens ; it is my terror — I think 
 that I bring evil to all I love. Oh ! mow Dieu ! if I must 
 fear again, if I must again feel the ten-ors and the despair 
 that consumed two years of my life, why did you then pre- 
 vent me from dying ? You did not love me, but you chained 
 me ! If on Monday I do not hear from you . . .
 
 142 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 Monday, Scptenilior 20, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, I desired all day yesterday to write to you, but 
 strength failed me. I was in a state of suffering which has 
 taken from me the power to speak and act. I cannot eat ; 
 the words food and 'pciin are synonymous to me now. — But 
 it is of you I wish to speak, it is with you that my mind is 
 occupied, for you that I am anxious. I see you ill ; I reproach 
 myself for having caused you some moments of sadness ; 
 without flattering myself that you attach much intei-est 
 either to my feelings or to me, I know that I have troubled 
 your peace of mind, and I am greatly distressed. Mon ami, 
 it is you who taught me to grieve and toiture that which 1 
 love. Ah ! I have been cruelly jninished for it ! and if 
 heaven reserves for me . . . Ah ! my blood freezes, I will 
 sooner die. That tliought is more dreadful than the most 
 violent death could ever be. You say you wish never to 
 wake, and it is to me that you confide your disgust of life. 
 How different were the words that he wrote me when dying : 
 " I was about to see you again, and I must die ! what a dread- 
 ful fate ! but you have loved me, and you fill me still with 
 tender feeling. I die for you ..." 
 
 Mon ami, I cannot transcribe those words without bursting 
 into tears ; the feeling that dictated them was the tenderest 
 and most impassioned that ever was ; misfortune, absence, 
 illness, nothing could shake or chill that soul of fire. Ah ! 
 I thought to die j-esterday on reading a letter from M. de 
 Fuentfes [M. de Mora's father]. He tells me that his sorrow 
 has not allowed him as yet to look at anything that was 
 dear to his son ; that he will always preserve for me the 
 warmest and tenderest gratitude for the proofs of affection 
 which I have at all times given to M. de Mora ; that I have 
 supported him under his affliction, and that he would gladly 
 return at the cost of his life all that his son owed to me.
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 143 
 
 He adds that he ventures m his name, the name of the sou 
 he mourns, to ask me for a favour, namely : to induce M. 
 d'Alembert, who was once his friend, to write a funereal 
 eulogy in honour of his son's memory, which would be the 
 consolation of his few remaining years, and which he could 
 read to his family as an honourable record and a source of 
 encouragement in virtue to his other children. And this 
 touching entreaty ends in tears. Ah ! how many it made 
 me shed. I do not fear to weary you with a narrative 
 which would not be cold in a novel. Mon Dieu ! I adore M. 
 de Fuentfes ; he was worthy of having such a son. What a 
 loss for him and for all who loved that son ! and yet we live ! 
 His father, his sister, and I, we would have been too fortu- 
 nate had we died at the moment he was taken from us. Ah ! 
 my friend, have pity for me ! You alone in the world can 
 bring some sentiments of comfort and consolation to a soul 
 that is mortally wounded. 
 
 I feel that your presence would have lightened the load 
 with which I am crushed ; now that I see you no longer I 
 am lost in the wilderness ; my soul is driven to excesses, as 
 you saw by the violence I put into my conduct to you. Mon 
 ami, replace me in the right way. Be my guide, if you wish 
 me to live. Do not abandon me. I dare not say to you, T love 
 you ; I know not if I do. Judge me in the trouble in which 
 I live. You know me better than I know myself. I know 
 not whether it is you or death that I implore : I have need 
 of being succoui;ed, of being delivered from the misery that is 
 killing me. — Mon ami, if I do not have news from you to-day, 
 or at least hear some, I know not how I can wait till Wednes- 
 day. Mon Dieu ! can you conceive, can you attain to an 
 idea of what I feel, of all I suffer ? Could any one believe 
 that I ever knew calmness ? Man ami, it is true that I lived 
 for twenty-four hours apart from all thought of you ; after
 
 144 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 which I was many da^s in total apathy ; I lived, but it seemed 
 to me I was beside my «nvn sell'. 1 remembered having had 
 a sold that loved you ; I saw it afar, Ijut it inspired me no 
 longer. Alas ! if you are as indil'l'erent as that " unfortu- 
 nate being who loves nothing," you will not understand me; 
 if this language does not go to your soul that soul is deadly 
 cold ; it will then be for me to pity y(ju f(jr l\ut weariness I 
 have caused you. 
 
 Good-bye; I will not close my letter luitil after the jxjst- 
 man comes. Mo/i ami, do not take to<j iiniili (juinine; it 
 mjures the chest, and when one is cured too quickly of a 
 fever, obstructions nearly always appear elsewhere ; remem- 
 ber that you are not free to neglect your health ; my peace, 
 nf}- life ilcpend u})on it. Mon «w/, tell me if I love you; 
 you ought to know — 1,1 know myself no longer ; for exam- 
 ple, at this moment I feel that I passionately long for news 
 of you, but I feel also, in a most urgent manner that I need 
 to die. 1 suffer from head to foot. My soul is uplifted and 
 my body faints; from this lack of harmony misery results, 
 and well-nigh madness — But I must stop. Adieu ; would 
 that I could go to meet the postman. 
 
 4 o'clock. The postman has arrived. M. d'Alembert has 
 no letter, although the courier from jMontauban comes on 
 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. 3fo)i ami, I am very 
 unhappy ; either you are very ill, or }-ou are very cruel to 
 leave me in such anxiety. You know if my health, my con- 
 dition, can bear this increase of troul)le and pain. Ah ! mon 
 DieiL ! what shall I do, what will become of me till Wednes- 
 day ! I will send to the Chevalier d'Aguesseau- 
 
 Friday, in the evening, September 30, 1774. 
 Man ami, you kept me from dying, yet you kill me by 
 leaving me in a state of anxiety which convulses my soul.
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 145 
 
 I have no news of you ; nor lias the Chevalier d'Aguesseau ; 
 and he has been to all the persons who might, perhaps, have 
 had some. Ah ! mon Dicu ! how little I knew myself ! how 
 mistaken I was when I told you that my soul was forever 
 closed to happiness, to pleasure; that it could now know 
 nothing but dull misery, and that I had no longer anything to 
 fear. Alas ! I cannot breathe since Wednesday. I see you 
 ill; I have an inward teiTor that alarms me. What a dread- 
 ful state of things you are making me endure ! — these 
 Wednesdays, these Saturdays, horrible days which have 
 made the hope and the despan of my life for two consec- 
 utive years ! 
 
 But can you be ill enougli to have forgotten that }'ou are 
 loved witli passion ; and if }<ju ha\'e remembered it why 
 have you failed to write to me ? Surely you knew it was 
 delivering my soul to mortal agony to thus make me fear for 
 you. Man ami, if you could have spared me wliat I suffer, 
 you are very guilty ; and it seems to me that such a wrong 
 ought ninv to cure me. But oh ! my God ! are we free ? 
 Can I calm and chill myself according to my will, and ac- 
 cording perhaps to }'ours ? Ah ! I can only love you and 
 suffer; that is the euKAion, the sentiment of my heart; I can 
 neither stop it nor excite it, but I long to die. 1 have 
 thoughts which are an active poison ; but it is not rapid 
 enough. If I hear to-morrow that j'ou are ill, but receive no 
 letter, I shall have lived too long. No, it is impossible, you 
 have surely thought of me ; I wait therefore, but in trem- 
 bling and with an impatience never felt except by a soul as 
 impassioned as it -is unhappy. Ah ! Diderot was right: none 
 but the unhappy know how to love. But, mon ami, this will 
 not soothe you if }ou suffer ; and if yon are calm you will 
 not value it. Well ! I love you, and 1 do not need your feel- 
 ing for my heart to give itself, to abandon itself to you. 
 
 10
 
 146 LETTEftS OF [1774 
 
 All tliJit the Al)li(i Terrai did, or ])kuined to do iu the mat- 
 ter of the domains is null and vnid ; all has been destroyed, 
 rescinded, nullitied ; you may be as easy about your father's 
 property as you were ten years ago. M. Turgot assured me 
 of this yesterday ; lie asked me for news of you, and re- 
 proached himself for not having yet had a moment iu which 
 to answer persons to whom he could not bring himself to 
 write office letters. M. de Vaines charged me to recall him 
 to your recollection ; he is absolutely crushed by his work ; 
 they have so much to rei)air and to foresee that they have 
 not a moment in which to breathe. The Abb^ TeiTai is or- 
 dered to replace in the royal treasury the hundred thousand 
 crowns he had taken by anticipation on the leasing (A farms ; 
 M. Turgot has declared that he does not wish for the fifty 
 thousand francs which come to him yearly, by law, from 
 those leases ; he has reduced himself in the same way on all 
 sides, which gives him courage to make reforms of the same 
 kind in the offices dependent on him. He is an excellent 
 man ; and if he can remain in office he will become the idol 
 of the nation : he is fanatical for the public good, and he 
 spends all his strength for it. 
 
 Saturda_v, after the postman. 
 
 I was interrupted. I have received your letter, mon ami ; 
 you are well ; that is enough to live for. Alas 1 I know not 
 how to answer you. The shocks that you give vaj soul are 
 too violent for words. Mon ami, all that I can say to you is 
 that your letter is charming through the tone of tenderness 
 and confidence which reigns there ; it is honourable and 
 true as your own soul; and though it does"not answer mine 
 on all points, that is not your fault, and I do not complain 
 of it. Alas, no 1 I am satisfied with you ; but I say with 
 Ph^dre, " I have taken to life a hatred, and to my love a 
 horror."
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 147 
 
 Oh ' if you knew how I detest myself, and what reason I 
 have to do so ! Truth is in my heart, and I must ever re- 
 proach myself for usurping the esteem and the sentiments 
 that are given to me. During this late time I fell into a 
 state that alarmed my friends ; they ascribed it to my sense 
 of the loss that I have met with, and thus they honoured it ; 
 whereas, the alarm you caused me diverted my mind from 
 those regi-ets that had hitherto rent my soul. So, though 
 dying of grief, I am unworthy of the sentiments I inspire. 
 Do you conceive the full horror of my situation ? Do you 
 believe that it is in human nature to bear it long ? Where 
 shall I find courage against such sorrow ? Who will share 
 it with me ? Who can have compassion upon so much 
 misery ? Well ! I say to my heart — and I feel it, I do not 
 deceive myself — if AI. de Mora could live again he would 
 understand me, he would love me, and I should have no 
 more remorse, no more suffering. Ah ! that feeling ought to 
 show you what T have lost ! Mon ami, why have you not 
 written to me by the last two couriers ? AMiy do you not 
 answer me and say, " I reply to your letter of such a date " ? 
 We ought to come to some agreement ; a troubled head 
 needs to be spared. Mon ami, consider me as one attacked 
 by mortal illness ; and give me the cares, the indulgence, we 
 have for the dying ; that will have no harmful consequences 
 to your happiness. I bind myself by all that I hold most 
 sacred, by the memory of M. de Mora, never to trouble you, 
 to exact nothing from you ; and after this letter of yours, 
 which is such that my heart thanks you for it, you could 
 never deceive me, I could never complain ; and if I did show 
 grief, you would be feeling enough to hear me without im- 
 patience. 
 
 Adieu, I do not answer your letter ; in the confusion of 
 my thoughts, in the trouble I am in, I feel but one thing : I
 
 148 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 live and I have lost him who loved me. Man ami, if it does 
 not constrain you too much, write to me by every courier ; I 
 need it. 
 
 Monday, October 3, 1774. 
 
 Ah ! mon ami, my soul is sick, I have no words, I have 
 only cries. I have read, I have re-read, I shall read a hundred 
 times your letter. Ah ! my friend, what blessings and what 
 evils united ! what pleasure mingled with tlie ciuellest bitter- 
 ness ! The reading of that letter increases and redoubles the 
 agitations of my lieart; I can no longer calm myself. You 
 have charmed and rent my soul alternately ; never did I find 
 you more lovable, more wortliy of being loved, and never 
 have I been so penetrated with deep and poignant and bitter 
 sorrow at the memory of M. de Mora. Yes, I fainted under 
 it, my heart was oppressed, I wandered in my thoughts all 
 night ; so violent a state must surely annihilate me, or drive 
 me mad. Alas ! 1 fear neither : if I loved you less, if my 
 regrets were less dear to me, with what delirious joy, with 
 what transport would I deliver myself from the life that is 
 crushing me ! Ah ! never, never did any creature survive 
 such torture, such despair. 
 
 Mon ami, why do we make poison of the only good that is 
 in Nature, the only good that men have not been able to spoil, 
 nor yet corrupt ? The whole world is estimated and paid by 
 money ; consideration, happiness, friendship, even virtue, are 
 bought, paid, and rated at their weight in gold ; there is but 
 one thing high above opinion, one thmg remaining spotless 
 like the sun, which has its heat, which vi\'ifies the soul, 
 enlightens it, sustains it, makes it stronger, greater. Ah ! 
 mon ami, need I name that gift of Nature ? But when it 
 does not make the happiness of the soul it fills, we must die 
 — oh, yes ! die ! I needed that, I yielded to it ; but you were 
 cruel ! Ah ! what have you done with the life you saved ?
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 149 
 
 Filled it with trouble and tears ! added to a frightful misfor- 
 tune the torture of remorse ! made me detest every instant 
 of my life ! and yet you have bound me to it by an interest 
 that consumes my heart and which, twenty times a day, pre- 
 sents itself to my thoughts as a crime ! Ah ! mon Dieu ! I 
 am guilty, yet heaven is witness that nothing was dearer to 
 my heart than virtue — and to say that it was not you who 
 led me astray ! What ? you believe that it was I alone who 
 cast myself into that abyss ? I am not to impute to you 
 either my faults or my misfortunes ? Oh ! 1 wanted to expi- 
 ate them, I saw the termination of my woe ; in hating you I 
 became stronger than death. By what fatality, and why have 
 I returned to you ? Why did the fear of your illness thus ener- 
 vate my soul ? Why do you rend me and comfort me at the 
 same moment ? Why this fatal mixture of pleasure and pain, 
 of balm and poison ? 
 
 All this acts with too much violence on a soul that passion 
 and misfortune have overwrought ; all this is completing the 
 destruction of a body exhausted by illness and loss of sleep. 
 Alas ! I said to you, in the extremity of my trouble, " I know 
 not if it be you or death that I implore ; " it is by you, or by 
 death tliat I must be relieved, or cured forever — all the 
 world, all Nature can do nothing for me. 
 
 Alas ! does there remain to me one prayer, one desire, one 
 regret, one thought of which you and ]\1. de j\Iora are not the 
 object ? Mon ami, I thought my soul extinct ; I told you this 
 and I found sweetness in such repose. But ah, good God ! 
 how fugitive that feeling was ! it was only the effect of opium 
 prolonged. Well ! I will recover my reason or I shall lose 
 it wholly. But tell me, how is it possible that I have 
 not yet spoken to you of yourself, that I have not said 
 how I fear a return of your fever ; and that I hope for 
 news to-day as the post is not in ? Adieu, mon ami ; your
 
 150 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 gentleness, your truth have filled my heart with tenderness 
 and sensibility. 
 
 Monday evening. 
 
 I have a line from you and (jnly a line ; but it tells me that 
 you are without fever, and thus it lias trauijuillized me. But 
 you are anxious about ycjur sister ; and so am I, for I am so 
 near to all that touches you. I, too, have fever : the paroxysm 
 of suffering last night lias affected my blood and my pulse ; 
 but do not be uneasy, death never comes so opportunely ; the 
 unhappy do not die, and they are too feeble, too cowardly, 
 when they love, to kill themselves. I shall live, I shall suffer, 
 I shall await — not happines.s, not pleasure — what ? Mon 
 ami, it is to you I speak ; answer me. . . . 
 
 Do you not think that your heedlessness is rather danger- 
 ous ? You write to me and do not seal your letter ; I send 
 you its envelope that you may not doubt me. The Pope ^ is 
 dead of an illness that arouses very frightful suspicions. 
 Good-night, mon ami. My head is heavj-^ and I feel more ill 
 than usual, 1 »ut I have had my letter from you : that is the 
 one important thing. I am in a very' singular condition; 
 for the last twelve hours my eyes represent to me but one and 
 always the same object, whether I keep them open or shut ; 
 that object, which is he whose memory I cherish and adore, 
 fills me with dread. At this very moment he is there ; what 
 I touch, what I waite is not more present, more visible ; but 
 why should I fear ? why this trouble ? Ah ! if it only 
 were so ! . . . 
 
 Wednesday, October 5, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, I have no letter from you; I expected one. 
 Alas ! I experience that the soul which hopes least can be 
 
 1 Clement XIV., Lorenzo Ganganelli; author of the Bull which sup- 
 pressed the Order of the Jesuits. He was thought to have been 
 poisoned. — Fk. Ed,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 151 
 
 disappointed. Forgive me : the need that I have of you 
 makes me expect too much ; I must be corrected of that 
 error. I am ill, and in a state of inexpressible suffer- 
 ing ; all kinds of nourishment do me equal harm. My 
 physician concludes that some obstruction is forming in 
 the pylorus ; that strange word was unknown to me ; but 
 it is torture when that door shuts. 1 am taking hemlock ; 
 if it could be prepared like that of Socrates 1 should take 
 it with pleasure. It would cure me of the slow and pain- 
 ful malady called life. 
 
 You do me harm, mon ami ; you render death a necessity 
 to me, and you hold me to life. AMiat weakness ! what in- 
 consistency ! Yes, I judge myself rightly ; but I languish, 
 I delay. I feel that there will come a day, a moment when 
 I shall bitterly repent having delayed so long. If I cast my 
 eyes upon the past I see that I should have been too fortu- 
 nate if the end of my life had come on Wednesday, June 1 
 [the day she heard of M. de Mora's death]. Mon Dieu ! what 
 sorrow, what evils I should then have escaped. Yes, I shud- 
 der in thinking that I can blame no one but you for all that 
 I have suffered since that fatal day. How ill-inspired you 
 were ' my death would have been no injury to you. At this 
 moment when I write to you, you would not remember it ; 
 whereas, in place of that forgetfulness which would have left 
 you to enjoy your repose and pleasiue, I burden you with my 
 woes, I make the whole weight of my life weigh upon your 
 heart. Ah ! I know well that susceptible, strong, and virtu- 
 ous heart; it would be capable of making some great sac- 
 rifice to relieve the unhappy soul, but it is out of your power 
 to take care of it, soothe it, calm it. Whatever is consecutive 
 is to you impossible ; your heart is impassioned, but it does 
 not know tenderness. Passion only works spasmodically ; it 
 has actions, emotions; but tenderness gives care, it helps,
 
 152 LETTEIIS OF [1774 
 
 it comforts, it would have written l»y every courier, because 
 it would have felt tlie needs of a sullering soul. No, these 
 are not reproaclies, they would be useless <jr distressing. 
 Ah ! how grieved 1 should be to give you an instant's pain. 
 Mon ami, 1 need to know if youi' lever has n<jt returned, 
 and if ihat of your sister is subdued. In writing to y(ni 
 the last time I was delirious, 1 thhik ; I had a Ijurning 
 fever all niglit ; it has left me imw, and in leavhig me it 
 has effaced that image that liiil all tillier objects from 
 jiiy sight ; l)ul 1 do ii<>t knnw why it liroiight such terror 
 into my soul. Ah! if I could buy hack his life for a single 
 hour there is no pain 1 should not have the strength to bear; 
 1 should say with Zulime : — 
 
 " Dk'iitli aiitl Ik'11 a])])ear liefure me : 
 Kaiiiiie ! with tianspoit I desci'iid there for thee." 
 
 But, mon ami, I did not mean to say to you all this. I 
 am confused ; 1 cannot continue. Adieu. 
 
 iSaturday, midnight. 
 
 First of all, I must tell you that your ink is white as paper, 
 and to-day it has reall>- i>ut me out of patience. I had or- 
 dered your letter to be brought to me at M. Turgot's, where 
 I was dining with twenty persons. It was given to me 
 while at table ; on one side I had the Archbishop of Aix,^ 
 on the other, that inquisitive Abb^ Morellet. I opened 
 my letter under the table ; I could scarcely see that any 
 black was on the white, and the abbd made the same remark. 
 Mme. de Boutilers, who was on the other side of the 
 Archbishop of Aix, asked what I was reading. " Remem- 
 ber where we are, and you will know what it is." — "A 
 memorial, no doubt, for M. Turgot ? " — " Yes, just so, ma- 
 dame, and I wi.sh to read it over before I give it to him."
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 153 
 
 Before returning to the salon I had read the letter through, 
 and I am now going to reply to it — though I must do 
 it hastily, for I am very tued with the great exertions 
 that I made to-day. I have seen at least a hundred per- 
 sons, and as your letter had done good to my soul, I talked, 
 I forgot I was dead, and I have really extinguished myself. 
 The truth is I had a " great success " because I brought out 
 the charms and the intellects of the persons with whom I 
 was; and it is to you, moii ami, that they owe that pastime, 
 so sweet to their self-love. As for mine, it is not intoxicated 
 by your praises ; I reply to y«»u, like Couci : " Love me, my 
 prince, and praise me not." 
 
 Mon ami, keep youi-self from ever again having the kind- 
 ness to set forth my blessings and display my gifts ; never 
 ilid I feel myself so poor, so ruined, so poverty-stricken; in 
 estimating what I have, in making me see my resources, you 
 only sliKW me that all is lost, (^ne means alone remains to 
 me, — I have long foreboded it, I even think it a necessity, 
 — namely, to make total bankruptcy ; but I postpone, I delay, 
 T rock myself with hopes, with chimeras; I know them to be 
 such, and yet they sustain me a little — but you destroy all 
 by the horrible enumeration that you make of them. Ah ! 
 what a deplorable inventory ! if any other than you had 
 attemjtted to console me, to reconcile me to life l)y these 
 hoi»eless consolations, I should say to him, like Agnes, 
 " Horace, with two words, could do more than you " — but 
 it is Horace who speaks to me ! Oh ! mon ami, my soul is 
 sinking. Wliat more will you invent to torture me ? I shall 
 be, you say, sustained, guaranteed, defended, etc. Well ! 
 never have I been all that ; if you set your friendship at 
 tliat value, I ask none of it. I have ])een weak, incon- 
 sistent, inihappy, very unliappy ; I have feared for you ; 
 I have wandered in the wilderness ; I have done wrong, no
 
 154 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 doubt ; and it is one harm the more to dwell upon it. 
 I have not an impulse, I never say a word to you, that 
 does not cause me regret or repentance. Mon ami, I ought 
 to hate you. Alas ! it is long since I have done 'what I ought, 
 what I wish ! I hate myself, I condemn myself, and I love 
 
 you. 
 
 Sunday evening, October 9, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, I have read your letter twice ; and the total 
 impression that I receive from it is that you are very 
 amiable, and that it is much easier not to love you at all 
 than to love you moderately. Make the commentary on 
 that, but not with your mind ; it is not to your mind that I 
 speak. Mon ami, if I chose, I could dwell on certain words 
 in your letter which have done me harm. You speak of my 
 courage, my resources, the employment of my time, and of 
 that of my soul in a manner to make me die of shame and 
 regret for having suffered you to see my weakness. Ah, well ! 
 it was in my soul, of which no impulse can be hidden from 
 you. When it was moved by hatred, I let you see it ; but 
 was hatred all that I allowed myself to feel ? 
 
 3Ion am/i, on reading again the recapitulation that you 
 make of all there is on earth to keep me from destruction, I 
 ended by laughing over it because it reminded me of a saying 
 of President Renault, which is good. At a certain period 
 of his life he thought that, in order to add to the esteem in 
 which he was held, it would be well to become devout ; he 
 made a general confession, and afterwards wTote to his 
 friend M. d'Argenson, " Never do we feel so rich as when 
 we move our belongings [qve lorsqu'on demcnagc]." 
 
 I shall dine to-morrow with the Duchesse d'Anville. I 
 like that house ; it is one the more where I can see you ; 
 you live for what you love and for the gay world every 
 evening ; but will you not often dine where I do ? That
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 155 
 
 will bring you into the society of those persons who are the 
 most on your own tone. Fools and stupid people are never 
 afoot before five or six o'clock ; that is the time when I 
 return to my chimney corner, where I nearly always find, if 
 not what I should have chosen, at any rate nothing that I 
 wish to avoid. 
 
 How is it that I have never yet told you that I am urged, 
 entreated, to go and re-establish my health in England at the 
 house of Lord Shelburue [Marquis of Lansdowne] ? He is a 
 man of intellect, the leader of the Opposition ; he was the 
 friend of Sterne, and adores his works. See what an attrac- 
 tion he must have for me, and whether I am not much 
 tempted by his obliging invitation. Admit that if you had 
 known of this piece of good fortime you would not have 
 omitted it from my pompuus inventor ij. 
 
 Yes, M. de Condorcet is with his mother; he works ten 
 hours a day. He has a score of correspondents, intimate 
 friends ; and each, without fatuity, may think himself his 
 first object ; never, never did any man have more existence, 
 greater means, so much felicity. I just remember that you 
 have never said a word to me about the Due de Choiseul ; 
 is it because your stay at Chanteloup has left no traces on 
 your journey ? Well ! here is how he stands in Paris : the 
 public takes no notice of him ; it seems to me that the best 
 thing for him at present is to remain in that state of 
 oblivion, for he will gain nothing now by comparisons. We 
 might have owed M. Turgot to him ten years ago, but he 
 preferred to choose such ministers as Laverdy, Maupeou, 
 Terrai, and others. 
 
 Your letter to M. d'Alembert is excellent ; and as we are 
 very communicative we gave it this evening to M. de Yaines, 
 who was charmed with it, and desires to show it to him who 
 could enjoy it without its alarming his modesty. . You will
 
 156 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 never guess what occupies my mind, what I desire to do ; 
 to marry one. of my friends. I want an idea that has come 
 to me to succeed ; the Archbishop of Toulouse could be very 
 helpful to the success of the affair. The young lady is six- 
 teen years old and has only a mother, no father, and a 
 brother. They will give her, on marrying, thirteen thousand 
 francs a year ; her mother will lodge her, and do so for a long 
 time, because the son is a child. This girl caimot have less 
 eventually than six hundred thousand francs, and she may 
 be much richer : will that suit you, man ami .? Say so, and 
 we will act ; it can ] )e done without offence, because the 
 Archbishop of Toulouse has as much skill as courtesy. 
 Let us talk it over ; and if this plan does not succeed I know 
 a man who would be very glad to have you for a son-in-law ; 
 l)ut his daughter is only eleven years old ; she is an only 
 child and will be very rich. Man ami, what I desire above 
 all things is your happiness ; and the means of procuring it 
 for you will become the chief interest of my life. There 
 was a time when my soul would have been less generous ; 
 but then it responded to one who would have rejected with 
 horror the empire of the world. What a memor}' ! how 
 sweet, how cruel ! Good-night ; if I receive, as I hope, a letter 
 fi'om you to-morrow I will add to this volume. For the last 
 two days I have suffered less. I have reached the stage of 
 two chicken-wings a day, and if that regimen does not suc- 
 ceed better than the others, I shall put myself on a milk 
 
 diet. 
 
 Still Sunday, October 9. 
 
 That adieu was very sudden, very abrupt, and you will 
 readily imderstand. that I have a thousand other things to 
 say to you ; for, if I am not mistaken, this is the last letter I 
 shall write to you. As to this, I shall know to-morrow. You 
 tell me that you are going to your regiment ; you have twice
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 157 
 
 written to me the name of the place where it is stationed, 
 but, thanks to the beauty of your writing, I do not know 
 what it is. I seem to make out Livourne, but that, surely, 
 cannot be where you are going [it was Libourne, a new 
 garrison of the Corsican Legion] . Mon ami, write me from 
 wherever you stop ; you must compensate me for the priva- 
 tion of not wi'iting to you. I do not feel certain that you 
 have started as yet. How could you refuse your mother, — 
 above all, if she is not convalescent ? she must be ill if she 
 still has fever. How I hope you are not mistaken and that 
 I shall really see you in two weeks. Fifteen days ! that is a 
 long way off ; once I looked for a nearer coming — Ah ! I 
 shudder ! what a dreadful recollection ! it poisons hope. Ah ! 
 mon Dieu ! it was 3'ou who troubled and overthrew the hap- 
 piness of that tender and impassioned soul ; it was you who 
 condemned us to an awfid. misfortune, and — it is you I love ! 
 Yes, we hate the evil that we do, but we are drawn to it. 
 Without your consolation I should have died of grief, and 
 now I am fated to live, to languish, to moan, to fear you, to 
 love 3-ou, to curse life and to cherish it at some moments. . . . 
 Here I was interrupted ; persons came and proposed to me 
 to go and see Duplessis. He is a portrait-painter who will 
 stand beside Van Dyck. I do not know if you have seen 
 the portrait of the Abb^ Armaud painted by him ; but, my 
 friend, you must certainly see that of Gluck ; it has a degi'ee 
 of truth and perfection which is better and gi-eater than 
 nature. He has put ten heads into it, all of different char- 
 acters ; I have never seen anything finer or truer in that 
 respect. ]\I. d'Argental came there, and showed us a letter 
 he had just received from M. de Yoltaii'e ; I thought it so 
 good, the tone so natural, it brought him so near to us, that, 
 without thinking whether it were discreet or not, I asked for 
 the letter ; I asked for a copy ; they are now making it, and
 
 158 l?:tters of [k74 
 
 'nion ami shall read it — that thought is at the bottom of 
 everything. Mon ami, 1 iiiiist repeat myself and say, as 
 Sterne to liis Eliza, " Your pleasure is tlie first need of my 
 heart." 
 
 Mon Dieu ! how difficult it is to begin a letter when one 
 has to make sentiment with one's mind, liut 1 must write 
 to Mme. de Bouffiers. She has not once mentioned your 
 name to me ; I am not sorry ; but how is it that persons do 
 not seize every occasion to talk of that which pleases them ? 
 There is, of course, a certain degree of affection that hinders ; 
 it is that which prevents me from speaking to her of you, 
 but she has never felt any such embarrassment, I am sure ; 
 she has nothing to do with loving, — she is too charming ! 
 
 Mon ami, I know myself so well that 1 am tempted to 
 think you are laughing at me when you speak of my suc- 
 cesses in society. It is eight years since I retired from the 
 world ; from the moment that I loved I felt a di.sgust for 
 such successes. What need have we of pleasing when we 
 are beloved ? Is there one emotion, one desire left that has 
 not for its object the person whom we love and for whom 
 we desire to live exclusively ? Mon ami, you have no such 
 desire, have you ? 
 
 Friclay, October 14, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, I have just returned from hearing the " Orpheus ; " 
 it has soothed, it has calmed my soul. I wept, but my tears 
 had no bitterness ; my sorrow was gentle, my regrets were 
 mingled with memories of you, and my thoughts rested on 
 them without remorse. I wept for what I had lost, and I 
 loved you ; my heart was able for both. 
 
 Oh ! what a charming art ! what a divine art ! Music was 
 invented by a sensitive being who desired to console the 
 unhappy. "What lieneficent balm in those enchanting sounds ! 
 Mon ami, for incurable sorrows we should take anodynes
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 159 
 
 only; and there are but three in all the world to soothe 
 my heart : you first, mon ami, you, the most efficacious of 
 all, you who lift me from my sorrow, who fill my soul with 
 a sort of intoxication that takes from me the faculty of 
 remembering and foreseeing. After this first of all bless- 
 ing, which I treasure as the support and the resource of my 
 despair, comes opium ; it is not dear to me in itself, but it is 
 necessar}'. And lastly, that which is agreeable to me, which 
 charms away my griefs, is music. Music pours into my 
 blood, into all that animates me, a sweetness, a sensibility so 
 delightful that I may almost say it turns to joy my regrets 
 and my misfortunes ; and that is so true that in the happiest 
 period of my life music was not to me then of the value it 
 is now. 3Ion ami, before you went away I did not go to 
 " Orpheus ; '■" I did not feel the need of it ; I saw, or I had 
 seen you, or I expected you ; that filled all ; but since your 
 absence, in the void about me, in the many and various crises 
 of despair which have shaken and convulsed my soul, I have 
 called all resources to my aid. How feeble they are ! how 
 impotent against the poison that eats away my life ! But I 
 must turn from myself and speak of you ; I ought not to 
 have changed that topic. 
 
 M. Turgot has written to you ; he has made amends, for he 
 asks you to do him a service, and I feel very sure that you 
 have thus felt it. M. de Vaines said to me yesterday : " Make 
 M. de Guibert return ; he could enlighten us ; he would be 
 useful to us about things of which we are ignorant and need 
 information." — The Comte de C . . . was at the Opera 
 to-night ; he came to see me in my box and talked much of 
 his affairs. A gi-eat fortune is a gi-eat burden ; he has many 
 lawsuits, and is incessantly occupied with a mass of objects 
 from which he derives neither profit nor fame. Ah ! no, hap- 
 piness is not in gieat riches. Where is it, then ? among a
 
 160 'LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 few erudites, very dull and very solitary ; among good arti- 
 sans, busy in a lucrative and not painful labour ; among good 
 farmers with large and active families, who live in decent 
 comfort. All the rest of the world swarms with fools, imbe- 
 ciles, and madmen; in the latter class are the unliappy — 
 among whom I do not include those in Charenton ; for the 
 style of madness which makes a man suppose himself the 
 Eternal Father may Ije Ijetter, perhaps, than wisdom or 
 happiness. 
 
 I send £Cn extract of a letter written to the Swedish am- 
 bassador; you will observe with wliat elegance foreigners 
 speak French ! 1 have not changed a comma. Everybody 
 is at Fontainebleau, and I am glad of it ; I should often like 
 to write over my door, as some learned man did over his, 
 " Those who come to see me do me honour, those who do not 
 come give me pleasure." M. de Marmontel proposed to me 
 to come last Wednesday and read me his new comic opera. 
 He came ; there were some twelve persons present. Behold 
 us in a circle surrounding him, and listening to the " Vieux 
 Gargon," — that was the name of the piece. The begin- 
 ning of the first scene seemed to me muddled, confused. 
 What do you think I then did, without my will having the 
 slightest part in it ? I did not listen to a word ; and that is 
 so true that if I were hanged for it, I could not have told 
 the name of a personage or the subject of the play ; I got out 
 of it by telling the truth, namely, that the time seemed to 
 me very short. The fact is that, since I have been imable 
 to fix my attention upon anything, I love readings dis- 
 tractedly, because they leave me free ; whereas in conversa- 
 tion we have to recall our thoughts. Mon ami, you may say 
 what you please, but I do not like conversation unless it is 
 you or the Chevalier de Chastellux who make it. Apropos, 
 he is much pleased with me ; I have stirred up his friends,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 161 
 
 and things are so well arranged that all we need to get him 
 received into the Academy is the death of one of the forty. 
 It is a proper thing, no doubt, but it was not done without 
 difficulty ; the interest, the pleasure, the desire he put into 
 this triumph spurred me on. Mon Dieu ! Fontenelle was 
 right : there are rattles for all ages ; there is nought but sor- 
 row too old for them, nought but passion too reasonable. 
 
 Mon ami, those are not paradoxes ; think them over, and 
 you will see they can be maintained. Good-night; it is 
 time to let you breathe; I have written without pausing. 
 Opera days are my times of retreat. I aui alone when I 
 come home ; my door is closed. M. d'Alembert has been 
 to see " Harlequin ; " he likes that better than " Orpheus." 
 Every one has good reasons, and I am far from criticising 
 tastes ; all are good. Adieu, till to-morrow. 
 
 Saturday, three o'clock, after the postman. 
 
 I dined at home to get my letter from you an hour earlier ; 
 that replies to your last question. But, mon ami, you truly 
 grieve me by not saying a word as to why you did not write 
 to me by the last courier. You feel you did wrong, and you 
 want to turn my mind away from it by promising to do 
 better in future; you are very amiable, mon ami, and I 
 thank you in advance. I dare not desire your return, but I 
 count the days of your absence. Mon Dieu ! how slow they 
 are ! how long they are ! how they weigh upon my soul ! how 
 difficult, how impossible it is to distract one's self a moment 
 from the soul's need ! Books, society, friendship, all imagi- 
 nable resources serve only to make us feel more keenly the 
 vahie and power of what we lack. 
 
 I do not answer, but I am touched to the depths of my 
 heart by what you say to me of M. de Mora. M. d'Alem- 
 bert has written to M. de Fuentfes ; he wrote from his own
 
 1fi2 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 impulse; and in reading nie his letter he wept, and made 
 me, too, burst into tears. Ah ! how tliat thought rends me ! 
 Moil ami, I want to think now of you, and to justify the 
 feeling that made me burn your letters. 1 did not think I 
 should survive that sacrifice a day, and as I made it my 
 blood, my heart were frozen with despaii", so that 1 did not 
 fully feel the loss 1 had inflicted on myself for over six days. 
 Ah ! twenty times, a hundred times 1 have grieved to have 
 burned what you had written : nothing can repair that loss ; 
 it is heart-breaking. 
 
 Yes, M. Turgot is at work about the corvees. Good-bye, 
 mon ami ; are you not weary of reading these scribblings ? 
 
 Sunday evening, October 16, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, I did not answer your charming letter yesterday, 
 and I shall never answer to my oion satisfaction what you 
 say to me of M. de Fuentcis. Ah ! where shall I find expres- 
 sions to render a feeling so novel to my soul ? You have 
 filled me with the tenderest, warmest gratitude ; it seems to 
 me that never did I owe so much to any one ; your emotion, 
 your sentiment, are noble and lofty as virtue itself ; why 
 should I not make my happiness in adoring them ? I do not 
 know the nature of my own feeling, but you are the object 
 of it, and there are moments when I am ready to exclaim 
 that remorse is no longer in my heart. 
 
 Alas ! I dare not say those words ; I feel, I know that 
 conscience cannot be deceived. A\niat trouble rises within 
 me ! how unhappy I am ! J/o?i ami, do you think it possible 
 that peace can return to my soul by loving you? — or do 
 you think it possible that I can live without lo\'ing you ? It 
 is of you that I ask knowledge of myself ; I know myself 
 no longer; with a word you change the disposition of my 
 souL I know not if this is so because I am weakened by
 
 -.774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 163 
 
 siiifermg, or because my feeling is strengthened by the pains I 
 take to combat and destroy it. If it be the latter, admit that 
 I have a very high opinion of myself ! Ah ! 711011 Dieu ! how 
 natm-al passion is to me, and how foreign is reason ! Mon 
 ami, never did any one so reveal herself ; but how could I 
 hide from you my inmost thoughts ? — they are filled by 
 you ; and how could I live if I knew I were usurping your 
 esteem and good opinion ? No, mon ami, see me as I am, 
 and grant me — not what I deserve, but — what I need to 
 keep me from dying of grief, or to give me courage, for I 
 know not which I prefer to owe to you, life or death. Both 
 depend on you, and whichever way you decide, I shall thank 
 you. 
 
 Mon ami, did you feel as you wrote them the force of those 
 words: "My greatest misfortune would lie to make you cold 
 to me " ? — and you wish to " diminish my torture." Ah 
 heavens ! what a means }ou employ to that end ! But I will 
 not return upon the past 1 hope I shall be deceived by you 
 no more. If I am not what you love best I shall at least see 
 in your soul the place you assign me, and I pledge myself to 
 seek no other. 
 
 I went again to " Orpheus " this evening ; but I was with 
 Mme. de Chatillon : it is true that I should have a very bad 
 opinion of myself if I did not love her ; she exacts so little 
 and gives so much. 
 
 Monday morning. 
 How can you question whether you ought to have left 
 me in ignorance of your fever ? Oh ! man ami, it is not I 
 whom you ought to spare ; I love you too well not to prefer 
 to suffer with you and through you. Those' who spare one 
 another do not love ; there is a wide distance between the 
 feelings we command and those which command us : the first 
 are perfect, and I abhor them. If some day you become per
 
 164 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 feet like Mine, de B . . . , like the cold Grandison, I shall 
 admire you, monami, but I shall be radically cured. 
 
 Here I was interrupted by Mme. de Chatillon ; she asks to 
 write on the rest of this sheet ; I give her paper and pens — 
 but my letter, it is not possible ! 
 
 Monday, after the postman. 
 
 You have been alarmed — you are still distressed. Mon 
 Dieu ! how I suffer from all that makes you suffer, and how 
 grieved I am for having added to the anxiety of your present 
 condition. Yes, I am guilty, I am weak, [ condemn myself, 
 I hate myself, but that will not repair the harm I have done 
 to you. You saw by the followmg post that this fever was 
 merely the result of the violent state of my soul ; my body is 
 not strong enough to support these shocks. Mon ami, do not 
 pity me ; say to yourself, " She is beside herself ; " that thought 
 will calm you, and if you do not suffer I am happy. But I 
 hope that you will tell me, carefully and with details, all the 
 news of your patients. It is dreadful to fear for those we 
 love ; that species of torture is more than my strength and 
 my reason can bear. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! yes, you must stay with your family ; your 
 departure would do them great harm, and you must spare them 
 during the whole time that their health is in question. But 
 I need not say this to you ; you see things better than I ; you 
 feel with greater delicacy. Mon ami, I am almost discontented 
 because you do not find pleasure in making me share your 
 present condition, especially as it is painful to you ; I would 
 have you say with Montaigne, but in a contrary sense, 
 " Methinks I rob her of her part." Yes, mon ami, you ought 
 to feel that you have no longer the right to suffer alone. 
 Alas ! I am so wholly on the tone of those who suffer, they 
 speak my language so distinctly, that it seems to me there is
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 165 
 
 no need to count on my affections in order to find sweetness 
 in complaint to me. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami ; I meant to write you a thousand nothings 
 but your sadness takes awa}' my strength. In vain I say to 
 myself: " 'V^^len my letter reaches him his condition will no 
 longer be the same " — but that in which you were possesses 
 me ; it cannot change, for me until you will it should. Ah ! 
 what ascendency ! what force ! what power ! it acts through 
 a thousand leagues ! I told you that the sentiment I dare 
 not name is the sole thing on earth that men have been unable 
 to spoil. Mon ami, if it were lost, tell yourself always, so 
 long as I live, that you know where it lives, where it reigns 
 with more vigour than it does in most Frenchwomen. 
 
 Friday evening, October 21, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami ! how slowly time rolls on ! since Monday last I 
 am weighed down by it ; there is nothing I have not tried, to 
 cheat my impatience. I am perpetually in motion ; I have 
 been everywhere, I have seen everything, and I have had but 
 one thought — to a sick soul nature has but one colour ; all 
 things are swathed in crape. Tell me, how do people distract 
 their thoughts ' how do they console themselves ? Ah ! it is 
 from you alone that I can learn to endure life ; you alone can 
 shed upon it that charm mingled with sorrow which makes 
 me cherish and detest existence alternately. 
 
 Mon ami, 1 shall have a letter from }ou to-morrow ; that 
 hope alone gives me strength to write to you to-night. You 
 will tell me if you are reassured about the health of your dear 
 ones ; and perhaps you will speak of your return ; but, at any 
 rate, you will speak to me. If you only knew how destitute, 
 abandoned, I feel when I have jio news of you ! Ah ! how 
 short your little letter was ! how cold ! It seemed to me 
 that in saying how uneasy and even alarmed you were, you
 
 166 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 were not saying all ! What is it ? are you hiding your heart 
 from me ? do you wish still to rend mine ? Have you not told 
 me that you wx)uld tell me all ; that you would give me a con- 
 fidence without reserve ; that I was your friend ; that your 
 soul could pour itself into mine ; that you would make me 
 live in all your emotions ; that whatever wounded my heart 
 could never be unknown by yours ? Ah ! mon ami, know me 
 well ; see what I am for you ; and, having that knowledge, it 
 will be impossible for you to conceive a project of deceiving 
 me, or even of concealing anything from me. 
 
 Saturday morning. 
 
 I left you yesterday out of consideration for you ; I was so 
 sad ' I liad just come from " Orpheus." That music drives 
 me wild ; it sweeps me away ; I cannot miss it a single day ; 
 my soul thirsts for that species of pain. Ah ! mon Dieu ! 
 how little I am on the key of those about me ! yet never had 
 any one more cause to treasure friendship. My friends are 
 excellent persons ; their attentions, their interest never flags ; 
 and I now comprehend what they find in me to attach them. 
 It is my sorrow, it is my trouble, it is what I say, it is what 
 I do not say, that stirs them, that warms their hearts. Yes, 
 I see it, kind and feeling hearts love the unhappy ; they find 
 in them an attraction that occupies and employs their soul ; 
 we love to feel ourselves feeling, and the sorrows of others 
 have just that measure which makes us compassionate with- 
 out suffering. Well ! I promise them that enjoyment so 
 long as it remains to me to live. 
 
 Mon ami, 1 meant to tell you, the last time I wrote, that 
 you ought to lodge in the same furnished house as the 
 Chevalier d'Aguesseau ; that would spare you both the 
 trouble of going to see each other ; it would be convenient 
 for you, and I should be secured against your quitting my
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 167 
 
 quarter. Yes, it is always some personal interest that un- 
 derlies all, that prompts all, and the fools and the false wits 
 who have attacked Helvdtius have doubtless never loved, and 
 never reflected. Ah ! good God ■ how many people live and 
 die without having felt the one or done the other 1 So much 
 the better for them, so much the worse for us — yes, so 
 much the worse ; for I cannot express to you the disgust, the 
 paroxysms of disgust, which I feel, not for the fools, but for 
 hose who are so much of my own kind that I foresee what 
 chey are going to say before they open their lips. — Ah ! I 
 am very ill ! I can no longer endure those who resemble 
 me ; all that is beside me, on my level, seems so small ; I 
 need to be made to raise my eyes ; without which I am wear- 
 ied and dulled. Mon ami, society offers me now but two in- 
 terests : I must love, or I must be enlightened. Intelligence 
 is not enough, I want much intellect ; that is saying that I 
 now listen to five or six persons only, and that I read but 
 six or seven books. Yet there are many more persons than 
 that who have claims upon me ; but they are claims of feel- 
 ing and confidence, and do not alter my condition of mind 
 in general. Here is the result : what is less than myself 
 smothers me and crushes me ; what is at my level didls me 
 and fatigues me. It is only that which is above me that 
 sustains me and tears me from myself ; I shall ever say with 
 the old classic, " Friends ' save me from myself." All this 
 proves that vanity, extinct within me, is replaced by uni- 
 versal and deadly disgust. 
 
 The Comtesse de Boufflers has not reached that point, 
 therefore she is very agreeable. I have seen her often this 
 week ; she came to dine with Mme. Geoffrin on Wednesday 
 and was charming ; she did not say a word that was not a 
 paradox. She was attacked, and defended herself so wittily 
 that her fallacies were almost as good as truth. ¥ov in-
 
 168 LE'ITEHS OF [1774 
 
 stance : she said it was a gieat misfortune to be an ambassa- 
 dor, it mattered not from what country or to what nation ; it 
 was dreadful exile, etc. Then she told us that, in the days 
 when she liked England best, she would never have con- 
 sented to live there permanently unless she could have 
 taken with her twenty-four or five of her intimate friends, 
 and sixty to eighty other x^ersons who were absolutely neces- 
 sary to her ; and it was with much seriousness and especially 
 with much feeling that slie tluis inf(jrmed us of the needs of 
 her soul. What I wish you could liave seen was the aston- 
 ishment she caused in Lord Shelburne. He is simple, 
 natural ; he has soul and strength ; he likes and is attracted 
 by that only whicli resembles himself, at least in being 
 natural. He went to see M. de Malesherbes, and returned 
 enchanted. He said to me : " I have seen for the first time 
 in my life what I did not believe could exist, — a man whose 
 soul is absolutely exempt from fear and hope, but who, 
 nevertheless, is full of life and ardour. Nothing in the 
 world can trouble his peace ; nothing is necessary to him, 
 but he interests himself keenly in all that is good." And 
 then he added : " I have travelled much, and I have never 
 brought away with me so deep an impression. If I do any 
 good during the time that remains to me to live, T am cer- 
 tain that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will inspire 
 my soul." Mon ami, that is noble praise, and he who gives 
 it is, beyond a doubt, an interesting man. I think him very 
 fortunate to be born an Englishman ; 1 have seen much of 
 him and listened to him much ; he has intellect, ardour, 
 elevation of soul. He reminds me a little of the two 
 men in the world whom I have loved, and for whom 1 
 would live or die. He goes away next week, and I am glad ; 
 he has been the cause, through social arrangements, that I 
 have dined every day with fifteen persons, and that fatigues
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 169 
 
 me more than it interests. I need repose ; my bodily machine 
 is worn-out. Good-bye, mon ami, I await the post ; that is 
 what is necessary to me. 
 
 Saturday, October 22, 1774. 
 
 3fon Dieu ! how troubled and grieved I am by what you 
 tell me. I believe all that I fear ; imagine, therefore, how I 
 share what you suffer. Ah ! it is at such moments that 
 separation is absolutely intolerable to me. Mon ami, your 
 troubles are mine, and it is dreadful to me to be unable to 
 comfort you. It seems to me that if I were with you I 
 could so take possession of your fears, your troubles, that 
 nothing would remain to you but that which I could not 
 take away. Ah ! to share is not enough. I would suffer 
 through you, for you ; and with such tenderness, such pas- 
 sion, there is no sorrow that could not be assuaged, no alarm 
 that could not be quieted. Mo)i Dieu ! how unfortunate I 
 am ! At the only moment of my life when I might have done 
 you good, I am condemned to be useless to you ! Those 
 who love you will say to you what I should say — better, 
 perhaps. I am too near you to express what I feel. Are 
 there words that can render all the emotions of a suffering 
 soul, of a soul struck by terror, and to which misfortune has 
 forbidden hope ? Mon ami, \h this state, which is mine, we 
 can express and explain ourselves by three words only : " I 
 love you." 
 
 Ah ! if they could pass into your soul just as I feel them ! 
 Yes, if they could, whatever be your sorrow, you would feel 
 a gentler feeling. Noiv it is that I have a mortal regret at 
 all you lack in affection for me ; mon ami, were it otherwise, 
 we could make our consolation ; the remedy would be beside 
 the ill. Ah ' when one is in trouble it is dreadful to love 
 feebly : for it is in ourselves that we find true strength, and 
 nothing gives it so much as passion ; the feelings of another
 
 170 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 please us, touch us; there are noue but our own tliat 
 support us. 
 
 But that resource fails nearly all the world , nearly all who 
 exist love only because they are loved. Ah ! mon Dieu ! what 
 a poor way ! how small and feeble it leaves the soul ! But 
 this depends neither on will nor on thought ; it is therefore 
 as senseless to seek to excite it as to labour to quench it. 
 Let us stay, then, what we are, until nature, or I know not 
 what, ordains otherwise. 
 
 You are too kind, a thousand times too kind to occupy 
 your mind with my ills. To suffer has become my exist- 
 ence ; still I am better since I have taken chicken for my 
 only nourishment ; I suffer less. Adieu, mon ami, I speak 
 of myself and think only of you. From now till Monday 
 I shall be in a violent state. You will write me, I 
 believe. 
 
 Sunday evening, October 23, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, to calm myself, to deliver myself from a thought 
 that pains me, I must speak to you. I await to-morrow's post- 
 hour with an impatience that you alone, perhaps, can conceive. 
 You will hear me, if you cannot answer me, and that is some- 
 thing. It would be, no doubt- sweeter, more consoling, to 
 speak in dialogue; but monologue is endurable when we 
 can say to ourselves, "I speak in solitude, but I am 
 heard." 
 
 Mon ami, I am in a detestable physical condition, which I 
 attribute to that hemlock ; it retained, I believe, some poison- 
 ous property ; I feel an exhaustion, a faintness, which has 
 made me think twenty times to-day that I was about to lose 
 consciousness, and at this moment I feel an inexpressible 
 distress. I feel what Fontenelle described shortly before 
 his death, — "a great difficulty in Icing." But that which 
 excites my soul will give me strength to writp. Mon anii
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 171 
 
 I do not know if I told you I had seen the wife of Comte 
 . . . ; her appearance is common, but her tone is ol^liging, 
 and she shows a great desire to please ; nevertheless, such 
 as she is, I should not think her good enough to be the wife 
 of the man I love most. Mon ami^ I am more than ever sure 
 that a man who has talent, genius, and is destined to fame, 
 ought not to marry. Marriage is a veritable extinguisher of 
 all that is great and may be dazzling. If a man is honom- 
 able and feeling enough to be a good husband, he will be 
 nothing more ; no doubt that is enough if happiness is there. 
 But there are men destined by Nature to be great and not 
 happy. Diderot says that Xatm-e in creating a man of 
 genius, waves her torch above his head and says to him, 
 " Be great, and be unhappy." That, I think, is what she said 
 on the day that you were born. Good-night, I can no more ; 
 to-morrow ! 
 
 Monday, after post-time. 
 
 Xo letter ! I should tremble were it another than you ; 
 but I reassure myselt a little by remembering that it is 
 not in you to be punctual or consecutive. This is natural, 
 but also afflicting. Mon ami, I make you no reproaches ; 
 I only pity you, whatever be your situation, that the 
 thought of your soul was not for me. Adieu ; I am de- 
 pressed, and in a state of weakness which is extraordinary ; 
 it requires an effort to hold my pen. I shall no longer ex- 
 pect letters from you ; but I shall desire them as long as I 
 breathe. 
 
 Tuesday evening, October 25, 1774. 
 Ah ! I have been unjust ; that would be a wrong in any one, 
 but I reproach myself for it as a crime with you. Forgive 
 me, mon ami ; I ought to have thanked you, and I blamed 
 you. That thought hurts me as though I were guilty ; but 
 the post was guilty, and I suspected it so little that when
 
 172 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 they brought me my letters to-day I did not look at the 
 outside of them; I did not care which I read first or last. 
 Mon ami, when I opened the second I gave a cry ; it was 
 your writing ! my heart palpitated. If it is a very painful ill 
 to await and see notldny come, it is a very keen and very 
 lively pleasure to be thus surprised. Mon ami, I love you 
 to madness ; all things tell it to me, all things prove it — 
 and often more than I wish. I give you more than you 
 desire ; you have no need of being so much loved, and I, 
 I have much need of repose, that is, of death. 
 
 But I am too selfish ; I talk to you of myself, whereas I 
 ought to tell you of the pleasure with which I read your 
 words : " Better — all goes well — I am at ease." Ah I 
 mon ami, I breathed again ; it seemed as if those words 
 gave back to me both life and strength ; for three days 
 I was annihilated; they say this condition came from the 
 nerves, but I who know more than my doctor, I know that 
 it came from you. I am like Lucas, who explains everything 
 by his vocation of gardener. Ah ! mon Dieu ! how can I suf- 
 fice for all I feel, for all I suffer ? — and yet my soul has but 
 two feelings : one consumes me with sorrow, and when I give 
 myself up to the other, which ought to calm me, I am pursued 
 by remorse and by a regret more heart-breaking still than the 
 tortures of remorse. Myself again ! how I detest this cease- 
 less return ! do I banish myself in saying that I adore your 
 sensibility and your truth ? 
 
 Ah ! hide nothing from me ; you gain much by letting 
 me see all the emotions that move you. Mon ami, in a 
 situation precisely like that in which you have been, but 
 which had fatal results, M. de Mora wrote me, with almost 
 the same expressions as yours, the anguish that his mother's 
 illness caused him. I have already told you never to have 
 the thought of sparing me ; believe that my feelings will lead
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 173 
 
 me much farther than you could make me go. Mon ami, it is 
 good to know that your mother's convalescence is so near, but, 
 in spite of what you say, I feel that you will stay there longer 
 than you think. You will certainly commit the heedlessness 
 of forgetting to tell me not to write to you and where to 
 wi-ite to you on your way. Then, when no letters reach 
 you, you will blame me, or you will have the kindness to 
 feel anxious; yet a little forethought would avoid it all. 
 
 The Chevalier de Chastellux is at present at Chanteloup 
 with the Due de Choiseul. He keeps up with everything, 
 and attaches great importance to this manner of multiplying 
 himself indefinitely. He is so rich and so generous that he 
 disdains to gather in for himself ; it suffices him to sow ; he 
 receives nothing ; he gives everywhere and to everybody. 
 He told me the other day that his pleasure lay in producing 
 effects. M. de Cham fort has arrived ; I have seen him, and 
 we read together his " Eulogy on La Fontaine." He returns 
 from the baths in good health, richer in fame and wealth, 
 and possessed of four friends who love him, namely : Mes- 
 dames de Grammont, de Eanc^, d'Amblimont, and the Com- 
 tesse de Choiseul. This assortment is almost as variegated 
 as Harlequin's coat, but it is only the more piquant, agree- 
 able, and charming. 1 assure you that M. de Chamfort is a 
 very well-satisfied young man ; and he does his best to be 
 modest. M. Grimm has returned from Eussia. I have 
 overwhelmed him with questions. He pictures the Czarina 
 [Catherine II.], not as a sovereign, but as an interesting 
 woman, full of wit and good sayings, and all that can seduce 
 and charm. In what he told me of her I recognize more the 
 charming art of the Greek courtesan than the dignity and 
 state of the empress of a great empire. 
 
 But a greater painter in another manner has returned to 
 us ; I mean Diderot ; he sends me word that I shall see him
 
 174 LETl'ERS OF [1774 
 
 to-]iiuiTOW ; I shall be very glad. JiuL in the present condi- 
 tion of my soul, he is the man of all otliers whom I would 
 rather not see hal)itually ; he forces tlie attention, and that 
 is precisely what 1 cannot and will uot give consecutively to 
 any one. When 1 say that, you understand that it means 
 I do uot wish my thoughts to be distracted from the one 
 person who tills them wholl}-. All ! what a clumsy explana- 
 tion ! But the truth is you are stupid ; one must ticket a 
 thing to make you understand it. Courage, mon ami ; for 1 
 think that by this time you have had a ream of paper with- 
 out deducting a single page. You can put off the reading 
 of it till you are in your travelling-carriage ; I shall occupy 
 your journey, and you will find me at the end of it. 
 
 So you really think that you will be glad to see me ? 
 WTiat you say to me is so agreeable. It would be sweet, 
 indeed, to be loved by you ! but my soul cannot attain to 
 that degree of happiness ; it would be too much. A few 
 moments, a few flashes of pleasure, — that is enough for the 
 unhappy ; they breathe and recover courage to suffer. 
 
 Wednesday, October 26, 1774. 
 
 I have just re-read your letter ; a sentence had escaped 
 my notice, and it delights me ; you say, " I return to our 
 troubles ..." Ah ! tell me on what thought I can rest to 
 breathe in peace ; on that of your arrival ? No, no, it makes 
 me quiver; I dare not even desire it; if it were delayed I 
 believe I should die. Can you conceive such an excess of 
 inconsistency ? But that excess does not proceed from false 
 reasoning ; it comes from a soul con\'ulsed by the most con- 
 tending emotions, which you may, perhaps, imderstand, but 
 are unable to share. 
 
 I am interrupted, and again by Mme. de Chatillon. I 
 begin to think that the first of all qualities required to
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 175 
 
 make others love us is to be loving. You cannot imagine 
 all that she invents to reach my heart. Ah ! if you loved 
 me as she does ! — no, no ! I do not wish it ; heaven pre- 
 serve me from knowing twice in my life such happiness. 
 
 Friday, October 28, 1774. 
 
 What say you to that invocation ? does it not seem as if 
 I had lost my head ? Moii ami, it comes from an honourable 
 sentiment. I wronged M. de Mora, and I find a sort of 
 sweetness in thinking that he alone will have made me 
 know happiness ; that it is to him only that I shall ever 
 owe having felt, for a short while, all the value that life can" 
 have. Sometimes I feel myself less guilty because I am 
 punished; and, do you not see, all that would be reversed, 
 effaced, if I were loved ? I must hold to virtue b}- remorse, 
 and to him who loved me by regret for having lost him. 
 That regret is very keen and heart-rending ; there are few 
 days when it does not cause me convulsions of despair. 
 
 They forced me to go and see Lekain in " Tancrfede ; " 
 I had not seen it since its improvement, and I did not care 
 to. However, I went ; the first two acts wearied me exces- 
 sively ; the third has much interest, which goes on increas- 
 ing to the end ; in the fifth act there were moments, words 
 which transported me to the scene at Bordeaux. I thought 
 I was dying ; I lost consciousness, and they were obliged to 
 watch with me all night because I had continual fainting 
 fits. I could not speak to you of this the last few days ; I 
 was too near to the impression I had received; I promised 
 myself not to go in search of such shocks again. I can bear 
 nothing but " Orpheus," and I find with regret that you will 
 not see it. There is to be a new opera November 8 ; the 
 music is by Floquet. The public may like it perhaps ; after 
 what is good it applauds what is mediocre, and even what is
 
 176 ' LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 detestable, — for M. Dorat has had success. And it is the 
 public that make reputations ! — but the public of the long 
 run ; for that of the moment never has tlie taste nor the 
 intelligence which sets the seal on what shcnild go down to 
 posterity. Bring me back the Linguet [a political and liter- 
 ary journal]. Everybody is at Fontainebleau ; but we still 
 have Tiarou de Kock and Baron Gleichen, and they stay too 
 late in the evenings for me. I do not know if I deceive 
 myself, but I believe solitude would be good for me ; soci- 
 ety seldom interests me now, and it always weighs upon 
 me. Oh ! what a poor invalid T am ! In vain T tuin to 
 this and that; I am only the worse for it. Adieu, mon 
 ami. 
 
 I have just seen the Comte de C . . . I told him he 
 would have to breathe malarious air, for in I lie intoxication 
 of felicity in which he is living it could only be a work of 
 mercy in him to come and see me, and that I should be to 
 him like those monuments that some philosophers preserve 
 to make them remember to be good and just. "You will 
 come and see me," I said, " and when you go away you will 
 say to yourself : ' Trouble does exist on earth, after all ; ' 
 your heart will be touched by my sorrows, and mine will 
 have enjoyed your felicity." 
 
 The letters of M. de Condorcet are really charming. If I 
 followed my first impulse I should write you all that I have 
 felt about them ; but I stop, saying to myself : " He will soon 
 return, I will let him read them ; he will laugh at me and 
 think me very enthusiastic — well, perhaps so, but he ivill he 
 here." Mon ami, on that condition I would consent not to 
 have common-sense for the rest of my life ; but then you 
 would abandon me and I should be lost in the crowd — well, 
 stupidity would console me there. I think that during all 
 this time " The Gracchi " must have been forgotten [tragedy
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 177 
 
 in verse by M. de Guibert]. But you will return to them 
 with more ardour and interest. Mon ami, admire my transi- 
 tions ; stupidity leads me to genius, ^ud this progression is 
 very natural ; it is M. Turgot after the Abbe Terrai. There 
 are cases where gradations and intermediaries disappear. 
 
 I do not know what to do with the time between now 
 and Saturday ; I shall make a little of it weigh on you by 
 ubliging you to read me. I hope — I promise myself a long 
 letter on Saturday. Suppose I am disappointed ! suppose that 
 it is only four pages long ! Oh, then I should complain. 
 Mon ami, you see good luck has turned my head ; I become 
 almost saucy just because I have had news of you to-day. 
 What is very certain is that if others were in my secret 
 they would know from my health and my whole manner of 
 being whether I have had a letter from you. Yes, the cii'cu- 
 lation of my blood is perceptibly changed, and at such times 
 it is impossible for me to take part in anything. But what 
 I never become indifferent to is the increased interest that 
 my state inspires in my friends. Mon Dieu ! would they 
 pity me if they saw^ into the depths of my heart ? That 
 usurpation of my love, was it not criminal ? Mon ami, do not 
 make my conscience false ; pity me, console me ; you have 
 only too long misled me. 
 
 I have a fancy to send you the letter T took up and read 
 before yours to-dav (could I have had a presentiment, that 
 would not have been the order of my reading ) ; you will see 
 from this letter whether I have suffered from your absence. 
 Yes, I have made M. d'Alembert very uneasy. The man 
 who wTites the letter knows nothing of all that fills my 
 thoughts ; he thinks me a victim of virtue and prejudice ; but 
 for the last three years he has seen me so unhappy that he is 
 sometimes inclined to thmk me mad. He spends his life in 
 making epigi-ams against me ; but the fact is, the point of
 
 178 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 them is always a touch of sentiment or of wrath. Kead 
 and recognize ; very surely he is a man (jf intellect. 
 
 Sunday, October 30, 1774. 
 
 1 am notified too late ; a package has gone to the post 
 to-day ; when 3'our letter came I had aheady sent it to M. 
 Turgot to be countersigned. I expected to write you a line 
 after the arrival of the postman, and send it in the usual 
 way, but no juatter. I hope that my vi»kime will not be 
 lost ; it will surely be sent to you, and with all the more 
 care because M. Turgot's name will be seen upon it. 
 
 I think, truly, that it is easy to criticise you without wound- 
 ing you ; l)ut it is nt)t so easy to praise you as I feel that 
 you deserve, without running tlie risk of being thought ex- 
 aggerated, insipid, and munotoiiiiiis. Well, I abandon myself 
 to it, and will tell you coarsel}- that your letter to M. Turgot 
 is excellent, perfect ; it is the right tone, the proper measure ; 
 in short, it is you, and I know nothing better or greater on 
 earth. I told you, mon ami, that henceforth I could look 
 only at that which made me raise my eyes ; but you, you 
 are so high that I could not lift them to you long without 
 too great an effort. Ah ! mon ami, how I wish you had a 
 fortune ; I wish you had easy circumstances ; I wish you 
 were not forced to wear out j-our talents, to wring the neck 
 of your genius ; in short, I wish you were not condemned to 
 put yourself back among the common herd. Yes, on my 
 honour, it is for your sake, for the interests of your fame only, 
 that I look for your marriage ; in that respect I can truly 
 say wi,th Eacine, " The day is not purer than the depth of 
 my heart." All that means, mon ami, that if an excellent 
 match offered itself, if you had one in view, if I or my 
 friends could help you, oh ! count on the zeal, the activity, 
 the passion we would put into making it successful; yes,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 179 
 
 I should again know joy and pleasure, if I could see you 
 happy. 
 
 \Miat pretty verses those are in your letter ! That need 
 to " live strongly " is, I believe, the need of the damned. 
 That recalls to me a speech of passion that gave me pleasure. 
 " If ever," it was said to me, " if ever I gi-ow calm again, I 
 shall feel myself in torture." That language is for the 
 use of only such persons as are endowed with the sixth 
 sense, soul. Yes, mon ami, I am fortunate enough, or unfor- 
 tunate enough, to have the same dictionar}" as yourself. I 
 understand, or rather I feel, your definitions, whereas for 
 three-fourths of the time I do not comprehend the Chevalier. 
 He is so content with what he does, he knows so well what 
 he will do, he loves reason so truly, in a word, he is so proper 
 about everything, that once I came near speaking and wi-itiug 
 to him as the Chevalier Grandison — but without envying 
 the fate of Clementma or Miss G . . . 
 
 You know, of course, that the Comte de Broglie commands 
 at Metz in place of M. de Conflans. Mon ami, there 's a witty 
 man ; I wish he might be useful to you, to you who have not his 
 wit. Apropos of wit, I must teU you a saying of the Czarina 
 to Diderot. They often argued ; and one day when the dis- 
 pute was more lively than usual, the Czarina stopped short, 
 saying : " We are both too excited to be reasonable ; your head 
 is hot and mine is warm, we shall not know what we are 
 saying — " " With this difference," cried Diderot, " that you 
 can say what you please without impropriety, whereas I may 
 fail in — " " For shame ! " interrupted the Czarina, " what 
 difference is there between men ? " Mon ami, read that cor- 
 rectly and do not be as stupid as M. d'Alembert, who could 
 see nothing in it but difference of sex, whereas the speech 
 is only charming as being that of a sovereign speaking to a 
 philosopher. She said to him on another occasion : " Some-
 
 180 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 times I see you a hundred years old, and then again, like a 
 child of twelve." That is sweet, and pretty, and paints 
 Diderot. If you loved children a liUle more, I would tell 
 you that I think I liave observed that what pleases up to a 
 certain point always has some analogy with them ; they have 
 such grace, such suppleness, so mucli of Xatuie ' In fact. 
 Harlequin is a composition of child and cat ; and what could 
 be more graceful. 
 
 Do you know what vexes me about that package that is run- 
 ning after you ? You will receive so late the letter asking 
 pardon for having blamed you unjustly ; the post was guilt}-, 
 not you, and I was its accomplice. But is it you or the post 
 who are to blame this time ? You write me, " I answer your 
 letters of the 9th and 14th." Why do you jump, feet 
 together, over the 11th, which was a Tuesday? I have 
 written by all the couriers since that moment when I was 
 mad with a fatal madness. 
 
 Mon ami, you will miss a great day, that of the re-opening 
 of parliament. Oh ! the crowd of spectators promise them- 
 selves great pleasures ; but wise people like myself do not con- 
 cern themselves about this first moment; it is the results, 
 the consequences of this event which have such interest. 
 The question is, are they judges or tyrants whom we are 
 about to replace on the fleurs-de-lis ? — You ask why I do not 
 talk to the Chevalier about " Orpheus." Mon ami, because 
 it would be barbarous to talk of colours at the Quinze-Vingts 
 [blind asylum]. Adieu. 
 
 Monday, eleven o'clock at night, November 7, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, it seems to me that you have rights over all the 
 emotions and sentiments of my soul. I owe you an account 
 of all my thoughts ; I do not feel assured of their correctness 
 until I communicate them to you. Listen to me, therefore,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 181 
 
 and judge my judgment, or rather my instinct ; for I have 
 nought but that for things of intellect, of art, and of taste. 
 Yes, mon ami, the Academy of Marseille has only done 
 justice in crowning M. de Chamfort. Ah! mon Dieu ! at 
 what a distance now seems to me that Eulog}' which gave 
 me such pleasme, and will give me more ! How rich is this 
 one [Chamfort's " Eulogy on La Fontaine " ] ! how full of 
 intelligence, intelligence of all kinds, refinement, strength, 
 elevation, philosophy ! How lively the style, how animated 
 and rapid, how filled it is with happy expressions, how 
 original the tone and turn of the phrases ! In a word, I 
 am truly charmed, and if I did not fear to spoil your pleas- 
 ure I would quote to you some points, each more piquant 
 than the rest. I recommend to }ou page 14. Tell me, am I 
 mistaken ? is it not full of the most exquisite sensibility ? 
 has he not ennol)led benefactions and gratitude ? does he not 
 express all the sentiments that a lofty, sensitive, and impas- 
 sioned soul would desire to feel and to inspire ? Mon ami, 
 I am so satisfied with it that I could wish you had done it ; 
 and yet I am certain that you could do better ; you would 
 go higher, you would not have his defects. But pronounce 
 your verdict quickly : have I too much enthusiasm ? At any 
 rate no one has put it into me ; for 1 have seen and heard 
 no one. I received the Eulogy at nine o'clock ; I nearly died 
 of impatience to be altjue : I have read it, and give you my 
 first impressions, at the risk of your thinking them devoid of 
 common-sense. 
 
 Let nothing turn you, in disgust, from reading to me what 
 you write ; I will be Molifere's servant ; I will discuss noth- 
 ing, but I shall feel all. What taste and intelligence you 
 show in narrowing your subject. In the best of tragedies 
 there are tedious and languid passages. You will avoid these 
 defects ; the interest will always be sustained by the subject
 
 ]82 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 and action of the l>lay. The mind of the author will never 
 appear, but the soul and genius of M. de Guibert will fill 
 and animate the whole. Mon ami, why that oath not to read 
 me at once, immediately, what I desire so much to hear and 
 feel ? Is it because what moves you is not what I would 
 desire to know and think for the rest of my life? 
 
 Ah ! how ill you understood me in the first instance, and 
 how well you have since replied to me about Lord Shelburne ! 
 Yes, it is just that, his being the leader of the Opposition, 
 that makes me esteem and like him. How could one tiot 
 be disconsolate at being born imder a government like ours ? 
 As for me, weak and unfortunate being that I am, if I could 
 be born again I would rather be the lowest member of the 
 House of Commons than even the King of Prussia ; nothing 
 but Voltaire's fame could console me for not having been 
 born an Englishman, One word more about Lord Shelburne 
 and I will never speak of him again. How do you think he 
 rests his brain and his soul from the worries of government ? 
 In doing deeds of beneficence that are worthy of a sovereign ; 
 in creating public institutions for the education of all the 
 tenants of his estates, entering into all the details of their 
 instruction and comfort. That, mon ami, is the relaxation 
 of a man who is only thirty-four years old, and whose soul is 
 as tender as it is great and strong. There is an Englishman 
 worthy to have been the friend of the wonder and miracle 
 of the Spanish nation [M. de Mora]. That is the man whom 
 I wish you could have seen ; but if you had, you would 
 always have regretted him ; for assuredly he is not made to 
 live in this country. He leaves on the 1.3th; he wants to 
 see the re-entrance of our parliament ; meanwhile he is giving 
 himself up to the dissipations of Paris. In all his life he 
 has never known that species of relaxation ; he finds much 
 delight and charm in it. "It is pleasure," he said to me,
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 183 
 
 "because it will not last; for such a life forever would 
 become the most intolerable weariness." Hew far that is 
 from a Frenchman, from one of those agreeable men at 
 Court. Ah ! President Montesquieu was right when he said, 
 " The government makes the man." A man gifted with 
 energy, loftiness of soul, and genius is in this country a lion 
 chaiued in a menagerie ; the sense that he has of his strength 
 tortures him ; he is a Patagonian condemned to walk on his 
 knees. Mon ami, there is but one career open for glory, but 
 it is noble. It is that of the Moliferes, the Eacines, the 
 Voltaires, the d'Alemberts, etc. Yes, mon ami, you must 
 limit yourself to that because the world so wills it. Good- 
 night; I do not know if this letter will start; but I have 
 talked with you, and I am satisfied. 
 
 Sunday, ten o'clock at night, November 13, 1774. 
 
 Ah ! mon ami, you have hurt me ; it is a great curse, for 
 you and for me, this feeling that inspires me. You do right 
 to tell me you have no need of being loved as I can love. 
 No, that is not according to your measm'e. You are so per- 
 fectly amiable and agi-eeable that you are, or will become, the 
 first object of those charming ladies who put on their heads 
 all that is inside of them, and are so lovable that they love 
 themselves in preference to all else. You will make the 
 pleasure, you will crown the vanity of all those women. By 
 what fatality did you hold me to life only to make me die of 
 uneasiness and pain ? Mon ami, I make no complaint, but I 
 grieve that you set no value on my peace of mind ; that 
 thought freezes and tears my heart by turns. 
 
 How is it possible to have a moment's tranquillity with a 
 man whose head is as bad as his carriage, who thinks of no 
 danger, who foresees nothing, who is incapable of punctuality, 
 who never by any chance does what he has planned ; in a
 
 184 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 word, a man carried away, by everything, whom nothing can 
 stop or fix ? Oh ! my God ! is it in thine anger, in thy ven- 
 geance, that thou hast doomed me to love and adore him who 
 is the torture and despair of my soul ? — Yes, mon ami, what 
 you call your faults may perhaps kill me, — I hope they may, 
 — but nothing can chill me. If my will, if reason, if reflec- 
 tion could have done anytlung, should 1 have loved you ? 
 Alas ! at what a time was 1 pushed, precipitated into this 
 abyss of misfortune \ I shudder at it still ! 
 
 Good-night ; not once has my door been opened to-day that 
 my heart did not beat ; tliere were moments when I dreaded 
 to hear }our name, and then again I was broken-hearted at 
 not hearing it. So many contradictions, so many conflicting 
 emotions are true, and three words explain them : / love ijou. 
 
 nu. 
 
 Your letter of Thursday morning was hard and unjust ; 
 that of an hour earlier was overwhelming from the excess of 
 truth and unreserve with which you tell me that you have 
 never loved me, and that henceforth you cannot live for any 
 one, etc. and etc. Do you know that such an avowal turns 
 my remorse to shame ? I cannot think of myself witliout 
 horror, and from you I turn away my thoughts; I wish to 
 neither judge you nor hate you. 
 
 Yesterday you came so late, and were so eager to get away 
 that you proved to me you yielded to my note; and that 
 seemed to me very natural. I only mention this to let you 
 know that I am aware that you will not be annoyed at not 
 seeing me this morning. I expect the Archbishop of Aix ; 
 he has something he wishes to say to me. My door will be 
 closed. In the afternoon I am going to pay visits and I shall 
 not return home till after eight o'clock. To-morrow I dine 
 with the Comte de C . . . and have visits to pay untO. eight
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 185 
 
 o'clock. I tell you my arrangements, not that I think they 
 will influence yours, but to spare you the trouble of trying to 
 see me or avoid me. 
 
 The person who disposes of you and of your time will not 
 allow you to give yourself up to the disgust you feel for the 
 world and for society. You will find distraction, peace, pleas- 
 ure, happiness with her and at her house ; and you will no 
 longer be afflicted by the mortal disgust which must surely 
 be attached to the wrong of deceiving those who love us. 
 Ah ! it was not worth while. You nuist feel very guilty 
 towards her ; yield yourself up- this time to the invincible 
 penchant that allures you ; offend her no longer by puttmg 
 any comparison between the feeling that you owe to her and 
 that with which others inspire you. Mon Dieit ! I know 
 not why I should speak of what occupies your mind ; it is, 
 doubtless, from the liabit of alwa}s liking to please you. 
 
 We read last night the " Kuh)gy of lleasou " [by Voltaire]. 
 They all thought it excellent. I wish you had heard it. The 
 reading did not finish till ten o'clock. 
 
 Eleven at night, 1774. 
 , I have read your note. It is very gentle, it is very honest ; 
 your conversation was very harsh, very cruel even. I was 
 crushed by it. Never, no never, was my soul so beaten down, 
 my body more weakened. You had formed the intention of 
 never seeing me again. Well, then, why change it ? You 
 gave me strength to accomplish my intention, to satisfy the 
 most urgent need of my soul ; we should both have been re- 
 lieved and delivered; I, of a burden which overpowers me, 
 you, of the sight of a sorrow which annoys you often and 
 always weighs upon you. No, I have no thanks to give you 
 I prefer yoiu- first impulse to your reflection. In doing me 
 wrong you gave me strength : in consoling me, as I have
 
 186 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 told you again and again, you hold me back, but you do not 
 bind me to you. Oh ! it is perhaps you who make me feel 
 in a deeper and more heart-rending manner the loss I have 
 met with. Nothing would have led me to compare you de- 
 liberately ; this involuntary thought casts me often into de- 
 spair ; in this condition "of mind I know not which is the 
 most dreadful, my regrets or my remorse. But what does all 
 this matter to you ? The opera, the dissipation and whirl- 
 wind of society sweeps you along, and that is just; I do 
 not complain ; I grieve. 
 
 Nevertheless, I wish you would come here to-morrow after 
 supper ; you can then speak to M. d'Alembert, and perhaps to 
 M. de Vaines ; he sends me word that he will probably be here. 
 I have seen M. Turgot this evening ; it is more than six 
 months since I have been tete a t^te with him. I was dull, 
 and I think he must have regretted the time he wasted on 
 me. Good-night. I have a burning heat ; fever consumes 
 me. Ah ! this death is too slow ! You hastened me this 
 morning ; why retain me to-night ? 
 
 Saturday, eleven at night, 1774. 
 
 How wise you were not to come to the theatre. I have 
 no words to express the weary disgust T felt ; I had, besides, 
 a feeling of physical discomfort which was almost pain ; it 
 ended by being beyond my strength to pass my evening with 
 Mme. de Chatillon, although I had promised her to do so. 
 
 I feel that there is a degree of unhappiness which takes 
 from us the strength to endure ennui ; it is dreadful to me 
 to be a passive listener to trivialities, often revolting, and 
 nearly always as stupid as they are low. Oh ! the detest- 
 able play! how bourgeois the author is, what a common, 
 limited mind ! how stupid the public are ! what bad taste 
 good company can show ! how I pity the unfortunate writers
 
 J774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 187 
 
 who are hoping to acquh-e reputation from the stage ! If 
 ^ou only knew how the audience applauded ! Molifere could 
 never have had a greater success. Nothing was noble about 
 the play except the names and the clothes ; the author made 
 Henri lY. and the Court people talk in the style of a bour- 
 geois of Saint-Denis. It is true that he gave the same style 
 to the peasants. In a word, this work [comedy in three acts 
 by Colle, entitled " A Hunting party of Henri IV."] is to me 
 a masterpiece of bad taste and platitudes ; and the people in 
 society who praise it seem to me like valets saying good of 
 their masters. 
 
 Have you news of your mother ? is she better ? and is 
 your father's return a certainty ? Nothing but that can 
 console me for your having left this faubourg. And you, 
 mon ami, how have you spent your day ? In not doing 
 what you said you should, is not that so ? and to-morrow 
 you will not work ; always an activity which makes a hun- 
 dred plans, and an easiness in dropping them on the least 
 pretext — regrets, desires, agitation, but never any repose. 
 Oh ! mon ami, you must be loved before you are known, as 
 you were by me ; for after judging you, it would be devoting 
 one's self to hell to pin one's happiness upon you. 
 
 I will tell you my whole day to-morrow, Sunday, so that 
 you may give me the moments that 'will least inconvenience 
 you. First, mass ; then a visit to a sick friend before dinner. 
 I dine with Mme. de Chatillon ; at four o'clock I go to the 
 hotel de La Eochefoucauld ; then I shall return home about 
 half-past six, and not go out again. Adieu, mon ami ; I love 
 you, but I feel too sad and too stupid to know how to tell 
 you so. 
 
 Mon ami, may I ask you, without offence, to return me the 
 letter of the Abb^ de B . . . ? for I do not venture to reclaim 
 the pages torn from my letters. I was wrong to notice it.
 
 188 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 and by speaking to you alxmt tliem I have roused your 
 " indignation," That feeling is just ; I dare not complain of 
 it. Ah ! I am too " difficult to please," too " exacting," too 
 " crabbed." 1 have all the faults of an unhappy being who 
 loves to desperation and who has but one emotion and one 
 thought. Adieu again. 
 
 Midday, 1774. 
 
 You did not tell me, you did not write it, and I can 
 prove this to you. The hope of seeing you suffices to stop 
 and change all my arrangements; you can judge, therefore, 
 whether, with the certaint}- of seeing you, I was likely to 
 go out. But as you depend on the arrangements of Mme. 
 de . . . , }ou can never foresee, or say with certamty what 
 you will do. Mon ami, there is no great harm in that ; mis- 
 understandings result, but you are free, that is the important 
 thing. I am soiTy you did not let yourself be driven to 
 where Mme. de . . . was stopping. M. de Saint-Lambert 
 was going to the Place Vendome — but you never know 
 what you want to do nor where 30U are going. However, 
 what does it matter ? If you were amused, if you were satis- 
 fied and happy at the close of your day, you did well, you 
 were right, and your way of life must be a good one. Change 
 nothing. As for me, I am sad and depressed. I wish — not 
 to change my way of feeling, but — I wish I were annihilated, 
 I wish I had been so on that day when I ceased to be beloved. 
 Ah ! 711071 Dieu, what a loss is mine ! My soul cannot accus- 
 tom itself to that dreadful word 7iever; it still gives me con- 
 vulsions. Yesterday, during the reading, I feared I should 
 have to go away. I remembered that the last time that 
 reading was given he was present; my heart was broken. I 
 could not listen to another word, and since that moment I 
 have existed only on those sweet and cruel memories. Moti 
 ami, why did you wrench me from death ? The thought of
 
 1774] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 189 
 
 death is all that calms my soul ; it is its need, its most per- 
 manent desire. 
 
 Good-bye ; I know not how I can do it, but, to my great 
 regret, I must control myself. The time in my life when I 
 feel best is at night ; then I am all alone with my affections. 
 You must tell me — if you know it — what you expect to 
 do the next few days ; but in mercy make me no sacrifice. 
 I am not worthy of it, and I should be left so unhappy. 
 
 Saturday, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, you never know what you want to do ; I am 
 therefore going to tell you : you will go out before eleven 
 o'clock; you will pay %isits in the faubourg Saint -H onore ; 
 then you will go and diue with Mme. de Boufitlers. Eeturn- 
 ing from tliere, you will go and write at the house of Mme. 
 de V . . . ; at seven o'clock you will come to the Com^die 
 Frangaise to see " Henri IV." (which is the afterpiece) ; you 
 will ask for the box of the Due d'Aumout, over the orchestra, 
 next to the queen; you will tell your lacquey to be, at a 
 quarter past eight, at the great gate of the Prince's court- 
 yard, and we will all go out that way without losing a mo- 
 ment ; after which you will go and sup with Mme. de . . . 
 
 There is your whole day well laid out; change nothing. 
 Then on Sunday you will work all the morning without 
 going out; you will dine with ]\Inie. de . . . , return home 
 at five to work again, and at eight you will come to me. 
 Apply yovrsdf, and take my advice. Then Monday, dinner 
 with ]\Ime.de V. . . , supyjer with Mme. de . . . ; Tuesday, 
 dinner at M. Turgot's, and supper with Mme. de . . . ; 
 Wednesday, dinner with Mme. Geoflfrin, and supper with 
 Mme. de . . . ; Thursday, dinner with Comte de C . . . , 
 and supper with Mme. de . . . ; Saturday, dinner with Mme. 
 de . . . , go to Versailles after dinner, and return Sunday
 
 190 LETTERS OF [1774 
 
 evening to spend it with me. Mon ami, you will be the 
 most agreeable man in society if you do what is here pre- 
 scribed to you. I defy you to make a better plan for your 
 pleasure — I make that, as in duty bound, the first object. 
 
 Mon ami, you tell me that you wish to make me suffer; 
 that is impossible ; you are kind, you have feelings, and you 
 know — what? that I would give my. life, more than that, 
 I would vow myself to sorrow if I could thus deliver you 
 from one quarter of an hour's pain. And yet you wish to 
 make me suffer ' Oh, it is not true ! 
 
 Five o'clock, 1774. 
 
 Mon ami, you were mad this morning, but your madness 
 was very charming because it was after my own heart. 
 I do not know how I happened to forget to tell you the 
 imperative reason that kept me at home. This surprises me 
 the more as I did not remember imtil I saw M. de Vaines 
 enter my room at half-past three o'clock. He had told me 
 the evening before, and he had written it to me, yet I did 
 not remember to tell you. Mon ami, I have annoyed you once, 
 and you have hurt me a hundred times. For instance, if I 
 do not see you to-night you will be cruel and unjust, but 
 I shall not complain. M. Turgot is rather better; I have 
 had news from him three times since I saw 3-ou, and I shall 
 have more before midnight ; that satisfies me without tran- 
 quillizing me. 
 
 I have seen your Langon, the painter ; he is handsome 
 enough to be painted himself ; but there is something silly, 
 vapid, and conceited about him which cools me as to his 
 talent. That man will never feel yom- soul ; he may paint 
 your features, he may find the secret of rendering a likeness, 
 but it will be without interest to me. And yet, how could 
 that be? have I not in my heart that which would animate
 
 l?74i MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 191 
 
 stone and make canvas living ? Mon ami, I will not lose 
 it ; you have promised me your portrait ; give it to me there- 
 fore ; I want it. 
 
 I have not been out ; 1 shall see no one who will tell me 
 of the ball ; I shall hear M. Turgot talked of, not with the 
 interest that I feel in him, but with that which is felt for 
 virtue, and through fear of his successor. To me he is not 
 the controller-general ; he is M. Turgot, with whom I have 
 been intimate for seventeen years ; in that light his illness 
 troubles and agitates my soul. 
 
 Half-past ten o'clock, 1774. 
 
 I have been with two women, coughing myself to death ; 
 I could not thank you for sending me news of yourself. 
 You do well, mon ami, to stay in your chimney-corner; 
 your health and comfort are far dearer to me than my 
 pleasure. I am sure you will accuse me of temper and 
 injustice, and it is you who will be unjust ; but I forgive 
 you. I have for you a sentiment which is the principle, 
 and has the effects, of all the vii-tues, indulgence, kindness, 
 generosity, confidence, the yielding up of self, the abnegation 
 of personal interest. Yes, mon ami, I am all that when 
 1 think you love me ; but a doubt reverses my soul and puts 
 me beside myself ; and what is cruel about it is that this is 
 almost my habitual condition. 
 
 Mon ami, the first rule for writing en 2'>oints is to form 
 one's letters, and, above all, be precise ; hence you will never 
 be able to write en points. But I will let 3^ou off easily 
 in future. I feel only the need of being loved day by day ; 
 let us blot from our dictionary the word forever. My 
 soul can no longer attain so far. 1 am a hundred years old, 
 and I have under lock and key a cure for the -future. You 
 see 1 have read your points. But you, read these two pas-
 
 192 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 sages from Seneca ; they have delighted me. I wished you 
 to see them, and I have had them copied. M. de Mora 
 had the same sentiments ; they sustained him three years at 
 the point of death, but death was stronger than love. Good- 
 night. I feel sad ; life hurts me, and yet I love you with 
 tenderness and passion. 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1775. 
 
 I am alone only for a moment. For the last two hours I 
 have been trying to finish that criticism of the Comte de 
 La . . . For the last twelve days I have been swept away 
 from all that interests me most iu life. Ah ! mon ami, how 
 stupid dissipation is; how barren society is of all interest 
 for a mind preoccupied ; how few conversations there are for 
 which it is worth the trouble to leave home ! I am almost 
 in a state of disgust w^ith intellect ; you say truly, that which 
 enlightens only, wearies me. Ah ! I am very unfortunate ; 
 what I love, what consoles me, puts my soul to the torture 
 with trouble and remorse. I must have need to suffer, for 
 I find myself constantly desiring that which does me harm. 
 But, mon ami, it is only by thought that you can comprehend 
 all this ; and I ought not to tell it to you ; in fact, I meant 
 merely to ask you to return to me the volume of Montaigne 
 which you put in your pocket a few days ago, 
 
 I will go and fetch you before two o'clock : do not order a 
 carriage. 3fon ami, there is something noble, righteous, 
 honourable in submitting to ill-fortune. I know many rich 
 men who go on foot for their pleasure ; and many old and 
 infirm persons who go about in the street carriages. I am 
 very limited myself, mon ami ; if you knew how much little 
 details are to me, what the happiness that is bought with 
 money would be to me ! Mon Dieu, my present situation 
 proves that I have utterly disdained fortune ; it has no doubt 
 its advantages, but how many things are preferable ! Good-
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 193 
 
 night, mon ami. What are you doing at this moment? 
 I defy you to be better employed than I ; I am thinking of 
 what I love. 
 
 Be ready before two o'clock. 
 
 Midday, 1776. 
 
 I was so chilled, so extinct last night because you came so 
 late, and because I have seen you so little these many days, 
 that I forgot to give you a copy of that letter of Mme. Geof- 
 fiin which you desired. Nor did I tell you that you should 
 have a ticket for that friend you do not choose to name to 
 me. If you are amiable, and above all reasonable, this is 
 how you will arrange your day to-morrow : dine at the 
 Temple, and you will there see Mme. de Boufflers ; and at 
 six o'clock you will either come liere or go to the Opera 
 (I will let you know which). I am tempted not to go and 
 dine with Comte de Creutz, though he is to have, or flatters 
 himself he will have, M. Boucher. I admire the latter's 
 talent with all my soul, but the use he makes of it wearies 
 me — diamonds, gold, rainbows, all that does not touch 
 the sensitive portion of my being ; a word from him whom 
 I love, his slumber even, stirs more in me of that which 
 feels and thinks than all M. Boucher's factitious images. 
 Mon ami, I want to see you to-day ; come before supper. 
 To-morrow I will let you know if I expect you at the 
 Opera or here. 
 
 Well, here is a settled thing: I will lend you no more 
 manuscripts, inasmuch as you send them about ; I see there 
 is no safety with you. But in spite of your defects, you still 
 have confidence, as you told me yesterday, in being always 
 sought, always loved, and by a thousand more than you could, 
 or would respond to. Mon Dieu ! what a pity it is that, being 
 so charming, you deserve so little to be loved ! Good-bye ; 
 I am not stupid, but I am, perhaps, too truthful. I shall not 
 
 13
 
 194 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 go out to-day till nine at night. I will wager that you are 
 roving already. There are but three things of which you do 
 not know the value, and which you consequently fling about : 
 your time, your talent, and your money — of all things else, 
 you are miserly. 
 
 Midday, 1775. 
 
 " Unworthy and common " conduct would be to leave you 
 to your anger and to the opini<jn that I wished to affront you, 
 Mon ami, know me better, and believe that I could never 
 fear being compromised, as you say, or even betrayed, lie- 
 member that for one who does not fear death, and who, far 
 from fearing it, has never passed twenty -four hours in the 
 last six months without finding in herself the desire and 
 the strength to forestall it, remember, I say, that in that 
 frame of mind my soul can know but one species of fear, 
 and that is derived from my tenderness for you; I fear 
 to displease you, I fear to grieve you ; but, on my honour, 
 I fear nothing for myself ; there are moments, in fact, when 
 I should like you to reduce me to despair. See, from that, 
 if I am likely to have those petty fears which are roused 
 only by the dull vanity that makes people desire an esteem 
 they do not deserve. 
 
 No, mon ami, I repeat it, I fear nothing in the world but 
 my conscience ; and as I cannot calm that, nor stifle my re- 
 morse, I wish to die ; my sole regret in dying would be to 
 have hurt you. From that sincere avowal you can judge of 
 the feelings that inspire me, and see whether your soul ought 
 to remain " ulcerated " by an emotion condemnable no doubt 
 if it were not the effect of two maladies which consume my 
 life and rend my heart. Mon ami, I have told you that you 
 must indeed have much, ah ! very much indulgence for me. 
 Forgive me, therefore, not my intention, not my sentiment 
 (for assuredly they need no pardon, unless for the -excess of
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 195 
 
 passion that is in them), but forgive a fit of madness which 
 I could not repress. 
 
 Your letter is unjust ; but it does not take from me the 
 hope of still reaching your heart. Tell me it is closed to me 
 forever and I will thank you ; for with those words you will 
 break the sole tie that holds me to a life of, regret and re- 
 morse, a life in which I can look for no other interest or 
 pleasure than that of loving you without hope that you 
 wiD share my feeling. But at least be sure that I shall 
 never trouble your happiness or your dissipations, never ask 
 you for a moment that you think could be better employed; 
 you shall be free to see me but rarely, and without fearing 
 the importunity of my reproach. 
 
 Mon ami, tell me again that you will " never " see me 
 more ; that, I believe, is the word that my soul craves to 
 hear. Ah ! no, I fear nothing, except to live ; I bid all na- 
 ture do its worst ; I feel myself so strong, and yet so feeble, 
 that I ask you, from the bottom of my heart, to crush me 
 wholly or come to my assistance. Adieu, mon ami. 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1775. 
 For the last two hours I have been waiting ; at last that 
 pamphlet has come. Remember that the " Eulogy of Reason " 
 gave you pleasure, and do not change that opinion. Mon ami, 
 in preaching moderation j^our zeal carries you away ; there is 
 no kind of conversation in which you do not compromise 
 yom'self without making any conversions ; but as I am not 
 more fortunate than you, I end my sermon here, and will 
 only say that I shall be delighted to see you. Come early ; 
 remember it is eight days since I have seen you ; you can 
 imagine how charmed I was with your note. Mon Dieu ! 
 why do you put such warmth and interest in overcoming 
 me and in making me feel myself inconsistent and absurd.
 
 196 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 and, then, why are you all ice to my soul ? Ah ' why ? 
 because you are true ; because if you did not love me, 
 you would have hated me ; because the real evil is that 
 we ever met each otlier. But inasmuch as it is impossible 
 to change the past, I ask you to console me to-day by coming 
 early. Good-bye ; I am talking with M. d'Anlezy while 
 writing to you; it is not comfortable. 
 
 Midday, 1775. 
 
 Why, surely I believe that you will never take the man- 
 ners or the tone of any one ; all which has true grandeur can 
 only lose by changing. Alexander, perhaps, would not have 
 given up his stiff neck; therefore, keep all you have, mon 
 ami, your taste, your levity, your manners, and, above all, 
 your forgetfulness of whatever moves and interests those 
 you say you love. For instance, you have a refinement of 
 delicacy that I never observed in any one but you ; you 
 will not come and see me, you say, because not to see me 
 alone is a restraint upon you ! Truly, that is touching ten- 
 derness, especially when you are at liberty to come and see 
 me in the mornings or at four o'clock ; those are times when 
 I am almost sure to be alone. But, mon ami, it is much 
 more delicate not to come at all, and I give my consent, for 
 I no longer wish you to make sacrifices for me, ^ — -which 
 you have no desire to make. Your excessive interest will 
 content itself with two words : " I suffer." 
 
 February, 1775. 
 They are coming to fetch me ; I shall not see you, and not 
 know whether you want me to call for you. Do you know 
 they are giving "Tom Jones" [comic opera], with "False 
 Magic " [the same, by Marmontel] ? That will give you 
 pleasure, and your pleasure will make mine. Therefore give 
 this evening to Mme. . . . and come to the play with me
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 197 
 
 to-morrow. But decide ; for your place has many applicants. 
 You had the kindness to deprive me last week of two even- 
 ings on which I had counted ; that wound up my soul to 
 generosity, and it is without rancour that I give you your 
 liberty to-night. I still feel the crisis of yesterday ; I need 
 solitude, and composure ; with you I should find only trouble. 
 Go, therefore, and pass the evening with what you love, 
 what pleases you, and what loves you, and leave me to en- 
 gulf myself, inebriate myself with a sorrow which is better 
 than all the pleasures of those persons with whom you were 
 last night. Yes, vice is less dangerous than those souls of 
 papier-mache, those vacant brains. Vice revolts and makes 
 us indignant, whereas those persons seduce you by their 
 manners and their tone, and will extinguish forever mind 
 soul, and talent. Ah ! mon Dieu ! do not give M. Roucher the 
 disgust of being judged by those still-borns, or rather those 
 living dead. They cannot understand his soul, and they 
 will wound him by the insolence with which they will speak 
 to him of his poverty. You would do well to tell them that 
 with his talents a man is richer, greater, happier than any 
 one of them. I must tell you a generosity of M. de B . . . 
 which will give you the measure of his soul, or of what 
 represents it. ]\1. Turgot is to hear M. Roucher; he will 
 feel him ; he is virtuous, he wUl serve him without 
 urging. 
 
 I think you do well to go to ^^ersailles ; you ought to 
 speak once of that affair, and then say no more. Mme. 
 Geofifrin has sent me an engraving for you. I send it that 
 you may enjoy it all the sooner. The woman is beautiful, 
 but cold as a Muse. Send your copy to Mme. Geoffrin ; she 
 is in a hurry. "When persons are very young or very old 
 they want to enjoy instantly. I have been very unwell to- 
 day, but that is now the habit of my life; people should not
 
 198 LETfERS OF [1775 
 
 be asked U) pity ills that last forever ; it is enough if we our- 
 selves are endured with them. Good-night. 
 
 Seven o'clock, 1775. 
 
 Last evening at this hour T expected you, mon ami, and I 
 
 suffered when you did not come ; to-day my soul is depressed 
 
 and sad because it is not sustained by the hope of seeing 
 
 you. What I feel recalls to me tho.se verses of M. de La 
 
 Harpe : — 
 
 " Ah ! why can I no longer await her, 
 E'en though she comes not ? " 
 
 3fori ami, I pity you for being unable to share the feelings 
 that possess me ; you would know happiness — the happiness 
 which gives an idea of heaven, and conveys strength to pur- 
 chase heaven by the tortures of hell. Yes, I feel it, my soul 
 is made only for excesses : to love feebly is impossible to me ; 
 but also, if you do not respond to me, if my soul cannot com- 
 pel yours to follow it, if you wish me to live a divided half, 
 if it sufhces you to be agitated and never happy, I feel a 
 vigour still within me to renounce you wholly. Mon ami, you 
 know it : each time that we feel the strength and even the 
 desire to die, we can claim all, exact all ; we do not give our- 
 selves time to deserve, to acquire by slow means what we 
 need to obtain at once. It is not the price of my happiness 
 that I stake on being loved by you ; it is that of my life. 
 It would be shameful, therefore, to deceive me, and it would 
 be generous to deprive me of all hope. 
 
 But it was not one word of all this that I wished to say 
 when I took up my pen. See how free we are when our 
 souls are tossed ! I meant to warn you not to come to- 
 morrow before midday, because I have just remembered I 
 shall have a coiffeur. It would be odious to me to see you 
 with that appendage, and I shall not be free from him till 
 twelve or half-past.
 
 1775] , MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 199 
 
 Be vexed if you like, but I cannot express to you how 
 glad I am that you went away this morning when you did ; 
 another ten minutes and I do not know what would have 
 become of me. M. de Magallon came in, and shortly after 
 his departure I had a violent attack of convulsions ; my 
 bodily frame can no longer sustain the emotions of my soul. 
 This does not alarm me nor make me uneasy ; I fear neither 
 pain nor the end of pain; but, mon ami, explain to me what 
 gives this strength at the height of misery. Is it that situa- 
 tions of despair fortify and elevate the heart ? If so, we 
 should bear our fate and make no moan. 
 
 A conversation is going on about me in which I am not 
 tempted to take part, but it disturbs me. However dissi- 
 pated you may have been to-day, whatever pleasures you 
 may have had, I do not envy you; I have been in better 
 company. I have been absorbed in " Catinat" [eulogy written 
 by M. de Guil)ert]. I have re-read a part of it and I am 
 more than ever charmed, — more satisfied than I can express. 
 To a certainty, the author will go far. It is not enough to 
 say that he has talent, soul, mind, genius ; he has what 
 is missing in almost all good things, that eloquence, that 
 warmth that makes us feel before we judge. This is what 
 enables me to praise without presumption, and approve with 
 as much truth as if I had mind and taste. I cannot analyze 
 or expatiate on anythmg, but what is fine uplifts my soul, 
 and my judgment is right, whatever you may say. Adieu — 
 adieu. 
 
 ■ Ten o'clock at night, 1775. 
 Mon ami, how good you are, how amiable you are for 
 wishing to compensate me for what I lost this morning. If 
 you also knew how I waited for you, how I removed and 
 sent away all that could trouble my pleasure, how each car- 
 riage that passed gave me hope, and then how it hurt my
 
 200 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 soul ! Mon Dieu ! how 1 love you ! liow guilty I feel for 
 having wounded you ! No, mon ami, do not forgive me ; 
 punish me; add, if possible, to my pain, my regret. Ex- 
 treme unhappiness puts us beside ourselves. Yes, it dis- 
 orders the mind, leads it astray, makes us ill — it was all 
 that that led me to offend you. For the last three days I 
 have felt this misfortune only, and I think 1 should have 
 died of it if you had not come to my assistance. Ah ! mon 
 ami, you uttered words which still make me shudder, which 
 wring my heart : I " turned you to ice " — you had to 
 " struggle with yourself to see me." Oh, heaven ! why am I 
 not dead before I hear such words ? Tell me not that I am 
 doomed to some day hate you, Mon ami, I appeal from that 
 judgment ; I make oath by you whom I love, by all that is 
 most sacred to me, not to survive one hour that horrible emo- 
 tion. I hate you ! — see the passion, the tenderness that 
 inspire my heart. Ah ! if I were fated to love you no 
 longer, on that day, O God ! how sweet it would be to die ! 
 Heaven is my witness that I hold to life by you alone ; and 
 all that friends so prodigally give me of care, of kindness, 
 friendship, interest, would not have the power to keep me 
 till the morrow. 
 
 Mon ami, M. de Mora is ever by my side, and T see you 
 ever. If my soul should lose from sight that succour, that 
 support, I could not exist one hour. Ah ! read my heart to 
 its depths ; you will see there more than I can tell you, and 
 better. Can we ever express what we feel, what inspires us, 
 what makes us breathe, what is most necessary to us, yes, 
 more necessary than air ? for I have no need to live, but I 
 have need to love you. Ah ! mon ami, how far away from 
 me you are ! You said yesterday that I had " begun by 
 wounding you and ended by turning you to ice." I answer : 
 " You had wounded me ; " and I add : " You may despise me.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 201 
 
 you may hate me, but still I shall tind within me the pas- 
 sion with which to love you." Yes, mon ami, I repeat it : 
 death is in my thoughts a score of times a day, and my soul 
 cannot conceive the idea of loving you less. Ah ' know me 
 wholly ; see within my soul the passion that consumes me 
 and that I dare not make you see. It is not my remorse, of 
 which I speak to you sometimes ; it is not my sori'ow, which 
 I wail to you so often ; mon ami, it is an ill which impairs 
 my reason and my health, — an ill which renders me unjust, 
 distrustful, which makes me utter things of which I have a 
 horror. How could I have been so beside myself as to tell 
 you that I had a bad opinion of you ? Is that in nature ? 
 could that thought have been within my heart ? Do we adore, 
 do we pay worship to that which does not seem to us a god ? 
 Mon ami, my brain and soul must have been overwi-ought to 
 a very high, a very rare degree, to be as guilty as I have 
 been. Mon Dieu ! I was loved as I love you, and by the 
 most perfect of human bemgs ; and now you have the force 
 to say to me that I have never loved you, that my sentiment 
 is hatred ! Yes, it is true, I hated — but it was myself, and 
 for the irresistible emotion that carried me away. Mon ami, 
 consider the matter well, and although you have been 
 much loved no doubt, you will find that no person ever loved 
 you with greater strength, more tenderness, more passion, 
 than I. 
 
 Midnight, February 6, 1775. 
 
 Well ! did I not tell you so, mon ami ? I have not seen 
 you and I shall not see you. Ah ! how sad it is to foresee cor- 
 rectly, and how son-owful to show regrets to tb(jse who do not 
 share them ' I know not why I felt so keenly that you would 
 fail me. No one but " Iphigenia " [Gluck's opera] had more 
 company this afternoon than there was in my room ; I am 
 crushed with fatigue. First, I had begun by going to spend
 
 202 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 an hour with M. Turgot ; then another hour with Mme. de 
 Chatillon ; that made many stairs to mount, and I was tired 
 out on getting home. I had promised to spend the evening 
 at Saint-Joseph's [the ■Duchesse de Chatillon lived at the 
 same convent as Mme. du DeffandJ, but I had not the strength 
 for it. I will go to-morrow, if my visit to the Marais leaves 
 me any courage. 
 
 Before dinner, I am going to see the automatons, which 
 are amazing, so they say ! ^ When I went into society I did 
 not have such curiosity ; two or three assemblies there give 
 satiety ; but these of the rue de Cldry are better worth going 
 to ; they act and do not talk. Go and see them on your way 
 to the Marais, where I will tell you when I can have the 
 Due d'Aumont's opera-box. I am to have it either to- 
 morrow or Tuesday ; I should prefer to-morrow because we 
 shall have M. Eoucher on Tuesday. But, mon ami, in some 
 way or other I must see you to-morrow, and for long. Mme. 
 de Chatillon does not think you guilty of negligence ; she 
 asked me to-day if your retreat would last much longer. 
 You can easily believe that I told her it was quite ab- 
 solute, that you had seen no one — = for what women like 
 is to be preferred. Few persons need to be loved, and 
 that is fortunate. They dare to say they love, and they 
 are calm and dissipated ! that, assuredly, is fine knowledge 
 of sentiment and passion ! Poor people ! we must praise 
 them as we do the Liliputians; they are very pretty, very 
 dainty, very nice. Adieu, mon ami. The confidence you 
 showed me last night in relation to your mother's letter 
 was very charming. 
 
 1 The automatons were made by Jacques Droz, a young man of twenty, 
 a native of Neuf chatel, Switzerland ; one figure was that of a boy seated at 
 a table, writing; he dipped his pen in the ink and wrote whatever the spec- 
 tators dictated to him. Marie Antoinette went to see them the same week 
 as Mile, de Lespinasse. — Fr. Ed,
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 203 
 
 Midnight, February 10, 1775. 
 Midnight strikes : mon ami, I have just been struck by a 
 remembrance which freezes my blood. It was on the 10th of 
 February of last year that I was intoxicated with a poison, 
 the effects of which still last. Even at this moment it alters 
 the circulation of my blood ; it sets my heart to beating with 
 greater violence ; it recalls to it its heart-breaking regrets. 
 Alas ! by what fatality must the sentiment of the keenest, 
 sweetest pleasure be allied to a misfortune so crushing ? ^ 
 What a dreadful conjunction ! How shall I tell it, recalling 
 that moment of horror and pleasure ? 1 saw approaching me 
 a young man whose eyes were filled with interest and sensi- 
 bility ; his face expressed sweetness and tenderness ; his soul 
 seemed agitated by passion. At the sight, I felt possessed by 
 a sort of terror, mingled with pleasure ; I dared to raise my 
 eyes and fix them on him ; I approached him ; my senses and 
 my soul froze. I saw him preceded, environed, as it were, by 
 Sorrow in a mourning garment ; she stretched out her arms ; 
 she tried to repulse me, to stop me ; I felt myself drawn on- 
 ward by a fatal attraction. In my trouble I said : " Who art 
 thou ? thou who fillest my soul with so much cliarm and 
 terror, such sweetness and such alarm, what tidings do you 
 bring me ? " — " Unhappy one," she said, with a sombre air 
 and a mournful accent, " I am, and I will make thy fate ; he 
 who inspired your life has just been struck by death." Yes, 
 ni07i ami, I heard those fatal words ; they are giaven on my 
 heart ; it quivers still, and it loves you ! 
 
 In mercy, let me see you to-morrow ; I am filled with sad- 
 ness and trouble. Ah ! mon Dieu ! it is a year to-day, at just 
 this hour, that M. de Mora was struck down by that mortal 
 ' blow ; and I, at the same moment, two hundred leagues apart 
 
 1 Reference to the hemorrhage which attacked M. de Mora on that 
 day. - - Tr.
 
 204 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 from him, was more cruel, more culpable than the ignorant 
 barbarians who killed him. I die of regret ; my eyes and my 
 heart are full of tears. Adieu, mon ami, I ought never to have 
 loved you. 
 
 Six o'clock in the morning, 1774; 
 
 Do you remember your last words ? do you remember the 
 condition into which you put me, and in N\'hich you believed 
 you left me ? Well, 1 wish to tell you that, returning quickly 
 to myself, I 7-ose again, and I saw myself, not one hair's- 
 breadth lower than before when I stood erect, at my full 
 height. And what will astonish you, perhaps, is that of all 
 the impulses that have drawn me to you, the last is the only 
 one for which I have no remorse. Do you know why ? 
 Because there is an excess in passion which justifies the soul 
 that has equally a horror of what is vile and unworthy. In 
 that abandonment, that last degiee of abnegation of myself 
 and of all personal interests, I proved to you that there is but 
 one misfortune on earth that seems to me unbearable — to 
 offend you and lose you. That fear would make me give my 
 life : why, then, should I regret to have proved and uttered 
 forcibly a feeling which has made me, for a year past, live 
 and die ? No, mon ami, in spite of your words, I do not feel 
 humiliated ; and that is because I think you honourable and 
 myself not culpable. Do not suppose that I make to myself a 
 false conscience, or that I seek to justify myself ; no, mon 
 ami ; the sentiment that inspires me disdains pride and in- 
 sincerity ; but if you blame me, I hold myself condemned 
 forever ; your esteem is dearer to me than my own. 
 
 I am so sure of your honour, I know so well your kind- 
 ness, that I am sure before you slept you promised yourself 
 to see me to-day. I thank you for that intention ; but I 
 ask you not to see me ; show delicacy and pity in this. I 
 need to keep my soul in repose ; you lead it to excesses it
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 205 
 
 has never yet known, and to which my thought alone could 
 not attain. Ah! mon Dieu ! how much' a great happiness 
 is to be dreaded ! it has no limit and no measure. Ah ! I 
 need repose; leave me to calm myself. I shall take two 
 grains of opium ; by numbing my blood my thoughts will 
 be dulled, my soul will sink, and perhaps I shall forget 
 that you have not replied to my heart, that you did not say 
 one word to comfort and reassure me thi"oughout the whole 
 of last evening. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami ; do not come : and after this request, be 
 not annoyed that my door is closed ; it will be so to every 
 one. I am so feeble that the effect of opium will numb 
 all my faculties — but it suspends my woe ; it takes away 
 from me that portion of my being which feels and suffers. 
 Adieu ! I part myself from you for twenty-four hours. If, 
 by a misfortune I do not wish to think of, last evening had — 
 no, I dare not continue. 
 
 Mon ami, I see a means of repairing all; I will punish 
 myself : I know how to suffer, and I will condemn myself 
 to never say to you again what I now pronounce with ten- 
 derness and passion : / love you. 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1775. 
 
 Judge of my trouble : I feel a mortal repugnance to open- 
 ing your letter; if I did not fear to offend you I should 
 send it back. Something tells me it will irritate my sorrow, 
 and I wish to spare myself. The continued suffering of my 
 body depresses my soul ; I still have fever, and I have not 
 closed my eyes ; I can no more. In mercy — for pity's sake, 
 torture no longer a life that is almost extinct ; every instant 
 of which is given over to sorrow and regret. I do not blame 
 you ; I exact nothing ; you owe me nothing ; for, in truth, 
 I have not had an impulse, not a sentiment, to which I have 
 consented ; and when I did have the misfortune to yield to
 
 206 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 them, I have always detested the strength, or the weakness, 
 that dragged me on. You see that you owe me no gratitude, 
 and that I have no right to reproach you. Be free, therefore ; 
 return to what you like, to what may suit you better than you 
 think, perhaps. Leave me to my sorrow ; leave me to occupy 
 my heart, free from distraction, with the sole object that I 
 adore, whose memory is dearer to me than all that remains 
 on earth. Mo7i Dieu ! I ought not to weep for him, I ought 
 to follow him : it is you who oblige me to live, you who 
 cause the torture of a being whom sorrow consumes while 
 she employs her last remaining strength in imploring death. 
 
 Ah ! you do too much, and not enough for me. As I told 
 you last week, you make me exacting, difficult to satisfy ; 
 giving all, one needs to obtain something. But, I say it 
 again, I pardon you, I do not hate you ; and it is not from 
 generosity that I pardon you, it is not from kindness that I 
 do not hate you ; it is because my soul is weary, it faints 
 with fatigue. Ah ! 'inon ami, leave me ; never tell me again 
 that you love me ; that balm has become a poison ; you 
 soothe and tear open my wound at the same instant. Oh ! 
 how you hurt me ! how heavy is life upon me ! — and yet 
 how I love you, and how grieved I should be did I fill your 
 heart with sadness. Mon ami, your soul is too divided, too 
 scattered, for true pleasure ever to enter it. 
 
 You wish that I should see you to-night ? then come. The 
 kind Condorcet has stayed with me, for I was almost dead. 
 I have detained your messenger because Tenon [surgeon] 
 came and interrupted me ; he found that I still have fever. 
 
 February 28, eleven o'clock, 1775. 
 
 When one treasures kindness, above all when we love, 
 we ought not to be hard to satisfy, nor yet unjust. Therefore, 
 mon ami, I do not blame you, I do not complain. Ah ! no,
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 207 
 
 you do no wrong ; the neglect in which you left me to-day 
 was surely involuntary ; you will have blamed yourself for 
 it, and perhaps you have had the kindness to say in your 
 heart, " She sufiers, and it is I who have caused her suffer- 
 ing." Moil ami, if your heart felt those words you are too 
 much punished and I am too well avenged. But shall I not 
 be happier to-morrow ? shall I not dine with you ? shall I 
 not see you ? I expect to go out to see M. Turgot Thursday ; 
 I have proposed to M. de Vaines to drive me to Versailles, 
 and you too, if that will suit you. If this arrangement is 
 not carried out. Baron Sickingen, the envoy of the Elector 
 Palatine, has proposed to take me. M. de Condorcet and 
 M. d'Alembert go to Versailles to-morrow ; the latter is to 
 read to M. Turgot the Eulogies. M. Eoucher repeated to 
 him to-day his poem. There are two good days for him ; he 
 can talk little and have some pleasure. 
 
 Mon ami, if you will not think me puffed up with pride, 
 like the frog, I will tell you that M. Turgot has begged me 
 to bring him* my prccieuse rhapsodies, and I have sent him 
 word that on Thursday such good fortune shall not fail him. 
 I have had news from him hourly ; the Comte de Schomberg 
 has written to me three times, always reassuringly, while 
 telling me the truth. 
 
 I dined to-day tete a tete with a person who is imhappy, 
 consequently, there was interest. Afterwards, at three o'clock, 
 I went to take a turn in the Tuileries. Oh ! how beautiful 
 the gardens were ! how divine the weather ! the air I breathed 
 served to calm me ; I loved, I regretted, I desired, but all those 
 feelings bore the imprint of sweetness and melancholy. Oh ! 
 m,on ami, that way of feeling has greater charm than the ardour 
 and throes of passion — yes, I think I am revolted by them; 
 I will no longer \o\e forcibly ; I will love gently — but never 
 feebly ; you can well believe that, since it is you I love.
 
 208 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 I returned home at half-jjast fdur and was alone till six. 
 Do you know how I filled the time while I sat there waiting ? 
 in re-reading your letters since the 1st of January ; I put 
 them in order ; thus, though not seeing you, I was vividly, 
 tenderly occupied by you. After that came six or seven 
 persons who devoted the rest of their Mardi-gras to me. 
 They were tired of amusing themselves and wanted the 
 pleasure of conversation, freedom, and repose, and we enjoyed 
 them all — for I was still sustained by the hope of seeing 
 you ; I hojjed. Ah ! when I lieard the clock strike nine I 
 turned to stone, and my silence warned every one to leave 
 me at half-past nine — 
 
 But I am mad, or rather imbecile, to fatigue you with a 
 day in which you would not take an instant's part. Adieu, 
 mon ami ; let me know what you wish to do and can do on 
 Thursday. I think you too much a man of society to miss 
 the ball to-night ; as for me I prefer to breathe the soft, pure 
 air of the Tuileries, at an hour when I can be almost alone 
 there. That is because my soul can furnish me with more 
 than all your wit and all your talent can furnish you. 
 Adieu. 
 
 Eleven at night, 1775. 
 
 Mon ami, the harm dates farther back. Do you remember 
 your words, " Oh ! it is not Mme. de . . . whom you have to 
 fear, but — " and the tone with which you said it, and the 
 silence that followed, the reticence, the resistance ? What 
 more was needed to put trouble and pain into an agitated 
 soul ? Join to that your desire to leave me, — and for whom 
 were you so hurried ? Could I calm myself ? I loved you, 
 I suffered ; I blame my own folly. I went to your door 
 this morning with sadness in my soul ; I saw you, and pleas- 
 ure was mingled with the melancholy that filled me. I saw 
 the eagerness with which you endeavom-ed to confute me,
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 209 
 
 and I believed all that you suppose I did. I had heard 
 you named. . . . 
 
 Well, riion ami, I ask your pardon for suspecting you 
 unjustly; distrust is attached to unhappiness. How many 
 times might I not have complained ! how many times have 
 I hidden my tears from you ! Ah ! I see it too plainly ! we 
 cannot retain or recover a heart led away by a new penchant. 
 I tell this to myself ceaselessly ; sometimes I think myself 
 cured; then you appear before me, and all is destroyed. 
 Reflection, resolutions, misery, all lose their force at your 
 first word. I see no haven but death, and never did any 
 unhappy being invoke it with more fervour. 
 
 All ! mon ami, my misfortune is that you have no need to 
 be loved as I love. One half of my soul I retain ; its warmth, 
 its emotion woidd importune you, extinguish you ; the fire 
 that does not warm is not wanted. Ah ! if you could know, 
 if you could read how I once made a strong, impassioned 
 soul enjoy the pleasure of being loved ! He compared it 
 with what had loved him and loved him still ; and he said 
 to me constantly, " They are not worthy to be your scholars ; 
 your soul is warmed by the sun of Lima, and my compatriots 
 seem born beneath the snows of Lapland." And it was from 
 Madrid that he wrote me that! 3fon ami, he was not prais- 
 ing me ; he was enjoying ; and I do not feel that I am 
 praising myself when I tell you that in loving you to mad- 
 ness I am giving you only that which I cannot keep or 
 withhold. 
 
 I have just been interrupted by a letter from M. de Vaines. 
 It makes me unea«y. He tells me that M. d'Alembert must 
 be with him before eight o'clock, and that he must bring his 
 Eulogy on the Abb^ de Saint-Pierre ; adding, " This is impor- 
 tant." I am terribly afraid they will trouble the peace of 
 my friend. Ah ! how that would grieve me ; I would gladly 
 
 u
 
 210 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 add to ray sorrows tliose he may have to bear. Hatred and 
 bigots are always on the watch. I feel au extreme impa- 
 tience for to-morrow, and I know that I shall not close an 
 eye ; the more I abandon my own happiness, the dearer to 
 me is that of my friends. I cannot express my affection for 
 M. de Condorcet and M. d'Alembert except by saying they 
 are identified with me ; they are as necessary to me as the 
 air I breathe ; they never trouble my soul, but they fill it. 
 In short, I would it were to-morrow morning. 
 
 But if this need, this desire, had another principle, if it 
 were not friendship which — Ah ! I should be an unworthy 
 creature, and I should hate the very sentiment of passion. 
 No, I could not hate it, it has lifted me this evening out of 
 what I suffer ; I have listened once more to the " Month of 
 September" [poem by Eoucher]. How fine that is! how 
 grand it is ' how sublime ! But, mon ami, you were lacking 
 to my pleasure ; your presence renders it more keen, stronger, 
 more profound. Ah ! at all times, in all situations, my soul 
 has need of you. 
 
 I did not get home till half-past seven o'clock ; I found my 
 friends awaiting me, among them M. Eoucher, who did not go 
 to Versailles. I wish to-morrow morning were here. I shall 
 be at home to-morrow, for Mme. de Chatillon keeps her 
 room, and she wants me to pass the evening with her. 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! my evenings are given to M. de Mora 
 or to you ; it is the part of the day that is dearest to me. 
 If I did not fear some mistake I would send this letter 
 by M. de Yaines' lacquey. Good-night. 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night, 1775. 
 
 Mon ami, you do not feel the need of seeing me ; perhaps 
 I have even been importimate in your thoughts. You have 
 tried to repress a memory wliich came to trouble your pleas-
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPlNASSE. 211 
 
 tire. Ah ! how I pity you for not being one thing wholly, 
 either to that which pleases you, or to that which loves you ! 
 This division takes away all the charm and delight of senti- 
 ment, and ought to distress an honourable soul. I do not 
 blame you, I do not complain, but I grieve at my own 
 weakness. No, my self-love does not give me strength 
 against you : / love you \ all personal interest is hushed by 
 those words. But it is you, your welfare that insphes me 
 with courage and generosity. Yes, mon ami, I can yield 
 you to what you love ; but by this sacrifice I ought to obtain 
 from you a pledge that you will no longer seek to feed in my 
 soul a sentiment which must make its despair. 
 
 Mon ami, I know it, you are no longer free to love 
 me. Give peace to your soul, do not pass your life in 
 reproaching yourself for what you have done ; cease to 
 make what you love uneasy, and offend no longer her 
 who loves you, who forestalls your tastes, your desires, 
 your will, and makes the sacrifice of you to yourself. 
 How could I suppose that it would not cost you much to 
 deceive me ? Ah ! if you have not force enough to make 
 my happiness, at least you are honourable enough to grieve 
 at having made my unhappiness. Mon ami, rely on a heart 
 that is all yours, that beats for you only. Struggle no 
 longer; abandon yourself to your penchant; the consol- 
 ing thought will remain to me that I have done some- 
 thing for your happiness, and that despite the unnatural 
 position in which you place me, I have done nothing to 
 trouble it. Ah ! deliver me, both from the harm I have 
 done you and that which you do to me. Mon ami, be 
 sincere, I conjure you. Say to yourself that nothing will 
 be to me impossible ; listen to the cry of your soul, and 
 you will cease to rend mine. Yes, I can do without be- 
 ing loved, but it is awful, it is awful to me to doubt you,
 
 212 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 to suspect you. Esteem me enough not to deceive me ; 
 I make oath by all that is dearest to me, by you, never 
 to make you repent for having told me the truth. I shall 
 love you for the trouble and pain you will have spared me, 
 and never shall you hear a reproach. In losing you, I do 
 not wish to keep the right of complaining, nor even that of 
 touching your feelings. 
 
 Mon ami, I know you have been charmed with the Opera. 
 Mme. d'H^ricourt and the Comte de Creutz came to tell me 
 all about it ; I did not listen to them because it is from you 
 that I want to hear the tale. Besides which, the Abb^ de 
 B . . . had just troubled me in speaking of you ; he declared 
 that he had been told I was madly attached to you ; that 
 was his expression, and he added : " No, I am not malicious ; 
 this is not a trap nor a vengeance." I was confounded ; but, 
 fortunately, at that moment the Archbishop of Toulouse w^as 
 aiuiounced. What think you of that ? I do not know 
 whether I seek to reassure myself, but I think it is merely 
 a jest of the Abbd de B . . . , to which I myself had given 
 rise, as I will tell you some day. 
 
 I saw M. Turgot, who said he blamed himself for not 
 having replied to you ; he was much flattered by your letter. 
 He had received a charming one from Voltaire, which said, 
 " You will be overwhelmed with sincere congratulations, etc." 
 I have asked the Duchesse de Luxembourg on what day Mme. 
 de Bouftlers would return ; she said on Monday. I dare not 
 flatter myself that I can dine anywhere with you to-morrow ; 
 but I cannot help wishing to do so, though the wish may be 
 against your pleasure. If you have been to see the Comte 
 de Broglie, mon ami, it is too bad of you not to give me a 
 moment. You are the cause of my not listening with atten- 
 tion to the Archbishop of Aix ; I was awaiting you, — how, 
 then, could I attend to him ?
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 213 
 
 I think the Abbe de B . . . was right in what he said, but 
 wrong in saying it to me. I have seen twenty persons to-day, 
 and not one of them was able to distract me from the need I 
 have of seeing you. Wliat have you done ? where have you 
 supped ? have you remembered that I love you ? can I say as 
 in the opera, "The heart is for Pyrrhus, for Orestes the 
 prayers " ? Adieu ; all I ask is truth ; remember that you 
 owe it to me, without subterfuge, without modification, — 
 such, in short, as it is in your soul. 
 
 Saturday, eleven o'clock, 1775. 
 
 I did not expect this ; in the depths of my soul I had the 
 painful impression of those cruel words, " We cannot love 
 each other ; " and I responded to them, with all the strength 
 that remained to me, " I can no longer live." Mo7i ami, all 
 that I feel, all that I suffer is inexpressible ; it seems to me 
 impossible not to succumb ; I feel the exhaustion of my bod- 
 ily machine, and it seems to me I need only let myself go to 
 die. Nevertheless, I am better to-night ; I have been three 
 hours in my bath and came out of it almost extinct, with a 
 steady pain in the chest which has not yet left me. M. 
 d'Anlezy and Baron de Kock have just gone away to let me 
 answer my letter, they know not to whom. Good-night ; 
 your care, your uneasiness convince me that, in spite of 
 your words, we can love each other. Till to-morrow ; 
 already I am awaiting you. 
 
 Tuesday, eleven at night, 1775. 
 
 I have refused to spend the evening with two persons 
 who love each other, that I may talk with him I love and 
 pass the time with more peace and pleasure than I could 
 find in society. Others have not the power to distract my 
 mind completely; and it does me harm to have it turned 
 away from that which pleases me and interests me. Mori
 
 214 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 ami, solitude has great charm for a mind preoccupied. Ah ! 
 how intensely we live when we are dead to all except the 
 one object which is the universe of our soul, which grasps 
 our faculties so vitally that we cannot live in other moments 
 than the one we are in ! Ah ! how can you ask me to tell 
 you if I shall love you " three months hence " ? How could 
 I, with my thoughts, divide myself from my feelings ? You 
 wish that when I see you, when your presence charms my 
 senses and my soul, I should render you an account of the 
 effect I shall receive from your marriage ! Mon ami, I know 
 nothing about it — nothing at all. If it cures me, I will 
 tell you so, and you will be just enough not to blame me. 
 If, on the contrary, it brings despair into my heart, I shall 
 not complain, and I shall not suffer long. You will have 
 feeling and delicacy enough to approve a course which will 
 cost you mere passing regrets, and from which j^our new 
 situation will soon distract you ; and I assure you that that 
 thought is a consoling one for me ; I feel more at liberty. 
 
 Do not, therefore, ask me again what I shall do when you 
 have bound your life to that of another. If I had vanity 
 and self-love only I might be better enlightened as to what 
 I should then experience. The calculations of self-love are 
 never mistaken ; they can foresee clearly ; but passion has 
 no future ; thus, in saying to you now, " I love you," I say 
 all that I know, all that I feel. I attach no value to that 
 constancy commanded by reason — but of tener by those petty 
 interests of society and vanity which I despise with all my 
 soul. Nor do I respect that dull courage which allows us to 
 suffer when we might prevent it, and spends its reason and 
 its power in converting an ardent sentiment into a cold 
 habit. All this manoeuvring with one's self, all this be- 
 haviour with those we love seem to me an exercise of false- 
 ness and dissimulation, the resource of vanity and the
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 215 
 
 requirement of weakness. Mon ami, you will find nothing 
 of all that in me ; and this is not the result of reflection ; it 
 is the habit of my life, my character, my manner of being 
 and feeling ; in a word, it is my whole existence which ren- 
 ders society and constraint impossible to me. 
 
 I feel that if you had to create a disposition in me, it 
 would not be the result of all this which would compose it ; 
 you would form me a character more analogous to the 
 course you are going to take ; it is not inflexibility and 
 strength that are wanted in victims, but weakness and sub- 
 mission. Oh ! mon ami, I am capable of all things, except 
 bending ; I should have the strength of martyrs to satisfy 
 ,my passion or that of him who loved me ; but I find nothing 
 in my soul that assures me of the power to ever make the 
 sacrifice of my feeling. Life is nothing in comparison ; and 
 you will see whether this is the talk of an excited head. 
 Yes, perhaps these are the thoughts of an impassioned soul, 
 but to such belong strong actions. Is it to reason, which is 
 so cautious, so weak in its views and even so powerless in 
 means, that such thoughts can belong ? Mon ami, I am not 
 reasonable, and it is perhaps because I am impassioned that 
 all my life I have consented to the opinion and judgment of 
 indifferent persons. How many eulogies I have usurped on 
 my moderation, my nobility of soul, my disinterestedness, on 
 -the so-called sacrifices that I made to a dear and honoured 
 memory and to the family of d'Albon ! That is how the 
 world judges, how it sees. Ah ! good God ! fools that you 
 are, I do not merit your praises ; my soul was not made for 
 the petty interests that occupy yours : given wholly up to 
 the happiness of loving and being loved, I needed nothing, 
 neither strength nor honour, to enable me to bear poverty, 
 and to disdain the deprivations of vanity. I have enjoyed 
 60 much, I have so felt the full value of life that were it to
 
 216 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 begin again I should wish it might be under the same con- 
 ditions. To love and to suffer — heaven and hell — to that 
 I would vow myself; that is what I desire to feel; that is 
 the climate I wish to inhabit, and not the temperate zone in 
 which live all tlie fools and all the automatons by whom we 
 are surrounded. 
 
 Mon ami, when I took this pen it was with the intention 
 of continuing to paint yoa, and behold ! with detestable self- 
 ness, I have changed my model, I have painted myself, 
 giving way, like a lunatic, to all that stirs me, — but it is 
 through you that I do this, through the tenderest and most 
 ardent feeling ; I have therefore done well to yield to it. I 
 do not know whether 1 shall send you this ]ong chatter or 
 give it to you — yes, 1 will give it to you. If I send it to 
 you I am afraid you will tell me that you will dine with M. 
 de Beauvau, and that would be bad. 
 
 Midnight, 1775. 
 
 Oh, what sweetness, what pleasures the soul intoxicated 
 with passion may enjoy ! Mon ami, I feel it, my life de- 
 pends on my soul's madness ; if I became calm, if I returned 
 to reason, I should not live twenty-four hoiu-s. Do you 
 know the first need of my soul, when it has been violently 
 agitated by pain or pleasure ? It is to write to M. de ]\Iora ; 
 I revive him, I recall him to life, my heart rests on his, my 
 soul pours itself into his soul ; the warmth, the rapidity 
 of my blood overcomes death, for I see him, he lives, he 
 breathes for me, he hears me, my brain is enraptured, it 
 wanders, to the point of having no need of illusions ; this is 
 truth, — yes, you yourself are not more tangible, not more 
 present than M. de Mora has just been to me for more 
 than an hour. divine being ! he has forgiven me, he 
 loves me ! 
 
 Mon ami, what I have just experienced is the result of the
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 217 
 
 shock my soul received this afternoon. Mon Dun! one 
 should cherish, adore a gift that seems to give one a new 
 existence. Oh ! no, I am not great enough, not strong enough 
 to boast of this gift of Heaven ; but there is in me enough 
 sensibility and passion to enjoy it with transport. Ah! 
 what happiness to love ! Love is the one principle of all 
 that is noble, all that is good and grand on earth. M. 
 Koucher ^ has loved ; it is passion that renders him sublime. 
 But my heart melts with sadness when I think that that 
 rare man, that wonder of nature, knows poverty and suffers 
 from it for himself and others. Ah ! such excess of poverty 
 blights love ; it needs a miracle to preserve the force and 
 energ)' that he puts into his poems ; his soul is of fire, and 
 in no direction does he seem to be depressed by misfortime. 
 I know not if it is weakness, but I have just melted into 
 tears at feeling myself powerless to succour that man. Ah ! 
 if my blood could be changed to gold, his wife and he would 
 know comfort this night. Why should I not stir the soul of 
 Comte de C . . . ? AVhat an employment that would be of 
 his wealth ! Ah ! if M. de Mora were living, with what 
 pleasure, what eagerness he would satisfy my heart. Yes, it 
 is with tears of blood that one must mourn such a friend ; 
 in adoring him we pay homage to virtue. 
 
 But adieu, mon ami. You cannot be on the tone of my 
 soul; you judge, and I feel. You have just been amused 
 and enervated by pleasure ; I have just been intoxicated by 
 passion ; my powers are exhausted, and I do not know where 
 I found strength to scribble at such length. Adieu. 
 
 If you have not changed your mind, I will call for you at 
 M. d'Argental's at five o'clock to-morrow ; but, above all, 
 
 ^ Jean-Antoine Roucher, married for love, was guillotined in 1794 ; he 
 wrote some touching verses to his wife just before going to the scaffold. 
 — Eb. Ed.
 
 218 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 mon ami, no forced compliance, no sacrifices ; I do not merit 
 
 them, as you very well know. 
 
 Ten o'clock, 1775> 
 
 You have fever ! it grieves me. — 1 have just been told that 
 some one has seen you at a miniature-painter's and that the 
 likeness is striking. That young girl is worthy of the sacri- 
 fice you have made to her of the time required for a minia- 
 ture ; but your life will be hers ; it is generous to give it thus 
 in advance. I thought her charming, and well worthy of 
 the interest she inspires in you.^ The maimer, the appear- 
 ance, and the tone of her mother are equally pleasing and 
 interesting. Yes, you will be happy : I thank you for the 
 opportunity which enabled me to meet them. Good-night. 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1775. . 
 Mon ami, what have you done to me ? I feel so pro- 
 foundly sad, so unhappy, that this crisis of pain and discom- 
 fort must come from you. The fear that you cause me, the 
 distrust you inspire in me, are two tortures that keep my 
 soul forever on the rack ; and that sort of torture should suf- 
 fice to make me renounce your affection, or, at least, that 
 which resembles it. I do not know what dreadful pleasure 
 you can take in putting trouble into my soul ; never do you 
 seek to reassure me ; and even in speaking the truth you do 
 it in the tone of one who deceives. Ah ! mon Dieu ! how 
 my soul aches ! How passionately I desire to be delivered, 
 no matter by what means, from the position in which I am ! 
 I expect, I desire, your marriage ; I am like a patient doomed 
 to an operation ; he sees his cure and forgets the violent 
 means which will procure it. Mon ami, deliver me from the 
 misfortune of ha\dng loved you. It so often seems to me 
 
 1 Mile, de Courcelles. Mile, de Lespinasse thought it a mariar/e de 
 convenance, but discovered later that M. de Guibert had been in love with 
 her for the past year. — Tr.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 219 
 
 that there is almost nothing to do to accomplish this that I 
 feel a sort of shame for having ever staked the whole of 
 life upon you ; but oftener still I feel m}self so chaiaed, so 
 garotted on all sides, that I have no longer any liberty of 
 motion. It is then that death appears to me the only re- 
 source, the only succour, that I have against you. 
 
 I meant only to tell you not to come and see me to-day, 
 which I think was your intention. I am going to " Orpheus," 
 and I spend the evening with Mme. de Boufflers ; in the 
 interval between the opera and supper I go to see Mme. de 
 Chatillon, who is still ill. You would not dine in company 
 with me to-morrow ; you think that two dinners in one week 
 is too much ; Wednesday you will tell me the same thing. 
 Very well ' do what pleases you, and I shall do my best to be 
 pleased also. Adieu. 
 
 [After receiving your letter.'] 
 
 With what poison you revive my life ! Is it a benefit 
 to feel pleasine and happiness for one instant when no time 
 is left to me to enjoy it ? Ah ! you are very cruel ; you 
 hold me to life knowing that soon I ought no longer to live 
 for you. But, mon ami, I must not reproach you. You 
 overwhelm me with praises and I deserve none ; no ! I must 
 not be praised; I should be pitied for being inspired by a 
 sentiment which could give expression to stones. How 
 speak coldly to that we love ? How not deshe his happiness 
 and fame, in preference to all that is only self ? Mon ami, 
 you hurt me when you praise me ; do you think you com- 
 fort my soul when you flatter my vanity ? Mon Dieu ! do 
 you not know that there is neither amends nor compensation 
 in the whole universe for what I desire and fear ? Oh ! yes, 
 you know it ; for you see to the bottom of my soul ; you 
 know what fills it, what inspires it, and what renders it des-
 
 220 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 perate. Good-bye, mon ami ; your letter is very amiable and 
 will help me live through this long day. 
 
 Thursday, 1775. 
 Ah ! mon Dieu ! your note comes from heights ! Is that 
 the tone that your happiness will make you take ? In that 
 case I shall not venture to complain ; I merely wish you to 
 know that it is not in my power to endure protection or com- 
 passion ; my soul is not fashioned for such baseness ; your 
 pity would put a climax to my unhappiness ; spare me the 
 expression of it. Convince yourself that you owe me nothing, 
 and that I exist for you no longer. It is not an effort that I 
 ask of you, as you know ; it is simply to retain with me the 
 habits you now have taken, and to have none of these re- 
 turns to commiseration which blightr and abase one who is 
 the object of it. How are you ? Are you going to Versailles ? 
 Your Eulogy is in the hands of a learned man. 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night, 1775. 
 
 Yes, my friend, I have pardoned you, but as it is not from 
 generosity, I am punished. Is it just that I should be pun- 
 ished by you ? 
 
 Tell me news of yourself ; have you taken the milk ? have 
 you bathed ? in short, are you doing what you said you 
 should do ? Do you know that you have within yourself the 
 means of curing yourself, and infallibly ? This truth is begin- 
 ning to be proved to my mind in a maimer that sometimes 
 frightens me. Yes, death was nothing, but you have made 
 it terrifying to me. I turn my thoughts from a memory that 
 freezes my blood and detaches me from you. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! I did not see you ; I was expecting you, the 
 feeling was so sweet, when Prince Pignatelli arrived. His 
 presence kills me ; the sound of his voice makes me shudder 
 from head to foot, it imbues me alternately with sensibility
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 221 
 
 and horror; in short, he agitated my soul to the point of 
 making me forget I could have seen you. He did not leave 
 me till ten o'clock, and since then I have been in a state of 
 depression from which you alone could draw me. 
 
 Mon ami, have you received an answer to the charming 
 letter you wrote yesterday morning ? No matter what you 
 say, you like better to please than to be loved. I have ex- 
 perience of this ; you were so charming then ! it seemed to 
 me it would be sweet to you to be loved. Ah ! what mis- 
 takes ! and the regi-ets that follow them will sting me to the 
 last breath of my life. 
 
 I received a charming present yesterda}-, and the manner 
 in which it was given is so piquant and original that I want 
 to tell you about it : "I send you these C . . . of E. . . . 
 which please you so much ; keep them until they do not 
 please you at all ; I shall learn in that way how much time 
 it takes for that which has pleased you to displease you." If 
 that idea seems to you common, then I do not know what 
 wit and originality are. I feel myself too dull to answer it, 
 and yet I must thank him. Answer it for me ; and what 
 you make me say will give me precedence forever over Mme. 
 de S^vigne ; it will be the first time I have taken pleasure in 
 usurping good opinions and decking myself with peacock's 
 feathers. Mon ami, jesting apart, be witty for me. You 
 understand it is a man who makes me this present. I have 
 never written to him, therefore he can make no comparisons. 
 
 Good-night. You dine to-morrow with persons whom you 
 know little; you will be very agreeable; guess why. As for 
 me, I dine with the Duchesse de Chatillon ; I shall be half 
 dead, but that is ray fault. Mon ami, I want my dictionary 
 and the letter of Mme. d'Anville, and that of Mme. de 
 Boufiiers, and all mine ; and next, I want to see you. If you 
 wish to avoid that pernicious society, come between one and
 
 222 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 five. I saw this afternoon at least twenty persons. Judg- 
 ing them severely, 1 think they were about on a par with 
 those who filled your day. Mon ami, except on one point, 
 let us always be reasonable and moderate if that is possible. 
 M. d'Alembert has just had the gi-eatest success at the 
 Academy. He read his " Eulogy of Bossuet." The Due de 
 Duras made a discourse which was much applauded as ac- 
 curate, noble, simple, and delicate. I had a detachment here 
 from the Academy. I will send to you to-morrow at eight 
 o'clock. Sleep well, rest, calm yourself, and forget, if possi- 
 ble all those who suffer. 
 
 Midnight, May, 1775. 
 
 Let me know, or, if you have the strength, write me how 
 you passed the night ; I hope without fever. I have just 
 seen, in my books, that Eoman camomile does not poison ; it 
 is soothing, and they make use of it in colics ; tell me if it 
 relieved you. Marriage will do marvels for you ; the solici- 
 tude of your wife, and that of those about you, will force 
 you to take better care of your health. You enjoyed to-day 
 the comforts of a home ; it was well you could not leave 
 them for the Opera [refers to an heroic ballet by Marmon- 
 tel and Gretry]. The music had very pale colours ; my 
 friend, Grdtry, ought to keep to the gentle, pleasing, feeling, 
 lively style ; surely that is enough. When a man is well-made, 
 though short, it is dangerous and certainly ridiculous to 
 mount on stilts ; he falls on his nose and spectators laugh. 
 You will remark that this is not in contradiction, but. much 
 in confirmation of my liking for " Z^mire and Azor," "L'Ami 
 de la Maison," and " Fausse Magie." 
 
 I received to-day two letters which have convulsed me, 
 although they filled my soul. Imagine their dates : " Madrid, 
 May 3, 1774, getting into my carriage to go to you," and 
 the other : " Bordeaux, May 13, 1774, on arriving half dead ; "
 
 1775] MLLE. BE LESPINASSE. 22o 
 
 and I receive them one year after their dates ! It seems 
 amazing, and as if it were a warning. I answer " Yes," — 
 and I thank Heaven for letting me live to receive these 
 proofs of that which was the dearest, most sacred thing to 
 me in all this luii verse.. 
 
 You are keeping your room ; therefore it will be less trouble 
 to you to search and collect my letters. In mercy, do not 
 refuse me that moment of attention. Be assured I shall not 
 abuse your kindness. I expect to go out to-morrow at mid- 
 day and return at four o'clock. I do not allow myself to 
 wish to see you. AMiat I wish, in preference to my own 
 pleasure, is your happiness, your will, and even your fancy, 
 so docile am I. 
 \ Eleven at night, Maj- 15, 1775. 
 
 Eh! mon Dieu ! no, I did not go to the Academy; I 
 wanted to see you during the session, but you did not come ! 
 I saw our friends afterwards, intoxicated with pleasure ; but 
 I was sad and uneasy ; you were ill, or you did not care to 
 see me ; that was what I was feeling, so that I scarcely 
 heard what was said around me. M. d'Alembert will re- 
 coimt to you his success. He will tell you the keen delight 
 he had in making the Archbishop of Toulouse applaud him 
 with transport; the archbishop wept with joy and en- 
 thusiasm. I like such emotion ; and I am certain this has 
 been one of the happiest moments of M. d'Alembert's life. 
 I am very glad, but by thought only, for my soul suffers, and 
 joy can no longer enter there. Mon ami, you have put the 
 last seal of sorrow upon it. But it is not of myself that I 
 wish to speak. Tell me news of your night ; was it good ? 
 I hope it may have been good. At least, have you no fever ] 
 And would you like me to see you between one and five 
 o'clock ? But do not constrain vourself to this.
 
 224 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 One hour after midnight, 1775. 
 
 No, mon ami, I cannot go to sleep without making you 
 share the esteem, respect, and enthusiasm that pervade my 
 mind. Ah ! how fine it is, how virtu(jus, how noble ! What 
 enthusiasm I feel for Marcus Aurelius, what esteem for his 
 virtuous panegyrist. ^ The king absolutely must read it ; I 
 have already taken steps for that ; I hope my prayer may be 
 granted, and it is not for M. Thomas that I made it. That 
 excellent man needs nothing more than the enjoyment his 
 virtue brings him. You can believe that I have just written 
 him two words on his Eulogy. Mon ami, if my death were 
 fixed for to-morrow I should still feel the need of honouring, 
 of cherishing talents and virtue. Think me mad if you 
 will; this is the form of madness which inspired liim whom 
 I adored for eight years. Ah ! I feel with anguish what 
 Montaigne says : " It seems to me, when I enjoy alone, I rob 
 him of his share." 
 
 Midnight, May 20, 1775. 
 
 So the die is cast, the verdict given ' God grant it may 
 be as surely for your happiness as it is for my fate. Mon 
 ami, I cannot sustain my thought. You crush me ; I must 
 flee you to recover the calmness you have taken from me. 
 Adieu ; may you always be occupied enough and happy 
 enough to lose even the memory of my misfortune and my 
 tenderness. Ah ! do nothing more for me ; your civilities, 
 your kind actions only irritate my sorrow ; leave me to love 
 you and die. ^ 
 
 1 This " Eulogy on Marcus Aurelius," by Thomas, read before the 
 Academy in 1770, was suppressed and forbidden to be printed. In May, 
 1775, the injunction was raised. — Fr. Ed. 
 
 2 These letters refer to M. de Guibert's marriage. Here is how he 
 noted down in his diary his own feelings on this occasion: "June 1, 
 1775. My marriage day ; beginning of a new life ; involuntary shudder 
 during the ceremony ; it was my liberty, my whole life that I was pledg-
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 225 
 
 Tuesday, eleyen at night, May 21, 1775. 
 
 Ah ! mon Dietc ! follow your vexation, and go ! I need 
 repose, you trouble me, I feel remorse. Ah. ! why did I ever 
 know you ' I might have had but one soitow, or rather I 
 should have none. I should be delivered from a life I 
 detest, and to which I am held by a sentiment that tortures 
 my soul. Do you ask what have I done to-day ? what have 
 I thought ? what have I felt ? Alas 1 I did not see you ; I 
 have known only regret, soitow, the despair of fearing you 
 and of desiring you. Adieu ; do not see me ; my soul is con- 
 vulsed, and you can never calm it. You know neither the 
 tender interest that consoles and sustains, nor the kindness. 
 and truth which inspire confidence and restore peace to a 
 deeply wounded and attiicted soul. Ah ! }ou do me harm ; 
 what need I have never to see you more ! If you do right, 
 you will start to-morrow after dinner. I will see you in the 
 
 morning, and that is enough. 
 
 Saturday, July 1, 1775. 
 
 The trouble and agitation of my ideas and of my soul de- 
 prived me long of the use of my faculties. I have experi- 
 enced what Rousseau speaks of : there are situations which 
 have neither words nor tears. I passed eight days in the 
 convnilsions of despair ; I thought to die, I wished to die, it 
 seemed to me more easy than to cease to love you. I for- 
 bade myself complaints and reproaches ; I thought there 
 was degradation in speaking of my sorrow to him who 
 
 ing. Never did so many sentiments and reflections fatigue my soul. Oh, 
 what an abyss, what a labyrinth is the heart of man ! I am lost in all 
 the emotions of mine. But all things promise me haj)piness ; I marry a 
 young, pretty, gentle, sensitive woman, who loves me, whom I feel is made 
 to be loved, whom I love already." — "From June 1 to 8. Days passed 
 like a dream. It is a dream to me, this new state : love, friendship, can- 
 dour, amiability of my young wife. Her soul develops daily to me. I 
 love her ; I shall love her ; I firmly believe I shall be happy. I quit her 
 with regret." Voyages en France. Paris, 1806. — Fr. Ed. 
 
 15
 
 226 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 caused it voluntarily. Your pity would have humiliated me, 
 aud your indifference would have revcdted my soul ; in a 
 word, to preserve some decorum it was proper to keep 
 silence and await you. 
 
 Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought that, under these 
 circumstances, you owed me certain cares ; and, without 
 supposing you to have much tenderness or much interest 
 for me, 1 thought I ought to count on what decency and 
 my misfortune prescribed to you. I waited, therefore. At 
 the end of ten days' absence I received from the chateau de 
 Courcelles a note which is a masterpiece of hardness and 
 coldness. 1 was indignant, I felt a horror for you ; but soon 
 I felt it for myself when I considered that it was for you 
 (forgive me), yes, for you, whom I saw so cruel, that I had 
 been faithless to one who was worthy above all the world of 
 being loved. I abhorred myself ; life seemed to me no longer 
 endurable ; I was torn by hatred and remorse ; and in my 
 despair I fixed the day and moment when I would deliver 
 myself forever from the weight that was crushing me. I 
 gazed at death; it was the end of all my woes. 
 
 That terrible moment must surely still all passions, for 
 from that instant I gi-ew cold and calm. I pledged myself 
 to open no more of your letters ; to occupy my mind with 
 what I once had loved ; to employ my last days solely in 
 adoring him whom I had lost ; and then the thought of you 
 no longer pursued me. Nevertheless, if I chanced to have 
 a moment's sleep, I wakened with terror at the sound of 
 your horrible words : " Live, live ; I am not worth}* of the 
 evil I do you." — " No ! no ! " I cried, " you are not worthy 
 to be loved." But I, I must have loved distractedly to 
 become so faithless. You had the cinielty to bring me back 
 to life and bind me to you — perhaps to render death more 
 needful. Ah ! how cruel you now seem to me ! It would
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 227 
 
 have cost me then so little to leave jou and renounce 
 my life ! 
 
 " But why die ? " I said in my heart, at times turning back 
 upon myself, and feeling how lov^d and surrounded I am 
 by those who seek to make my comfort and my happiness. 
 " Why make a man whom I hate believe that I could not 
 live without lovmg him ? To die would not even avenge me." 
 I felt my soul fortifying itself as I went farther and fartlier 
 from you. 
 
 In that condition of mind I was when the package came 
 addressed to M. de Vaines. It recalled me to gentler emo- 
 tions ; I was obliged to open it as it contained your " Eulogy 
 on Catinat." I know not if it was weakness or delicacy, but 
 I told myself that, although I owe you nothing, I could 
 not refuse my care of an affair for which you had relied 
 upon me [the acceptance of his Eulogy by the Academy]. 
 I thought that my resentment ought not to make me fail 
 in an action imposed upon me by the confidence you had 
 placed in me. It was, therefore, on moral grounds that I 
 opened the package. I saw your open letter ; I read it ; it was 
 civil, but cold ; had it shown more feeling I might perhaps 
 have combated my resolution. It did better, it confirmed 
 me in it. I continued my efforts for your Eulogy; and I 
 enjoyed, with a sort of pleasure, the interest it excited in me. 
 It was not you, not my sentiment that I was gratifying ; it 
 was my pride. " I have strength enough," I said to myself, 
 " to oblige, to do a service to him I hate, who has done me 
 harm ; and by the way I do it I am certain that he cannot 
 feel obliged to me." That thought sustained my courage ; I 
 felt such strength against you that I re-read your letter, and 
 far from softening my soul it made it stronger as I noted 
 the little interest and regret you showed for me. 
 
 I judged your letter without passion ; it proved to me that
 
 228 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 I had taken the ouly reasonable course. I continued, there- 
 fore, to act for the success of your affair, and I have put such 
 activity into it that T might be thought inspired by the 
 keenest interest. Your note from Bordeaux reached me ; ^ I 
 thought that T ought not to fear its eflects ; on the contrary, 
 that it would give me fresh motives to keep apart from you. 
 I opened it hastily ; it was short, and though devoid of feel- 
 ing, it expressed a regret that was honourable. I was not 
 touched, but T was calmed by it. "If he is honourable, so 
 much the better," I said to myself ; " I shall l)e less humil- 
 iated. My soul does not need to hate him ; that feeling only 
 tortured it. Indifference will bring me peace, and in that 
 condition I may be able to enjoy the consolations that are 
 offered to me. I must yield myself up to the cares of friend- 
 ship ; I will respond to those I have lately rebuffed ; I must 
 please them, and that occupation will turn aside the thoughts 
 that have blasted and depressed my soul so long." 
 
 AVith these reflections 1 jjrescribed to myself a course of 
 conduct to which I have been mamly faithful so far^, and it 
 answers well. I lead a more dissipated life ; I give myself 
 up to whatever presents itself ; I am always surrounded by 
 persons who love me, who cling to me, not because I am 
 lovable, but because I am unhappy. They do me the honour 
 to think that I am crushed by the loss I have met with ; 
 they seem to take pleasure in the effort I am making to cure 
 myself ; they are grateful for my courage ; they laud me, 
 they take pleasure in me; they lift me, so to speak, from 
 my sorrow and never leave me a moment to myself. Yes, I 
 see it, the greatest good, the ouly good, is to be loved ; it is 
 the only balm for a torn heart. — But nothing, I feel it, 
 
 1 Eight days after his marriage M. de Guibert rejoined his regiment at 
 Libourne, whence he made various journeys about France and Switzer- 
 land. — Fr. Er>.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 229 
 
 nothing on earth can extinguish the sentiment which has 
 made my whole existence during so many years. 
 
 The need of delivering myself from the torture that you 
 have caused me will make me seek resources I have hitherto 
 rejected. I hope, I feel, that an enlightened and resolute 
 will has more power than I thought. A score of times 1 
 have had the impulse to separate from you, but I never was 
 sincere with myself. I desired not to sutler more, but I 
 never took the means to cure myself ; you have now supplied 
 me with a very powerful one, truly. Your marriage, in 
 making me know your soul, has repelled and closed mine to 
 you forever. Oh ! no, do not think that I am following 
 your advice and taking my pattern from the novels of Mme. 
 Riccoboni; women whom levity leads astray may conduct 
 themselves by the maxims and principles of novels. They 
 are full of illusions ; they think themselves gentle and gen- 
 erous when they are only cold, base, and contemptible ; they 
 do not love, they cannot hate ; they know nothing but gal- 
 lantry ; their souls do not attain to the heights of love and 
 passion, and Mme. Riccoboni herself cannot rise to them 
 even in imagination. Mon Dieu ! how wounded I was by 
 the comparison you made between my sorrows and the situa- 
 tions in a novel ! How indifferent, how little delicate you 
 seemed ! how superior to you I felt myself in being capable 
 of a passion of which you could not even judge ! 
 
 But I must end this long letter, which will put you in 
 a position to better comprehend my actual state. I have 
 rendered an account of all I have felt ; I have done so with 
 the same truth that I have always shown to you ; and, as a 
 part of that truth which is sacred to me, I shall not tell you 
 that I desire your friendship, or that I have any for you; 
 that sentiment can have no sweetness or charm unless it is 
 founded on confidence. Adieu j allow me the feeling of
 
 230 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 pride and of revenge which makes me find pleasure in 
 declaring that I pardon you, and iliaL it is no longer in your 
 power to make me feel fear under whatever circumstances 
 may arise. 
 
 I enclose herewith three letters which I beg you to read 
 again ; not that I wish to inspire you with regret or interest, 
 but I desire you to remember once all the evils that you have 
 caused me. I exact (and your conscience will tell you that 
 1 have the right to do so) that you return to me these letters 
 under cover to M. de Vames, with a double address, and by 
 the next courier to the one by which you receive them. 
 
 Monday evening, July 3, 1775. 
 On the arrival of the courier on Saturday I had just 
 written you a voluminous letter, and I did not withhold it 
 although your letter made me change, not my way of think- 
 ing but my manner of feeling. Nevertheless, I was con- 
 founded by reading that you had only " the appearance " 
 of being guilty towards me, and that my " unhappiness " 
 claimed your " indulgence " — and it is r/oii who utter those 
 words ! and to me whom your injustice has killed with 
 grief ! Ah ! mon Dieit, I where find the strength I need ? 
 My soul can no longer grasp or hold to anything. I do not 
 hate you ; I pass my life in condemning you, in suffering, in 
 cursing the life to which you have fettered me. Ah ! why 
 did I ever know you ? why did you render me so guilty ? 
 And you coldly pronounce me " unhappy " ! Does nothing 
 tell you that it is you who have made my sorrow irrevocable ? 
 and you dare to call the silence of despair a " detestable 
 caprice " ? Alas ! I have loved you with such abandonment, 
 my soul has been so raised above all interest but that 
 of my passion, that it is inconceivable you should call 
 " caprice " the impulse that makes me leave you. What !
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 231 
 
 you have not even the language of the feeling that inspires 
 me ? At the very moment when you seek to bring me back 
 to you you wound my heart, you bruise my soul by your 
 expressions. Take care lest you lack in honom-able delicacy 
 by complaining of me when I am crushed by you. It is not, 
 you say, vexation or gratitude which inspires you, it is the 
 tenderest of feeling. Ah ! if that were true, should I be now 
 at the summit of unhappiness ? 
 
 No, you are mistaken ; without sharing my feeling, with- 
 out feeling the need of being loved as I love, it costs you 
 something to renounce being the first, the sole object of an 
 active and impassioned suul which has put, if not interest, 
 at least emotion into your life. Yes ! the most restless, the 
 most wasted life feels a void when it ceases to be loved by a 
 soul strong enough to suffer and tender enough to forgive. I 
 was not so generous, or so cold, as to forgive you for the harm 
 that rent me ; but I had enough sense and reason to seek 
 calmness in silence. My soul was so sick that I hoped its 
 need of rest would lead me gently to indifference. I thought 
 it not impossible that by ceasing to see you and hear you 
 speak you would lose the power you have to lead my reason 
 astray and convulse my soul. Ah ' good God ! why do you 
 want that ascendency ? what will you do with it ? make 
 it the misery of my life and the trouble of yours ? It needs 
 an excess of self-love to wish to maintain a sentiment one 
 cannot share. You know well that my soul is without 
 moderation ; therefore it is condemning me to the tortures 
 of the damned to wish me to occupy my thoughts with you. 
 You ask the impossible — that I should love and that my 
 " reason should regulate my emotions," Is that in na- 
 ture ? None but sentiments made with our heads can be 
 perfect ; and you know whether I can feign, or usurp, or owe 
 the happiness of my life to a conduct not dictated by the
 
 232 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 tenderness of my feelings or by the vicjlence of my passion. 
 You know, you see, thai I have not even the use of my 
 mind with the one I h)ve. 
 
 Jiut all this is talking too much of myself. It is of you 
 that I wish to know all of which 1 have been so long in 
 ignorance ; you owe nie an account of your thoughts and 
 actions and feelings. Yes, I have a claim to that. Why 
 did you pause in writing to me ? You say that your 
 " lieart and mind are full " ! to whom are you confiding 
 yourself ? Is there any one in the world who knows you 
 better than I ? 
 
 In regard to what you told me about the " Connetable," 
 1 sent at once to Mar^chal de Duras, who repeats that 
 it will be played, and that you shall have a furlough at 
 the end of the month, after which you are to go in Sep- 
 tember to Metz to finish your term of service. He wrote 
 you this by the last courier, and I repeat it only for my 
 own satisfaction. So, you have "presumed too much upon 
 my zeal " ! How ungrateful you are 1 if mij honour and my 
 life depended on it I should not take so much trouble. 
 There are fifteen Eulogies of Catinat sent in for com- 
 petition ; but only one of them makes me uneasy. I am 
 to read that one to-morrow, and I promise to send you 
 my opinion of it scaled ; we shall see hereafter if it agrees 
 or not with that of the Academy. To judge soundly, I shall 
 eliminate love and hate, and then you will see whether I 
 have a mind or no mind. 
 
 Have you resumed the " Gracchi " ? and, though all ambi- 
 tion, you say, is extinct in you, do you not hope that that 
 work will add much to your reputation ? M. de Yaines 
 will have sent you the originals of the work you did for 
 M. Turgot. Do not think that I have forgotten the mem- 
 orial of M. Du . , . : I sent it immediately : and I wrote
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 233 
 
 about it with more interest than I ever put into my own 
 affairs and fortunes. I requested them not to reply to 
 me at once ; because it is only refusals that are prompt. 
 So, Monsieur, I think that I shall be one of your friends ; 
 and that thought does not allow me to omit anything 
 that may bring success. 
 
 If you were not the most agreeable man in the world how 
 ridiculous you would be ! Your letter is a mixture of confi- 
 dence in my feelings and distrust that I " have ever loved 
 you," which is too amusing. The tone is so polite, and then 
 it is so confident ! I do not know whether you love me, but 
 you are almost as inconsistent as myself ; am I alluring you 
 on ? If you only knew all that my silence has made you 
 lose ! I do not mean by that proofs of my tenderness ; but 
 your curiosity would have been so entertained, so interested ! 
 I have seen much and many things since your departure ! I 
 said to myself : " How full of life and interest all this would 
 be to me if I could communicate it to him ; but now that I 
 must speak to him no longer, it is not worth while to pay 
 attention to it." In fact, I withdrew into my own soul, where 
 I found bad company, — remorse, regrets, hatred, pride, and 
 all that can give one a horror of life. 
 
 Oh 1 a word escaped me in writing to tell you that your 
 Eulog}' was admitted to competition, — a word for which 
 I have blamed myself very much. How can we call 
 " mon ami " that whicli we hate the most on earth ? 
 What reminiscence could have led me to use that word ? 
 it is inconceivable. Can it be that this hatred is the first 
 link in the chain that does not leave an instant's freedom 
 to those who have been subjugated against their will ? 
 Ah ! you have not enough intelligence to conceive all that 
 one suffers in seriously loving a man who deserves only 
 the love of women whose vanity he flatters ,and whose
 
 234 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 soul he never lilLs. That i.i how ihey l<jve, thai m what 
 they say, those agreeable people ; and 1 do nuL know how 
 it is that with so much that is agreeable on both sides 
 cue should, nevertheless, be wearied to death in the midst 
 of them. Mon ami, yes, rnon ami, dearest to my heart, let 
 us not (juarrel ; let us forgive each other; we have both 
 good reason to be indulgent ; but remember that I am very 
 ill, and \'ery unhapp}- ; if, indeed, you wish me to live, help 
 me, sustain me, make me forget the harm you have done me. 
 Answer me. Adieu, adieu. Are you not weary of this ? 
 
 Tuesday, July 4, 1775. 
 
 I am very sorry ; but, mon ami, why do you ask the 
 impossible ? Give me op]X)rtunity to be useful to you in 
 whatever you think right, and I will answer that the 
 thmg shall be done, and without my mingling in it ; you 
 have only to speak. . . . 
 
 I have that Eulogy on Catinat and I am going to read it. 
 Mon Dieu ! how passion relaxes morality ' Here am I, in 
 gratitude for the mark of confidence shown me by the 
 author [probably La Harpe, whose Eulogy was in the 
 competition], here am I desiring that his work may be good, 
 but onhj to the degree that allows of no doubt between his 
 and yours. Mon ami, I will tell you about it truly, but 
 I will not answer that what I say is the truth ; you know- 
 well that I have no taste and very little common-sense; 
 therefore you must judge of my judgment as it deserves. 
 Good-bye ; if I have no letter to-morrow, justice is not to 
 be expected of you. 
 
 July 6, 1775. 
 I had no news of you yesterday, mon ami. You have 
 wearied of speaking, and I have too soon wearied of silence ; 
 with a littlQ more courage, so much pain and so many efforts
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 235 
 
 would not have been thrown away. Tell me, if jou can, how 
 this torture is to end. Will it be hatred, indifference, or 
 death that shall deliver me? Mon ami; I do not wish 
 to be generous by halves ; I believe that I have forgiven 
 you ; therefore I am going to talk with you as if you 
 satisfied me. 
 
 I will tell you first something that will shortly be made 
 public. M. de Malesherbes is to have all the offices of the 
 Due de La Vrilliferes ; the latter sends in his resignation in 
 a few days ; he has still to attend an iassembly of the clergy, 
 which ought to be worth twenty thousand francs to him. 
 M. de Malesherbes resigns his position in the Cour des 
 Aides, and M. Barentin takes his place. If you only knew 
 how much honour and simplicity M. de Malesherbes has 
 put into accepting this place you would double }our esteem, 
 liking, and veneration for that excellent man. Oh ! you 
 may be sure that the right will be done, and done well, 
 because ideas will now be guided by virtue and love of the 
 public welfare. Never, no never were two more virtuous, 
 enlightened, disinterested, energetic men united and in- 
 spired more powerfully by a gieat and lofty purpose. You 
 will see ; their ministry will leave a deep trace in the minds 
 of men. All that I am now telling you is still a secret. 
 This choice will be joyfully received by the public; some 
 men will be furious, but they will hold their tongues. The 
 intriguers will have but little chance, and that is very touch- 
 ing. Oh ! what had times for courtiers and knaves ! Am I 
 not over scrupulous in making that distinction ? — that is 
 called splitting hairs. 
 
 Now listen to me and tremble, for I am about to judge 
 the two Eulogies of Catinat, the only two, I imagine, w^hich 
 will occupy the attention of the Academy. The authors of 
 these two Eulogies are M. de Guibert and M. de La Harpe.
 
 236 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 M. de Guibert is the author of an excellent work on tactics, 
 and one tragedy : those tw(j works iuive made him known 
 as a man of talents and intellect, and they show on all 
 sides an elevated soul, full of energy. It is from this knowl- 
 edge and the prepossession it inspires for M. de Guibert that 
 I have read and judged his Eulogy of Catinat. You know 
 M. de La Harpe better than 1 do ; you know him to be an 
 excellent literary writer, with much intellect, and, especially 
 the purest and most enlightened taste. This is the justice 
 I did him before I read his Eulogy of Catinat. Now listen 
 to what blind presumption, silly and stupid, dares to say, 
 and see if you will be angry, or whether you will simply 
 choose to disdain i\ns judf/ment : — 
 
 M. de La Harpe's Eulogy is written with his usual facility, 
 but with a correctness which he spared himself imtil he 
 found tliat he had M. de Guibert for rival. His style is 
 easy and elevated ; it is so rare to unite those two merits, at 
 least to such a point, that it seems to me we may say that 
 he. writes in prose as Kacine wrote in verse. This work is 
 that of a man of letters whose mind is accurate and wise, 
 and whose soul is gentle, honest, and lofty. There are many 
 happy expressions, touching remarks, refined ideas expressed 
 both clearly and noljly ; but it is the work of an excellent 
 writer, a man of great intelligence only. That of M. de 
 Guibert seems to me the work of a superior man, who has 
 more than talent; he has genius. Neither of the two is a 
 philosopher: one, because he does not think coolly enough; 
 the other, because he does not think deeply enough; but 
 the soul of M. de Guibert judges men and events with 
 such loftiness and energy that we prefer being carried away 
 by him to being enlightened by a wise man. The military 
 part is so well treated by M. de Guibert that the most igno- 
 rant fancy themselves, as they read it, competent to appre-
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 237 
 
 ciate the merits of Catinat. That part of M. de La Harpe's 
 work is obscure, laboured, and very wearisome. In reading 
 M. de La Harpe we are agreeably occupied, and sometimes 
 moved ; we esteem the talent of the author. In reading M. 
 de Guibert I feel my soul enlarge, strengthen itself, take on 
 new energy, new activity ; but sometimes he is unequal ; his 
 style is not always sufficiently clear and concise ; at times it 
 lacks harmony, and we find certain rash expressions. If the 
 prize is given to the art of writing, to eloquence of style, to 
 the best-constructed work, it should crown, I think, M. de La 
 Harpe. But if it is given to eloquence of soul, to force and 
 elevation of genius, to tlie work which will produce the 
 greatest effect, then "M. de Guibert must be crowned. If I 
 knew neither of the authors, I should spend my life in desir- 
 ing to be, or regretting that I was not, the friend of M. de 
 Guibert, and I should simply inform myself whether M. de 
 La Harpe lived in Paris. 
 
 Mon ami, I am dying of impatience to have you within 
 reach of judging my judgment. I ask your word of honour 
 that you will show it to no one, not even to the one who is 
 dearest to you. I do not want to have the annoyances or 
 the " fame " which the Eulogies of La Fontaine caused me. 
 Mon ami, I have neither vanity nor pretension with you ; it 
 suits me to be stupid, and I let myself go ; and with others 
 I have ceased to make efforts ; I have no longer the strength, 
 I do not talk with them. I content myself by saying, "That 
 is good, that is poor, that is bad," and I take good care to give 
 no reasons ; certainly to do so would tire me as much as 
 it would weary them. And what matters having intellect 
 with those who cannot go to my soul ? My soul is still 
 stung by misfortune, but it has no warmth ; I have lost that 
 which warmed me, enlightened me, uplifted me ; only memo- 
 ries remain that are swathed in crape. Oh, mon ami, M. de
 
 238 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 Mora is no more, and you prevented nie from following him ! 
 by what fatality did I inspire in you an interest that has 
 become to me so disastrous? 
 
 Friday, July 7. 
 
 I forgot to tell you that M. de Sartine enters the Council ; 
 this is done to console him. 1 told you some days ago that 
 I was surrounded by friends, but for the last two days deser- 
 tion is complete : inspections, regiments, estates, and baths 
 have carried them all away. The Neapolitan ambassador 
 [Caraccioli] remains to me, and I see him daily ; ])ut he is 
 too gay for me ; he thwarts my inclinations. M. de Con- 
 dorcet has returned. After long conferences with his dear 
 uncle it is agreed that M. de Condorcet shall many — when 
 he wishes it. That sort of tyranny is bearable. He agreed, 
 also, to be presented to the king, and to put his lacquey 
 into mourning because the head of the elder branch of 
 his family has died ; and after these conditions and prom- 
 ises he took leave of his uncle, who consoles himself for 
 having a nephew in the Academy because he finds he is 
 also the intimate friend of a minister. Mon Dieu ! what 
 nonsense ! it makes one groan when it does not make one 
 laugh. 
 
 Mon ami, I will tell you some day about an anger into 
 which I let myself fall. I said hard things, insulting things ; 
 I made myself enemies — but no matter ! I satisfied myself. 
 It seemed to me it was the height of injustice and insolence 
 to venture to condemn you. I want the exclusive privilege 
 of thinking ill of you. I want others to judge you as I feel 
 you — noble, grand, elevated — and that no one shall call you 
 " an agi'eeable man." Ah ! what silly praise that is ! how 
 destructive of true merit ! " He is agreeable." That means, 
 when persons in society say it, " He is frivolous, light-minded, 
 and without character." Those are the " agreeable people " of
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 239 
 
 this nation ! But we are getting better. I am convinced of 
 that. Adieu, mon ami. 
 
 You will laugh at me for having kept from you a secret 
 about which everybody will be writing to you. But if you 
 have not become too provincial, you must know that three 
 days may be of great importance in a secret of this nature. 
 Besides, I promised ; and morality ought not to reason. 
 
 I have a great curiosity ; I should like to see a letter from 
 . . . But new duties impose, no doubt, a withdrawal of 
 confidences ; well, so be it ! I hope I shall have letters f-rom 
 you to-morrow. The tone will be very curt, very cold ; that 
 will displease me, and perhaps to such a degree that I shall 
 regret my return to you. I ought to have written to you 
 " You are not worthy of the harm you have done me ; " those 
 words uncover the depths of my heart, and cast a light 
 on ten years backward ; that was what Clarissa said, in 
 dying, to Belfort, the friend of Lovelace, and that thought 
 made her find death consoling and necessary. But adieu. 
 Eichardson knew mankind, love, and the passions. Mme. 
 Riccoboni knows only self-love, pride, sometimes sensibility, 
 and that is all. 
 
 Monday, July 10, 1775. 
 
 Ah ! how unfortunate I am ! how ill-timed, how mistaken ! 
 Good God, what an error I have fallen into ! You write me, 
 with more scruple than feeling, that it would have sufficed 
 you to receive " a sheet of blank paper ; " and, alas ! it was 
 my misfortune, when you announced to me your will, to be 
 led into writing you all I thought, all I felt. I suffered, 
 ■ my soul was wearied out ; it turned to him who had wounded 
 it. Oh ! mon ami, when you receive that letter you will not 
 understand it; you will answer me ill, and 1 shall hate you 
 with all the more force because I have exposed to you my 
 weakness. Cease to torment me ; you do too much and too
 
 240 . LETTERS or [1775 
 
 little; let tlic feelings you did not want and cannot share 
 die out. My God ! I was cured if it were not for that cursed 
 " Eulogy of Catinat." I should have stayed wliere that infa- 
 mous note from the Chateau de Courcelles (the recollection 
 of which makes me quiver with anger) placed me. I should 
 never have read another word from you, and in that deep 
 silence I could have gained the strength to cure myself or 
 die. Mon ami, you are very guilty ; for you are making in 
 cold blood the despair of my life. After telling me that you 
 know I suffer, you add that you " have need to live in the 
 country, and that inclination will last long." You desire 
 to go and live in the country ; you have no desire to see me. 
 If that is so, why tell it to me. You should be silent on 
 that which is likely to hurt my soul ; yes, you should be, for 
 do not think there is but one sort of duty. It may be so for 
 those coarse, vain soids who attach the idea of happiness 
 only to money and the approbation of the fools about them ; 
 but with you, it is to your conscience that I appeal, and it is 
 mine that will judge you when my passion is silent. Ah ! 
 why did my heart abandon itself to you ; why do I love you 
 when I have such strong reasons not to love you — and not, 
 like the majority of women, from silly vanity or the dull 
 want of occupation ? As to a void or want of occupation, I 
 know it not ; my soul could be occupied a hundred years 
 with what I have loved and what I have lost, and my life 
 could be full of a thousand interests, if I chose. But I 
 repulse, I push away incessantly all that attempts to' reach' ^ 
 my soul. 
 
 Thus, you see, it is by some special fatality that I am con- 
 demned to the torture that is killing me, and you, you make 
 yourself a cold spectator of it! You have grown so used to 
 the spectacle that "a! sheet of blank paper" would have 
 replied to all you thought and felt for me, and alas ! I had
 
 1775] - MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 241 
 
 written you volumes ! Think what the folly and awkward- 
 ness of my conduct has been ! 1 am confoimded by it. . . . 
 
 1 have never mentioned to you that ring which you gave me 
 at parting. I put it on my finger and two hours later it was 
 broken, — the symbol and emblem of what was to follow ; 
 This is not a jest ; it was the saddest of omens to me. Give 
 me another ring, strong and durable as my own sentiment ; 
 that which you gave me resembled yours, it held by a hair. 
 
 You say you " no longer love anything but study." And 
 yet you disdain fame. In truth you are a great philosopher 
 when you are sad ; but this winter you will be so happy, so 
 rich, so gay, so dissipated, that there will be no talk then of 
 your profound philosophy. Ah ! no, your life is not so ad- 
 vanced ; your head is still too young ; it needs to be purged 
 of many things that lead your soul astray. Mon ami, I am 
 very impertinent, am I not ? I criticise you ceaselessly, but 
 I love you better than those who praise you. M. d'Alembert 
 loves you as if I consented to it. Adieu ; write me and 
 often. 
 
 Saturday evening, July 15, 1775. 
 
 Mon ami, 1 live, I shall live, I shall see you again! and 
 whatever fate is in store for me I shall still have a moment's 
 pleasure before I die. I did not say so to myself this morn- 
 ing ; I expected my doom ; I believed it fatal, and I was 
 ready to meet it ; I would not complain, I could not suffer 
 longer, and I felt that this day would be the last of my life 
 if you did not come to my succour. You did come, mon ami, 
 your heart heard me, you answered me, and life became 
 bearable. 
 
 I had a paroxysm of despair this morning. M. d'Alembert 
 was frightened, and I did not have presence of mind enough 
 to calm him. His interest in me wrung my heart, it relaxed 
 my soul, it made me burst into tears ; I could not speak, but 
 
 16
 
 242 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 he says that in my wildness I repeated twice, " I am dying 
 go away." He wept and he wished to fetch my friends ; he 
 said : " How grieved I am that M. de Guibert is not here ; 
 he alone can soothe your sorrow ; since his departure you 
 have given yourself up to it." 
 
 Oh ! mon ami, your name brought me to my senses ; I felt 
 that I must calm myself and restore to life and peace of 
 mind that excellent man. I made an effort and told him 
 that an attack of nerves was added to my habitual suffer- 
 ing. This was true, for one hand and arm were twisted 
 and contracted. I took an anodyne. M. d'Alembert had 
 sent for a doctor ; to deliver myself from all that, I sum- 
 moned what remained to me of strength and reason and 
 locked myself into my room to await the postman. • 
 
 He came ; I had two letters from you ; my hands trembled 
 so that I could not hold nor open them. Ah ! for my joy the 
 first words I read were, " Mon amie" My soul, my lips, my 
 life hung on that paper ; I could read no more ; I distin- 
 guished nothing but stray words here and there ; I read : 
 " You restore me to life, I breathe again." Oh ! mon ami, 
 it is you who gave life to me ; I should have died if you 
 did not love me. Never, no never did I experience so 
 true a feeling. 
 
 At last I read, re-read, ten times, twenty times, the words 
 that poured consolation into my heart. Mon ami, in return- 
 ing to me you bmd me once more to life ; yes, I feel it, I love 
 you more than happiness or pleasure. I can live deprived of 
 both ; I shall love you, and when that does not suffice, it will 
 be time to die. Yes, we shall be virtuous ; I will answer for 
 it ; your happiness, your duty are sacred to me. I should 
 feel a horror if I found in me one emotion that could trouble 
 them. Ah ! my God ! if I could have a single thought that 
 wounded virtue, you woiild make me shudder. No, my
 
 17753 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 243 
 
 friend, you will have nothing with which to reproach 
 yourself ; I alone shall be culpable ; I shall be consumed 
 with remorse and regrets, but, if you are happy, I will 
 silence forever all that might give you an idea of my 
 sorrow. 
 
 Mon ami, you know passion ; you know the force it gives 
 to the soul it possesses. Well, I pledge myself to join to 
 that force all the strength that love of virtue and contempt 
 for death can give, that I may never offend against your 
 peace or against your duties. I have consulted my own 
 self thoroughly ; if you love me, I have the strength of the 
 martyrs ; but if I came to doubt you, no strength would re- 
 main to me but that which is needed to deliver one's self of 
 an intolerable burden ; it would not fail me ; I had it this 
 morning. You think that there is no degi-ee of passion 
 beyond that which I have shown you. I answer that you 
 know not everything, that you see not everything, and that 
 there are no words to express the force of a passion which 
 feeds itself on tears and remorse, and desires but two things : 
 to love, or to die. There is nothing of that in books, mon 
 ami; I spent with you a certain evening which would 
 seem exaggerated if read on the pages of Provost, the man 
 who has best known all that passion has of sweet and 
 terrible. 
 
 I have not yet received the packet of my letters ; I shall 
 not feel easy till I hold it in my hand ; I cannot protect 
 myself against the fear that you have made some mistake ; 
 yo'u were so hurried — but I believe that I will not reproach 
 you ; divine if that is generosity. Mon ami, a thing has 
 happened which would, formerly, have upset me. Mme. 
 du Deffand has done me a treacherous action : she has 
 mixed me up in that quarrel between Mme. Necker and 
 Mme. de Marchais; she has compromised me with Mme,
 
 244 LETTERS OF t»775 
 
 d'Aiiville ; and it is all even more absurd than malignant ; 
 there must be explanations. M. d'Angevilliers has also a 
 part in this infernal play ; the Neapolitan ambassador takes 
 much interest in it ; M. d'Alembert is furious ; and I, in the 
 midst of it all, am calm as innocence, and cold as indifference. 
 Yesterday my friends were trying to excite me about it ; but 
 I answered, " It will all come right," and they admired my 
 coolness in the midst of the storm. Ah ! that was because I 
 had one of another kind ready to burst upon my head ; there 
 was nothing on earth so important to me as the arrival of the 
 courier from Bordeaux. Ah ! man Dieu ! I can defy all the 
 furies of hell when I am content with you. There is the ad- 
 vantage, the cruel advantage, of misfortune : it kills the little 
 griefs that agitate the lives of people in society. I feel that 
 I shall come safely out of this turmoil because I put neither 
 heat nor interest into it. I blame myself, however, for tell- 
 ing you so much about it ; but if you were here you would 
 hear far more ; this affair has taken the place of that of 
 M. de. Guignes. 
 
 The chevalier has brought me news of you. You tell me 
 that you keep in your heart the " insults," the " horrors " 
 that I have said to you. Well, what will you do with them ? 
 You know that I annulled them all ; I live, and I love you ; 
 that is what remains of my despair and my hatred. You say 
 you are " collecting your reason " to answer me : you need 
 not do so ; and I, I am so reasonable, when my paroxysms of 
 madness are calmed, that in truth it would be too wasteful to 
 use your reason and your arguments on me : nevertheless, I 
 await them with impatience. Oh ! how far Saturday is from 
 Wednesday ! " how for the sad the hours slowly fly ! " 
 
 Good-night, mon ami. I will end this volume another 
 day, for it cannot go till Tuesday. I have been ill three 
 days ; I was on the rack, but you have cured me.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 245 
 
 Thursday, July 24, 1776. 
 Mon ami, I should like to seek you and meet you every- 
 where, talk to you incessantly, see you, and listen to you 
 always. I wrote to you at Bordeaux, at Montauban, and 
 again to-day at Bordeaux; and all perhaps uselessly, for if 
 you are to be here on the 1st you must have started on the 
 26 th. So much the better. You will not get my letters, 
 but I shall see you, and I cannot bring myself- to believe 
 that that pleasure will only hurt me : you are so gentle, so 
 sensible, so amiable that perhaps I shall feel that only. 
 
 But why did I have no letter from you by the last courier ? 
 is it that time was always lacking to come to the help of 
 one who suffers ? Oh, yes, I suffer, suffer much ; I have 
 internal organs that do their best to distract me from the ills 
 of my soul. Yesterday I had frightful pains ; I spent the 
 morning in my bath and I obtained a little relief. Mon 
 ami, come soon — and yet I shall seldom see you; a wife, a 
 tragedy to put upon the stage, your duties ; what will remain 
 for a poor thing who lives only to love and suffer ? Yes ! I 
 feel it, I am condemned to love you so long as I shall 
 breathe. When my forces are exhausted by grief, then I 
 love you with tenderness ; when I am inspired, when my 
 soul has its spring, then I love you with passion. Moii ami, 
 the last breath of my life will be still the expression of my 
 feeling. Adieu. If you read this letter, answer it, and do 
 not fancy you will get here sooner than a letter. Mon ami, 
 be careful not to come to me the first time when I have 
 company. Adieu, adieu ; I love you, and I believe it is 
 because I have loved you. 
 
 Tuesday, August 1, 1775. 
 Mo7i ami, I have just finished Catinat; I had never so 
 well understood it, so felt it. I cannot doubt that the 
 Academy will feel its value: those that compete may be
 
 246 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 good, but they will be at a great ilistance. You alarm me 
 for the others whom I know ; but I do not wish to discourage 
 them. 
 
 So then, mon ami, you have found nothing to say in reply 
 to me ? But, at any rate, bring back to me my foolish writ- 
 ings ; if necessary, I will make you a commentary this even- 
 ing on that text. I shall see you this morning; perhaps 
 you will be amiable enough to come early this evening. It 
 must be owned that the dead have no such days. Good-bye. 
 I said yesterday words that stopped the circulation of my 
 blood ; I said I desired your departure, which was as if I 
 had said, " I would I were dead " — but that is true often. 
 So you found it very embarrassing to answer me ; let it be ; 
 I know a secret to remove that embarrassment, to make 
 myself beloved, yes, beloved, and with energy ; but we must 
 not come to the grand means before the last possible 
 moment. Eeturn my book immediately. 
 
 August 16, 1775. 
 I am so much in the habit of suffering and of feeling only 
 pain, that I doubt if I could have been keenly alive to the 
 pleasure of seeing your Eulogy crowned by the Academy.^ 
 It would have seemed to me simple justice, and I think I 
 should merely have enjoyed what might have been flattering 
 in that success to your vanity. But I own that I feel and I 
 resent, too warmly perhaps, the affront of seeing you sub- 
 jected to formulas invented by pedants for the encourage- 
 ment and reward of school-boys. One accessit [extra prize] 
 would have been a shocking stupidity, but two accessits 
 seem to me an offensive impertinence, and it does not matter 
 what modification or distinction they may give to it on the 
 
 1 The Eulogy of La Harpe was crowned ; that of the Abbe d'Espagnac 
 took the second prize ; M. de Guibert a third. — Fk. Ed,
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 247 
 
 day of the public session. If Voltaire had competed and 
 they had given you a secondary place, that would have 
 been simple enough ; but to be in the suite of M. de La 
 Harpe, and beside a young abbe only twenty years old, 
 disgusts me to a degree that I cannot express, but which I 
 cannot restrain. It wounds my pride ; it makes me unjust ; 
 for it pushes my soul into dislike of him who is preferred to 
 you. Be more temperate than I am, if you can ; that will be 
 honourable and generous in you ; and perhaps you will find 
 in the consciousness of your talents and in a sense of your 
 strength the wherewithal to disdain that accessit. All the 
 academies in the universe cannot make you descend from 
 the place to which Nature raised you. I know all that; I 
 say it to myself ; but I feel such disgust, and I am so close 
 to it, that what I suffer goes far beyond what I thiuk. . , . 
 I want to see you, and talk over with you the course you 
 will take in regard to printing the Eulogy. My advice 
 would be that it should be given to the public before that of 
 M. de La Harpe, which will not be read till the 25th op 
 printed before the 28th or 30th. This opinion is not dictated 
 by reflection, but you can see if it agrees with yours. 
 
 I have no right to be severe ; but I shall always feel a 
 shock when you fail in friendship ; and you have wounded 
 me in not yielding to the request I made to you, which I 
 felt sure would be granted. You ought to have no further 
 curiosity, or interest in the expression of my affection ; it has 
 been so well known to you ; you repulsed it so cruelly in 
 the days when you exacted the most proof of it that I am 
 forced to think the value you now appear to put upon it is 
 only an effect of your scruples, and perhaps a means of stifl- 
 ing your conscience, which tells you, louder than I have ever 
 done, that you have abused my misfortune while seeming to 
 wish to soften it. Have virtue enough to save me from the
 
 2*48 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 last degree of humiliation, that of becoming an object of 
 your pity : for it is nothing else than that which is now 
 bringing you back to me ; and I confess to you that, in spite 
 of the invincible attraction which draws me to you, that 
 thought revolts every faculty of my soul. What ! I, who 
 have been loved by M. de Mora, I, who was the object of 
 the passion of that noblest, strongest, and most virtuous soul, 
 shall I be humiliated by you ? Ah ! leave me to my remorse ; 
 it annihilates me. I am culpable, I am punished ; M. de 
 Mora is avenged. What more do you want ? To crush me, 
 to sink me beneath your pity ? I declare to you that I do 
 not feel myself born for that abject position ; you hasten 
 my death. 
 
 I cannot yet see clearly whether it is to my love that I 
 still cling, or whether I am held back by the horror I 
 feel at causing the unhappiness of two persons who would 
 give their lives for me. My death would overwhelm them ; 
 I am not mistaken as to that ; I would that I could detach 
 them, remove them from me ; I should be freer ; I could de- 
 liver myself from the torture that is killing me, and you 
 from the necessity of seeing me or avoiding me. 
 
 I ought to tell you, in the interests of truth and justice, 
 that MM. Suard, Armand, and d'Alembert did the impos- 
 sible to spare you that accessit ; but ten Academicians car- 
 ried the day against them, and these men had the custom 
 and statutes of the Academy to support them. They decided 
 that on the day of the public session they would speak in 
 the highest praise of your excellent work ; three of them 
 voted to split the prize. That is enough said ; I wish never 
 to speak of it again, except once to you.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 249 
 
 August 28, eleven at night, 1775. 
 "The mind is always the dupe of the heart." 
 
 How true that is, how correct, when we have to do with the 
 man most open, most susceptible to all impressions. That 
 is what my experience tells me, and my heart, in a low 
 voice, denies it ; it says, " He will return," and all that is 
 within me, repeats, " I shall see him." Oh ' mon ami, you 
 do not deserve the struggles I go through ; you do not 
 deserve the sacrifice I have made to you, not only of my life, 
 but of my death ; above all, you do not deserve the trouble, 
 the annoyances, the obstacles that my affection for you has 
 brought into the most critical situation of my life : and that 
 affection, that fatality will have more to say ; whatever 
 course I take it must be filled by regret and repentance. 
 Oh ! my God ! my life is weary ; it has been too full ; nature 
 isolated me ; I was born for obscurity and repose, and I have 
 been a prey to all the passions ! I have known all misfor- 
 tunes. Ah ! if I had not loved M. de Mora, what evil I 
 should say of life ! 
 
 Mon ami, I meant to have said but one word, and, in spite 
 of myself, my soul pours itself out in search of yours ; the 
 habit of being loved still deludes me ; I turn to you, and it is 
 not he — ah no ! it is not he ! My God ! what memories ! 
 They extinguish me, they desolate me ! 
 
 Will you come to-morrow, Tuesday, to the Salon of pic- 
 tures, at a quarter past one ? I will not make it a point of 
 honour with you, but I must say that you alone will not be 
 punctual at the rendezvous. Wliat folly to go and engage 
 yourself to dine with Comte de Creutz on Wednesday in pref- 
 erence to Mme, Geoffrin ! — Mon ami, although you dispar- 
 age all that I experience, all that I love, tell me if you do 
 not think the following way of saying a thing very charm-
 
 250. - LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 ing : some one said to rue, in asking news of M. de Saint 
 Chamans, " You know how I love him with your heart and 
 my own." That is better than Mme. de Sdvign^'s phrase 
 about her daughter's chest. [" I have pam in your chest."] 
 You have six letters of mine to return, counting this one. I 
 must have the six if you wish me to say four words t© you 
 to-morrow. I urge myself to say three now, which you 
 hear too often — I 1 . . . y. . , but less ; yes, less, I am certain 
 of it. 
 
 " We always like those who admire us ; " I really have wit 
 to-night, for that is La Rochefoucauld's. Good-night. I wish 
 I knew the secret of your vanity ; in return you should have 
 that of my love. Ah ! but you know it ; what matters all 
 the rest ? 
 
 Tuesday, August 29, 1775. 
 
 So you do not care whether you are written to, inasmuch as 
 you do not point out the way ? but, as I am very ingenuous in 
 one direction I have charged one of M. Turgot's valets to look 
 for you everywhere and find you somewhere. Do not forget 
 to send me word how many seats there are in the box you 
 intend for me [at the representation of his play, the " Conn6- 
 table de Bourbon," before the Court at Versailles]. 
 
 Believe if you can, tell yourself that the truth is not prob- 
 able, but it is, nevertheless, certain that I have been a great 
 deal with your wife to-day ; I went forward to meet her, I 
 spoke to her of her health, of her talents, of all that was there 
 before our eyes in the Salon ; in short, I venture to answer 
 for it that you will hear I am " very amiable " and you will 
 not believe it. But do you know what I really am, and to 
 what you must accustom yourself to think of me ? I am 
 the sister of the wife of Grandison. I am becoming so 
 perfect that it frightens me ; I think I must be a swan — 
 her death-song, they say, is perfect. Well, that is some-
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. . 251 
 
 thing : you will say, " She died at the wrong time — what 
 a pity!" 
 
 Mon ami, I have a grief ; one of my friends is very ill, 
 very unhappy. I spent two hours with him last evening ; I 
 wept with him and I felt I calmed and consoled him a little. 
 Alas! it is but too true that "the heart knoweth its own 
 bitterness." 
 
 Ten o'clock, 1775. 
 
 It is not pride or self-love which rejects your pardon; 
 it is a most true and tender sentiment, which assures me 
 that I cannot have offended you. Eeflect that if — by 
 impossibility — I could have a bad opinion of you, I should 
 be forced to despise myself forever. Rely, therefore, not on 
 your virtues, not on my justice, but on all the kinds of love 
 that stir the hearts of men. If I hated you I should still 
 esteem you ; therefore, all things forbid you to suspect that 
 I can cease to respect you ; that is the strongest of my feel- 
 ings ; that is the basis of them all, the excuse for them, if 
 there be need of that. In that moment when you woimded' 
 me most, when I renounced you, I still esteemed you ; and of 
 all the letters I have ever written to you, there is not one 
 in which my sorrow, my wrong, my weakness were stated, 
 avowed, and blamed with greater simplicity and truth than 
 in that letter of which you now speak to me. If this is not 
 my confession of faith as to my esteem, my confidence, my 
 perfect trust in your integrity, then dictate to me another, 
 and I will sign it with my blood. 
 
 You have not seen me because the day is only twelve 
 hours long, and you have pleasures and interests enough 
 that are, and ought to be, dearer than my griefs, to fill those 
 hours. I claim nothing, I exact nothing, and I tell myself 
 incessantly that the source of my happiness and my pleasure 
 is lost forever.
 
 252 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 No, I shall not go to see the " Conn^table ; " I can no longer 
 judge or enjoy such things. I shall take the keenest interest 
 in your success and be crowned by it. 
 
 August 26, two o'clock, 1775. 
 
 A thousand thanks to you, mon (wii. You are kind to 
 have persevered in getting me this box. I did not receive 
 the tickets until nine o'clock this morning, and I fear you 
 were importuned by the sending of a courier ; who was sent 
 because those ladies were much alarmed at not having 
 received the box by midnight yesterday. But, mon 
 ami, you are not so kind, you are even unjust when 
 you say that I " like to give you pain." Ah ! bon Dieu ! 
 what a strange sort of pleasure that would be ' If you 
 call telling you the truth liking to give you pain, then 
 it would be useless to love or to be loved; it would be 
 odious to be in intimacy what we are in society, masked 
 forever. Mon ami, a.t five o'clock, when the "Conn^table" 
 begins, I shall do like some prophet, I forget which, who 
 raised his arms to heaven while Joshua fought. Oh, yes ! 
 my thought, my soul will be with you ; no matter, after 
 that, where my person is. I shall be lying on a sofa at 
 the Marquise de Saint-Chamans', who is still very ill, and 
 who has sent all her children to the " Conn^table." Mon 
 ami, I do hope you will come back from Versailles this 
 evening. 
 
 Of three dinners, which will you choose ? to-morrow at the 
 Duchesse d'Anville's ; Monday with the Comte de Creutz 
 [Swedish minister] ; Tuesday with M. de Vaines. I did 
 not close my eyes all night, and I suffered much in my 
 stomach ; but I am less unhappy than for the last two 
 days. Mon Dieu ! how sick at heart I have been ! I had 
 a rush of despair which lasted sixty hours ; I saw no one
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPlNASSE. 253 
 
 during that time, not even those who, I was very sure, would 
 have pleasure in seeing me. Mon ami, I love you, but it is 
 with so much distress and so little confidence, that, in truth, 
 my feeling is nearly always a great ill ; formerly I felt it to 
 be always a great pleasure. 
 
 Good-bye ; if you are at the height of glory, tell me ; if 
 you are not satisfied, tell me still; it is to me it should 
 be told, because what is you is more I than I myself. 
 Adieu. 
 
 August 26, half-past eleven at night. 
 I say like Blue Beard : " Sister Anne, sister Anne, do you 
 see no one coming ? " M. d'Alembert does not come [back 
 from Versailles]. I do not want details, but before I sleep 
 I must hear these words : " Never was there so great a 
 success." When I have heard those sweet words I shall 
 sing the song of Simeon. Yes ! it would be sweet to 
 me, sweeter than ever, to sleep this night the eternal 
 sleep. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! how vexed with myself I am. They had 
 offered to send me a courier, and then a second courier to let 
 me know in duplicate : " Great success " or " Middling suc- 
 cess." I refused that mark of kindness ; I did not wish to 
 be under the obligation. In short, I was silly, and I am fam- 
 ished ; but I feared also that this anxiety would show too 
 profound an interest. I judged right, and I am satisfied 
 with myself in that respect. Oh ! what happiness ! and, as 
 the Neapolitan ambassador says, "what joy in the home." 
 Mon ami, you will never have as much as I wish you ; you 
 will never feel it with as much transport as I wish it. — Ah ! 
 here comes M. d'Alembert ! " Success has passed all bounds " 
 — that scene in the third act, the finest on the stage, was 
 much applauded. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami ; you will think me mad, but the first
 
 25'4 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 wish of my heart is — not to see you, but that you shall see 
 that which can make you enjoy your happiness, especially 
 those who have shared it. Do not see me for a few days ; 
 enjoy — and do not cast your eyes on an object you ought 
 never to have seen. I only ask you for one hour before your 
 departure. I am well used to farewells. 
 
 Sunday, September 17, 1775. 
 Ah, no ! I am not happy enough, nor unhappy enough to 
 " make gall and poison " of what you say. You have settled 
 things plainly ; with a word you have chilled my soul and you 
 have also chilled what you believe to be the expression of a 
 sentiment. Remember the secret that escaped you. It has 
 given me the clue to a thousand things that had seemed to 
 me inexplicable ; it has made me retract a mistaken judg- 
 ment which I had formed through ignorance of the truth. 
 I believed that I was reading the letter of a young girl of 
 seventeen, addressed to a man who had been her husband 
 for four days ; instead of that she was a young woman writ- 
 ing to a man who has been in love with her for a year. 
 Hence what she said to him was the natural expression of 
 feelings acknowledged and shared for a long time. That 
 secret, thus accidentally betrayed, has also explained to me 
 the note which I received from the Chateau de Courcelles ; 
 but, in explaining it, it does not justify it ; for nothing in 
 nature could justify such an outrage ; that note contained not 
 one word which was not certain to revolt my soul and fill it 
 with indignation — Mon Dieu ! and I could still see you, still 
 listen to you, still speak to you ! Oh ! how we degrade our- 
 selves when we disregard a first remorse ! Yes, I have need 
 to repeat to myself, again and again, that I was loved by 
 M. de Mora, by the noblest, strongest soul, by the most per- 
 fect human being who ever existed. That thought sustains
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 255 
 
 my soul, revives my heart, and restores to me sufficient pride 
 to keep me from prostration. 
 
 You say I did not answer the note you wrote me at the 
 moment of your departure. How could I answer it ? When 
 I now read expressions of your feeling, this is what my 
 reason says to me : " He says the same to another, — perhaps 
 with more strength and warmth ; and there is this difference 
 between myself and that other, that with her he directs all 
 the actions of his life to prove to her that he feels what he 
 says to her ; whereas with me, on the contrary, there is not 
 one of his actions, not one of his movements which is not in 
 opposition to his words." After that observation, just as it is 
 and cruelly well founded, tell me, what answer have I to 
 make ? Ah ! I appeal to your conscience : do you think that 
 I could fathom what is in it and yet preserve for you the 
 feelings you desire ? Well, I dare to assure you that if you 
 fathom mine you will find no fault there but the one I have 
 acknowledged. I have not had one thought, one impulse 
 that did not deserve your esteem, — if it can be given to one 
 who has sacrificed to you that which ought to have been 
 dearer than even honour. 
 
 But tell me, why do you make me the object of your 
 lecture and of the exercise of your virtue ? You are late in 
 thinking of it ; and if you are imposing that task upon your- 
 self in expiation of the harm you have done, I warn you that 
 you are still misled. Give up the desire to make me a victim 
 of your ethics, after having made me that of your levity. I 
 have told you a hundred times that you can do nothing more 
 for me but make me suffer. I assure you that I do not seek 
 to make you reproaches. I forgive you with all my heart ; and 
 what I say to you to-day is only in reply to your letter. In 
 your note of Saturday you showed me the fear you had lest 
 the influence of the sorrow you pretended to feel should fall
 
 256 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 upon your wife. What reply was I to make to that ! That 
 the fear alone was sufficient to protect her ; that the sacrifice 
 you made to her of your time, your affections, your person 
 ought also to guarantee her. What can I add to that ? 
 That I wish her security ; this is, in truth, all that we can 
 wish to one with whom we have no relations. Those persons 
 who have not seen you with your wife, and who do not know, 
 as I now do, that you liave loved her for a year past, say that 
 you have converted the duties of maniage into servitude. 
 They think that the striking of eleven o'clock is as austere 
 as a convent rule : which you see is talking nonsense because 
 they are not in the secret [of his previous attachment to 
 his wife]. As for me who am, and who ought to tell you 
 — but, no ! that is enough for to-day. 
 
 Oh ! I am very uneasy ; the Vicomte de Chamans grows 
 worse and worse ; they do not understand his state ; it 
 alarms me. The Comte de Creutz was in tears yesterday; 
 his wife was successfully confined, but the child is dead. It 
 is not the child he mourns, but his wife's grief and the tor- 
 ture he finds in deceiving her as to the child's state. Happy 
 people have their troubles ! Yes, inasmuch as you say you 
 have so many ; but you admit that exercise and activity 
 relieve them, and I believe it. 
 
 My health is worse than ever ; I have had several attacks 
 of fever ; but I have made a vow not to poison myself in a 
 doctor's way. Adieu. I require neither your sentiments, nor 
 your moral philosophy, nor your virtue. See how free I set 
 you. 
 
 Saturday, four o'clock in the morning, September 23, 1775. 
 
 Alas ! it is true, we survive everything ! the excess of sor- 
 row becomes its remedy ! Ah ! mon Dieu ! the moment has 
 arrived when I can say to you, " I can live without loving 
 you " with as much truth as when I said to you three months
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 257 
 
 ago, " I must love you or cease to be." My passion has gone 
 through all the convulsions, all the crises of a great illness. 
 First, I had continued fever with paroxj^sms and delirium ; 
 then the fever ceased to be continued, it turned to inter- 
 mittent attacks, but so violent were they, so irregular, that 
 the disease seemed to grow more acute. After keeping a 
 long time at this degree of danger it has lessened a little ; 
 the attacks are fewer, and they are weaker. I have had in- 
 tervals of calmness that seemed like health, or that seemed 
 to allow some hope of it. After a while the fever nearly 
 ceased, and for the last few days I feel as if nothiug were 
 left of it but the trembling and great weakness that always 
 follow long and terrible dlnesses. I think I am conscious of 
 a coming convalescence ; not the kind that M. de Saint-Lam- 
 bert describes : " Oh ! how the soul enjoys its convalescence." 
 No, mine can never again know joy, but it will be soothed, 
 it will no longer be actively torn, and that will be much ; for 
 though I am delivered from a very cruel ill, an old one, more 
 sorrowful, deeper, more heart-breaking, still remains ; that 
 wound can never close ; it is irritated and poisoned by the 
 grief and remorse of all the moments of my life. It may 
 find anodynes, the only remed}- for incurable Uls. 
 
 That is the history and a most faithful narrative of 
 the state of my soul ; there is not a word, not a circum- 
 stance that is not applicable to my present situation. I 
 have loved you with madness ; I have gone through all 
 phases, all degi-ees of sorrow and of passion ; I wanted to 
 die ; I believed I was dying ; but I was held back by the 
 charm attached to passion, even to unliappy passion. Since 
 then, I have reflected ; I wavered long, I suffered still ; and 
 then — I know not if it is you, if it is your conduct, if it is 
 the necessity, perhaps the extremity of my misfortune — 
 then all things brought me back to a less fatal state of mind. 
 
 17
 
 258 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 I have looked about me ; I have found friends whom my un- 
 happiness, my madness had not alienated ; I felt I was sur- 
 rounded by care and kindness, and signs of interest. In the 
 midst of such succour, such resources, 1 found a brighter, 
 more animated sentiment ; it is so true, so tender, so sweet, 
 that in the end it nmst bring calmness and consolation into 
 my soul. Can I ask for better or more than that ? After 
 the fi'ightful tempest that has battered me for the last three 
 years is not this entering into port ? is it not seeing already 
 a clearer sky ? 
 
 No, do not think that I exaggerate the progress of my 
 cure ; I see myself such as 1 am, and if 1 feel a little calmer 
 it is because I believe myself a little more susceptible to con- 
 solation. No doubt it would have cost me less to die than 
 to separate from you. A quick death would have satisfied 
 my nature and my passion ; but the torture you have given 
 to my soul is exhausted ; it has lost its vitality ; and then, I 
 feel myself beloved ; that softens everything. How shall we 
 quit life when the tenderest sentiments strive to retain us ? 
 
 Ah ! I ought to have died at the moment when I lost him 
 who loved me and whom I loved more than all else on 
 earth ! That is the sole blame I lay on you. Why did yau 
 retain me ? Was it to condemn me to a lingering and more 
 cruel death than the one I sought ? Would to God I could 
 efface from my memory and blot from my life these last 
 years that have just gone by ' Those that preceded them 
 would forever have been the charm, if the torture, of my 
 heart. Ah ! six years of pleasure and of heaven's own happi- 
 ness ought to make me feel that existence is a boon for 
 which I should render thanks to Heaven, even at the summit 
 of unhappiness. 
 
 If I can recover repose, if my soul can steady itself, per- 
 haps the few remaining days I have to live may still be bear-
 
 1775] MLLE. BE LESPINASSE. 259 
 
 able. I will try to make my consolation of that which 
 would be the happiness and joy of another. I will love from 
 gi'atitude that which ought to be better loved if T responded 
 to the warmth and eagerness of the friendship shown to me. 
 For three months I have to blame myself for repulsing coldly 
 and harshly the expression of the warmest interest, springing 
 from the truest sentiment, of which I have received unequiv- 
 ocal proof, and you know how cautious I am in the matter 
 of proof. I surprise you, no doubt ; you think I dream ; 
 every word I say seems to you to violate truth and proba- 
 bility. Well, that will prove to you what you must already 
 have seen, but never perhaps in so extreme a case, that 
 " truth may sometimes seem untruthful." 
 
 Alas ! it seems to me as surprising as it will to you. I 
 am confounded that any one remains on earth who puts 
 his pleasure and his hope on the saddest being in the world 
 and the one most fitted to repulse affection. Can excess of 
 grief be an attraction for certain souls ? Yes, I see it, 
 another soul has need to pity, to take interest, to be roused, 
 and coming near me takes, or shares, that disposition without 
 my willing it. For a long time past I have noticed that this 
 man never left me without emotion ; and I have inwardly 
 felt that sorrow, illness, and old age were taking the place 
 to him of graces, youth, and charm. Do you think it pos- 
 sible to be vain of having this attraction for an honest and 
 sensible man ? I am not vain of it ; I am too uuhapp}', too 
 profoundly unhappy to be accessible to the pleasures and 
 foUies of vanity. I have not told you of this before because 
 I feared that to speak of it might give it too much consis- 
 tency ; I would not even allow my thoughts to dwell upon 
 it. In the first days of my despair, when you passed sen- 
 tence against my peace and life, I rejected with horror all 
 that could separate me from you ; rather than that I pre-
 
 260 LETTERS OF ' [1775 
 
 ferred to die. I hoped to calm myself upon that sentence 
 thus pronounced against me; I believed joir presence would 
 still be good for me, that you would tell me what I had 
 need to hear ; that you yourself would help me to bear the 
 blow that you had struck me. I have found nothing of the 
 kind ; and without pretending to complain, or even to blame 
 you, I am convinced, and in an absolute manner, that your 
 marriage ought to break off all intercourse between us ; it 
 only tortures me, and it luay become a burden, perhaps an 
 odious one, to you. 
 
 In those first moments I thought I could not live without 
 hating you ; but that dreadful emotion could not last in a 
 soul so tilled with passion and tenderness. Since then I have 
 gone through all the anguish, all the agitations of sorrow ; 
 until, at last, I have reached a condition of mind that I 
 believe is calmness. It may be only exhaustion and dejec- 
 tion ; but, at least, I will not blame myself in future for 
 what I suffer ; that, I think, will surely be one great ill the 
 less. Hitherto I have justified La Eochefoucauld's saying, 
 that "the minds of most women serve to strengthen their 
 follies only." Oh ! how true that is ! I sink with confusion 
 as I recall what I dared to desire. 
 
 Yes, I was elated enough — or rather enough misled — to 
 think it not impossible that you would love me above all 
 things, and my madness gave me reasons that were plausible 
 enough to satisfy my feelings. See, I beg of you, to what 
 degree of illusion I was led. Nevertheless, I swear to you 
 it was not self-love that led me astray ; on the contrary, it is 
 that which now assists me to return to truth and reason. It 
 is that whicli judges me to-day with more severity than you 
 can show ; all that you have refused me ; all that you have 
 not been to me, seems to me now only the necessar}' result of 
 the accuracy of your taste and judgment. But do not suppose
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 261 
 
 that I think you have been equitable in your conduct to me. 
 It is my reason, nothing but my reason, that speaks to-day. 
 Seeing myself so weak, culpable, and mad as I have been, I 
 know that that does not justify the harm that you have done 
 me — though I pardon it with all my heart. Perhaps one is. 
 never consoled for great humiliations ; but I still hope that 
 time may efface their impression. I hope that your marriage 
 may make you as happy as it has made me unhappy ; belie\e 
 that when that wish is very sincere, generosity and good-will 
 can no farther go. 
 
 I have received no answer to a letter that I vfrote you a 
 week ago. I do not complain ; I merely let you know the 
 fact, because I earnestly desire it may not be lost. Before 
 you start for the country I beg you to return to me 
 the three letters I addressed to you at ^letz ; and if you 
 have received the above-named letter, sent to Bordeaux, 
 be good enough to add that. I have not received your burnt 
 almonds ; that is why I have not thanked you for them. 
 Nothing but hatred turns honey to poison, and I have no 
 hatred. 
 
 But, in truth, I am distracted ; I know not which afflicts 
 me most — the harm you do me or the good another seeks to 
 do. I faint, I need to flee into a desert for repose. I pity 
 you for the length of this letter: but I am so ill, so de- 
 pressed that I have not the strength to put it into shape, or to 
 take out its inutilities. I feel how sorrows long protracted 
 wear}' the soul and wear out the brain ; but if I have allowed 
 myself to speak thus at length it is that I may never return 
 to this subject ; there are subjects which ought never to be 
 referred to again. If you were in Paris I should not have 
 written you a volume, for you would not read it. It has been 
 proved to me that you do not read my letters, and that is 
 natural enough ; they reached you in a place where you were
 
 262 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 seeing and hearing that which had quite another interest for 
 you than I and my letters. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami — this is the last time that I shall permit 
 myself to use that name ; forget that my heart has said it. 
 Ah ! forget me ! forget what I have suffered ! Leave me to 
 believe that it is a good to have been so loved ! leave me to 
 believe that gratitude can suffice my soul. Adieu, adieu. 
 
 Sunday evening, September 24, 1775. 
 
 I do not wish to make your prediction false ; you suppose 
 perhaps that I have put temper, a plan, perhaps caprice, into 
 this, and that nothing can excuse it. Keason is equable and 
 just, and it is time that I should abide by it. You are mar- 
 ried; you have loved, you love, you will love one who has 
 long attracted you by the vivacity and strength of her feel- 
 ings; that is natural, that is in the order of thiugs, that is in 
 the way of duty ; and consequently one must be stupid or 
 mad to enter upon arguments which would trouble your 
 happiness and continue my torture. 
 
 All is said between us forever; and, believe me, let us 
 spare the details ; when once the thread of faith is broken it 
 should not be joined again ; that works ill, always. At all 
 times, under all circumstances, I have told you the truth ; 
 therefore there is no confusion or embarrassment to me. 
 In all my life I have never deceived any one, no matter 
 who, in this world. I have no doubt been very culpable, 
 but I can say that truth has ever been sacred to me. The 
 situations in novels are nothing to that of sorrow and despair 
 in which I have passed my life for years. No doubt the novel 
 which you have now begun will be full of pleasure, good for- 
 tune, and whatever can make your felicity ; I desire it with 
 all my heart. As for me, I could figure only in the novels of 
 Provost ; do you think I should be excluded from " Astr^e " ?
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 263 
 
 M. de Saint-Chamans is much better for the last two days ; 
 he thanks you a thousand times. M. d'Alembert is much 
 touched by your remembrance. The Comte de Creutz has 
 returned to heaven ; mother and child are doing well. Mme. 
 de Chatillon has just left me. I hope that M. d'Anlezy will 
 soon retiirn. I have no longer any fever. 
 
 Midnight, October 5, 1775. 
 This resembles madness, but it is reason, and very reason- 
 able. I just remember that I told you to answer me and 
 return my letters under cover to M. de Yaines. Mon ami, 
 do only the half of that : return me my letters to his address 
 and in God's name, do not forget a double envelope ; but 
 send your answer direct to me, so that it will not be so long 
 in coming. I could not otherwise receive it till Saturday, 
 15th, and I have remembered .that M. de Yaines goes to 
 Versailles on Saturdays. That would delay what I await 
 with an impatience that fevers me. Mon ami^ you under- 
 stand me ? do not be heedless : your letter to me, and my 
 letters, all my letters, to M. de Yaines. 
 
 Sunday evening, October 15, 1775. 
 Mon ami, we must be two. You know of nothing to say 
 to me, you have nothing to say to me when I am silent. If 
 there were no one behind you, no one to read over your 
 shoulder, if my letters were not dropped on the floor, I would 
 write volumes to you, I would not wait for yours ; I would pour 
 out my soul; I would pass my life in complaining, in for- 
 giving, in loving you. But how ? where can I find the 
 strength you have taken from me ? The blow you struck me 
 reached my soul, and my body succumbed to it. I feel it — 
 I do not wish to alarm you or interest you, but I feel that I 
 am dying of it ; there is no resource for me on earth ; because,
 
 264 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 supposing the impossible — that you were free and were to 
 me what I desired — it would be too late ; the springs of life 
 are broken; I feel this without regret and without terror. 
 Mon ami, you prevented me from killing myself, and you 
 make me die. What inconsistency ! but I forgive it ; soon 
 it will not matter. 
 
 Mon Die It ! I do not wish to reproach you : if you saw 
 into my soul — ah ! it is far indeed from wisliing to hurt 
 you or to put an instant's grief into your life. No, at the 
 summit of my misery, the victim of having loved, feeling 
 myself as guilty as I am unhappy, I find in my heart noth- 
 ing but the keenest desire for your happiness ; your interests 
 are still the first of the life that is leaving me. Adieu, mon 
 ami ; you see that this is not ill-humour ; but there are ties, 
 there are things, that leave me to sorrow only. Write to me ; 
 tell me what you are doing ; tell me if you are content ; if that 
 which interests you has ended as you desired. In short, mon 
 ami, feel, if possible, a little sweetness in shedding an in- 
 stant's pleasure into a deeply wounded heart, which is, never- 
 theless, all your own. I will write to you every evening, and 
 when you leave Fontainebleau return me all my letters. Do 
 not call this distrust ; it is virtue rather, it is caring for your 
 security. 
 
 October 16, 1775. 
 
 Mon ami, I write to you this morning, because I fear I 
 cannot do so this evening. Yesterday I had a strong fever, 
 and last night at two o'clock I thought I was dying from a 
 fit of coughing, followed by suffocation, which really brought 
 me very near to death. The terror of my maid made me 
 think there must be something formidable in death ; her face 
 was quite convulsed, and when I was able to speak and ask 
 her the cause of her troubled look she said, " I thought you 
 were going to die," for she had had the courage to stay and
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 265 
 
 see me suffer. I am still in bed, though nothing remains but 
 a slight oppression, and my usual ailments. 
 
 Have you gone or are you going to Montigny ? Did not 
 Mme. de Bouiflers give you a rendezvous ? She started this 
 morning with the Abbd Morellet and returns Thursday. 
 The Archbishop of Toulouse is expected this evening. A 
 person who knows Mme. de Boufflers very well said to me 
 yesterday : " She makes herself the victim of a desire for 
 consideration, and by dint of running after it she loses it. I 
 will wager," he continued, " that she will do the impossible 
 to be admitted, not to the dinner of kings, like Candide 
 in Venice, but to the dinner of the ministers at Montigny." 
 He said that as a mere conjecture, but this morning I have 
 received from him these two lines : " Will you believe now 
 in my knowledge of character ? You laughed at me yester- 
 day ; well, she started this morning and means to tumble into 
 the midst of people who are scarcely of her acquaintance." 
 
 Vanity of vanities ! Mon ami, if she has gone to meet 
 you she has done well! she ought to cherish the man to 
 whom she once resolved to speak with truth. It must be a 
 great relief to her to quit the mask occasionally. How can 
 people live in such perpetual restraint ? Is vanity that 
 which has most power in nature ? Tell me who you think 
 will be minister of war. They say it will be the Baron de 
 Breteuil, who has hitherto spent his life in the Foreign 
 Affairs. This is like Maitre Jacques in the " Avare." 
 
 Have you been reading much in order to begin your great 
 work ? You have had but eight days, but you do things so 
 fast that eight days will perhaps suffice you to do what 
 others could not do in eight months. Have you seen M. 
 Turgot ? This is the moment when what you have done for 
 him ought to be of great use. You will see him at Mon- 
 tigny. I wish you could talk with him ; you would then see
 
 266 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 how superior he is to those who judge him with prejudice 
 and passion. 
 
 It is only a few days since you wrote me, no doubt to lift 
 me to the skies : " It is from here that I tell you that I love 
 you, here, where I am loved, where I am occupied, tranquil, 
 etc." Eh ! moil ami, it is easy enough to be loved when 
 a man is young, with a charming face and the manners 
 and attentions of one who seeks to please; and especially 
 when all the actions of his life show that he does not hold 
 strongly to anything. How should you not be loved ? fools 
 and dandies are loved ! M. de B . . . is adored by his wife, 
 who is young, pretty, and agreeable; the wonder to me is 
 that his head is not turned by it ; he does not feel, as Comte 
 de C . . . does, that he was chosen ; he remembers that it 
 was an income of twenty-five thousand livres that made the 
 marriage. 
 
 But do you know what would be really piquant, rare, 
 extraordinary, and half a wonder (though there are examples 
 of it, such as Diane de Poitiers, Mme. de Maintenon, Mile. 
 Clairon) ? It is to be able to say : " I am loved " when old, 
 ugly, sad, ill and sunk in sorrow, and especially when to this 
 can be added : " I am loved by a charming and honourable 
 man, who is at that time of life when men are most fastidious 
 and most difficult to please." That, vion ami, is w^orth say- 
 ing because it is marvellous. But for a man to draw vanity 
 from being loved by a wife when he is charming, and is con- 
 vinced and shown from mornmg till night and night till 
 morning that he is passionately loved — ah ! fie, that is so 
 common. Comte de C . . . says that and enjoys it; but 
 the truth is I do not think another being would wish to be a 
 third, or would demean herself to accept the surplus of that 
 great passion. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami ; I do not know why I talk to you of all
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 267 
 
 this. If I have fever it does not amount to delirium ; but I 
 find pleasure in talking with you, and I tell you all that 
 comes into my mind. Write me ; I need to be consoled and 
 sustained ; my soul and my body are in a deplorable state: 
 Mon ami, you are fourteen leagues away ; that is very far, 
 but it would be very near if — But adieu. 
 
 Thursday evening, October 19, 1775. 
 Mon ami, I should be overwhelmed by your reproaches if 
 my resolutions had not forestalled them. Yesterday I 
 blamed myself, I told you there was cruelty and baseness ui 
 making you suffer for a sorrow without resource. One must 
 live or die of it, but, above all, in silence. You have known 
 and felt unhappiness and passion enough to conceive the 
 excesses to which they both may lead. I detest them, I 
 abjure them, those excesses ; I would rather be dead than 
 affront you. Perhaps I foresaw this new misfortune when I 
 longed to qiut life and escape you. I felt that after my 
 cruel loss my soul could never recover itself ; in fact that I 
 ought nevermore to love, that I could not love again. The 
 principle of my life, the god that sustained me, that inspired 
 me, was no more. I was left alone in nature. Ah ! why did 
 you come there ? why did you seek me ? At that moment I 
 did not need consolation or support. Why did you say to 
 me words that my soul was accustomed to hear with trans- 
 port ? "Wliy did you take the language of him who had just 
 died for me ? ^^^ly, in short, did you beguile the reason of 
 one already confused by excess of sorrow ? It was for you 
 to judge, to foresee ; I could only moan and die. You see 
 now the horrible result of that thoughtlessness on your 
 part. No doubt at that moment you could not foresee 
 the sort of poison you were pouring into my soul ; but 
 you knew even then that you did not love me enough to
 
 268 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 make tlie consolation and peace of my life your first 
 interest. 
 
 Ah ! tliere is the source and the cause of all I suffer. My 
 soul in becoming culpable has lost its energy. 1 loved you : 
 and from that moment I became incapable of what is noble 
 and what is strong. I judge my conduct, mon ami ; I blame 
 it more than you ! When you pronounced my sentence, I 
 ouglit to have borne it, I ought to have torn myself from you, 
 or from life ; there is baseness in seeking to be ]>itied and 
 comforted by him who strikes us ; and that is so true that I 
 undergo, ceaselessly, an awful cc^mbat; my soul revolts 
 against your action, my heart is filled with tenderness for 
 you. You are lovable enough to justify that feeling ; but you 
 have so mortally affronted me that I must feel humiliated. 
 Mon ami, I have told you, often, that my situation is now 
 impossible to endure ; a catastrophe must come ; I know not 
 if it be nature or passion that will bring it about. Let us 
 •wait, and, above all, let us be silent. You have enough kind- 
 ness, enough delicacy to spare my feelings, and yet you 
 believe me, me, sufficiently cruel to wish to harass and alarm 
 yom'S ! Ah ! mon ami, if sorrow sometimes makes us selfish 
 it also makes us very delicate ; the sorrowful have usually a 
 tender touch ; they fear to wound ; they are warned by their 
 own pain. Yet you believe that now, when there barely 
 remains to me the strength to moan, I seek, I select the 
 expressions that will hurt you most ! You do not know me ; 
 if I could be deliberate with you, if I were not moved by 
 impulse, no doubt I could take more pains to avoid wound- 
 ing you ; but remember that — I love you. 
 
 That is my crime towards you. Ah ! 7non ami, lay your 
 hand upon your conscience, and I am very sure that, without 
 a great effort of generosity, you will pardon me. But, and 
 this I swear, I shall no longer need yom- wtue; I will
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 269 
 
 lift my soul to the point of not requiring your pardon. 
 Adieu. 
 
 Friday, midday, October 20, 1775. 
 I hasten to write as if you could read me the sooner. 
 Mon ami, you are crazy ! You intend to say harm of M. 
 Turgot to M. de Vaines ! and for me ! it is in my interest 
 that you make this blunder ! Oh ! what a bad head you 
 have, but what kindness ! how amiable you are ! You are 
 mistaken if you think that poverty, or the comforts that 
 come from money can do aught for my happiness, or increase 
 my unhappiness. It is not M. Turgot, nor ]\r. de Vaines, nor the 
 king, nor any power on earth who can calm my soul, or drive 
 away one heart-rending memory,. or put balm into my blood. 
 Alas ! to do that needs that you should love me : but it is easier 
 to you to solicit a minister, and hate him because he has the 
 honesty not to think of my fortunes. " It is not gold, my 
 friend, nor grandeurs that make us happy." [La Fontaine.] 
 That is more true for certain souls than I can express. I 
 have never known compensation for what I have desired : 
 passion is absolute ; tastes yield to circumstances. I have 
 never desired or loved but in one way ; in that I have been 
 more consistent than belongs to my sick brain ; I have never 
 repented for my manner of acting on the various occasions 
 which I have* had to enrich myself and increase, or to speak 
 more coiTectly, to acquire consideration — that, at least, 
 which fools distribute, and on which empty brains and 
 souls are fed. Good-bye, mon ami. I am expecting the 
 A^icomte de Saint-Chamans. I will continue after the ar- 
 rival of the post ; I hope, yes I believe, that I shall have 
 a letter from you. After seeing indifferent people all 
 day long, ymi will have gone home at night and said 
 to yourself, " I will do something to give pleasure to one 
 who loves me."
 
 270 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 Four o'clock, after the post. 
 
 No letter from you ! Would you know how just I am ? 
 I hated my other letters. What does all else matter when 
 soul and thought are lixed on a single point ? I can fully 
 conceive how Newton spent thirty consecutive years on one 
 thing, and the object which he had before him was not worth 
 mine. Mon ami, to love is the highest good. To be loved 
 by one whom we love is being too happy. There was a time 
 in my life — but my God ! how have I fallen ! 
 
 No letter from you ; it is my fault ; my letter through M. 
 de Vaines was sent too late. I wished to follow you wher- 
 ever you went, but you did not take pains to inform me. 
 Mon ami, I have read and re-read your letter of yesterday 
 three times running. What you say on the difference be- 
 tween intellect and genius is excellent and of great elo- 
 quence ; your comparison is genius. But I do not think 
 with you that to govern well requires men of passion. It 
 requires character and not passion ; intellect suffices, and it 
 is preferable in a monarchy, where uniform progress is neces- 
 sary, where welfare should be preferred to glory. It is 
 because I believe that neither passion nor genius is desirable 
 in a French minister that I think there is no man better 
 able to govern us than L. de T . . . [Lom^nie de Brienne, 
 Archbishop of Toulouse]. I answer for it that no soul is 
 more inaccessible to passions. Nor is it for energy alone 
 that we should praise him. He has character, many ideas, 
 great activity, and a facility, an amenity which smooths away 
 all difficulties. 
 
 Tliis is what I reply to what you say to me of M. Turgot: 
 he is like Lycurgus, and L. de T . . . is more like Cardinal 
 de Kichelieu, or rather Colbert, for he would not have the 
 force nor the atrocity of the cardinal. 
 
 Mon ami, you will receive this letter Saturday morning;
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 271 
 
 no doubt it will be the last, for I feel sure that you will 
 start Sunday. Here are my orders ; make a packet of my 
 letters, put my address upon them, and give them with your 
 own hand to M. de Vaines, who will countersign [frank] 
 for the post that precious deposit. I wish to know the hour 
 at which you leave Fontainebleau. Yes, I have an interest 
 in knowing; in what do we not have interest concerning 
 those we love ? I told you that I would complain no more, 
 and burden you no longer with the weight of my woes. But 
 remember that I cannot pledge myself to have a jjerfect, 
 equable conduct. That may come, perhaps ; indifference 
 may not always be impossible to my heart. 1 say, therefore, 
 that I will no longer make you suffer from my suffering ; but 
 understand that I shall be neither courageous enough nor 
 reasonable enough to pretend not to suffer when I feel my- 
 self torn with anguish. 
 
 Adieu, mon ami ; I seem to be parting from you for a very 
 long time, and this separation tries me more than when you 
 are here and can say adieu ; then there is but that instant 
 of life for me, I live with all my force in that one moment ; 
 but to-day it is not so ; I am sad, depressed, I am deprived 
 of you, of your letter, I see to-morrow, and after ! Ah ! the 
 future is very long. Adieu. 
 
 Tuesday evening, October 24, 1775. 
 The oracles ceased because they feared the echoes. My 
 last letter was written Wednesday after dinner; I judged 
 you would start Sunday or Monday ; I now imagine that you 
 will wait the aiTival of the Comte de Saint-Germain [just 
 appointed minister of war], who is expected Wednesday or 
 Thursday. He is a man of merit, a man by himself; he 
 has reached his position without intriguing ; if he makes 
 reforms and changes we may be sure that they are for the
 
 272 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 c:juntry's good. He will have the confidence of the military 
 because he is known to be well-trained and to have had a 
 wide experience. No one can make better use of your 
 talents ; he will give you active service. You ought to think 
 of yourself. Did you not tell me that he already felt a great 
 interest in you ? You must not turn your back to fortune. 
 
 I received your letters of Friday and Sunday ; they are 
 short, they are rare — But, mon ami, I do not complain ; 
 you have so many diverse interests ! and they give you so 
 many cares that I cannot see how you will suffice for all. 
 Do not repeat to me more than is necessary that I must 
 " try " to accept your situation. Mon ami, those words 
 / must try, when feelings or patience are concerned, are 
 meaningless and mere absurdities ; it is concerning be- 
 haviour, business, matters of interest, that one should try, 
 because all actions, all proceedings are then directed, or 
 should be directed, by reflection ; and it is silly and thought- 
 less to put ourselves in contradiction to its dictates and 
 interests. But as for me, I will " try," I will make an 
 eftbrt, and why ? what do I propose to myself ? what do I 
 wish ? — No, no, mon ami, I have missed the object of my 
 life ; life has no longer any interest for me. I shall keep 
 silence no doubt, but it will not be by " trying," it will be 
 from weighing, estimating, judging all things, and above all, 
 from seeing the end so near ; I will calm myself, if pos- 
 sible, during these last days of suffering. We can bear all 
 at the end of a journey ; I desire not to cost you a regret. 
 I have no need of tears after death. I ask you only the 
 indulgence and kindness shown to the sick and the unfortu- 
 nate. Adieu, mon ami; I passed a cruel night, coughing 
 frightfully. I have a little fever this evening, but I must 
 write a line to ]M. de Vaines. I shall send this letter through 
 him.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 273 
 
 Thursda}', midnight, October 26, 1775. 
 
 You are very lucky if you can breathe at ease ; as for me 
 it is impossible, and I cannot express what suffering it is — 
 but it is of you I wish to speak, mou ami. 
 
 I think you will do wrong to give up M. de Saint-Germain 
 at once. In the present hurh-burly he can see nothing ; 
 nothing will leave a trace upon him ; whereas if you were 
 here after the first moments are over he would draw you 
 nearer to him ; you could be useful to him in many ways. 
 That man falls from the clouds ; he will have a thousand 
 questions to ask, and he has enough experience not to ask 
 them at random. He has known you so long; you have 
 been " his son ; " he will not fear committing himself to a 
 young man he loves. I may be mistaken, but I regard these 
 first moments as all-important for you. Look at the matter, 
 mon ami; put no false generosity, no levity into your con- 
 duct. I tell you what I see. I know well that there is a 
 degree of interest that affects tlie sight ; but you are nearer 
 to yourself than even I am ; therefore distrust yourself. 
 
 You tell me nothing of your affairs ; what does that 
 show ? Are they ended as you wish, or have you put as 
 much negligence into them as Mar^chal de Duras puts 
 levity ? Oh ! what excellent negotiations ! — M. de Vaines 
 praises you to me, and in the best manner; it is his soul 
 that lauds you. I tell you this to prove to you that you did 
 not wound liim that day you spoke to him of me ; but I 
 will wound you seriously if you ever return to the charge. 
 Mon ami, the first rule in friendship is to serve our friends 
 in the way they wish, be it the most fantastic way in the 
 world ; we should have the delicacy to bend to their will 
 in all that is directly personal to themselves. That prin- 
 ciple laid down, my manner, my mania if you will, is to 
 be served by no one ; I value intentions as others value 
 
 18
 
 274 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 actions. Therefore do not employ your energy on me, turn 
 it to other objects ; for I repeat, you will offend me if ever 
 you concern yourself with my interests again. Reflect that 
 if I had so chosen I should not have remained jjoor; there- 
 fore poverty cannot he the greatest evil to me. Mon ami, 
 believe me ; I always speak the truth, and I know very well 
 what I want. 
 
 You have not told me about the theatres, nor a word of 
 what you are doing : you feel no need of conversing ; your 
 only need is to rush everywhere and see everything. I wish 
 God could give you his gift of omnipresence. As for me, I 
 should be in despair if I had that talent ; I am far from 
 wishing to be everywhere, for I long to be nowhere. Ah ! 
 mon Dieu! I wish I had Mme. de Muy's illusion; I think 
 that could give me happiness ; she is sure that she will see 
 M. de Muy again ; what a support to a desolate heart ! Four 
 years ago, just at this season, I was receiving two letters a 
 day from Fontainebleau. His absence was for ten days ; 
 I had twenty-two letters ; in the midst of the Court dissipa- 
 tions, he, being the object in vogue, the centre of fascination 
 to the handsomest women, he had but one purpose, one 
 pleasure : he desired to live in my thoughts ; he wished to 
 fill my life ; and I remember that during those ten days I 
 went out but once : I expected a letter, and I wrote one ! — 
 • Ah ! those memories kill me ! and yet I would fain live that 
 life again, and under conditions more cruel still. Mon ami, 
 if you see the depths of my soul, you must pity me ! But 
 do not tell me so ; it is courage that I need — oh, yes ! I 
 need it ; I suffer cruelly. 
 
 Tell me if you have news regularly fr«m Mme. de . . . 
 Have you done anything for that affair that interests her ? 
 You tell me nothing ; but you are so hurried ! Do you 
 intend to postpone your work on M. Dumesnil-Dm'and's
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 275 
 
 book ? M. de Saint-Germain may answer it perhaps in f om- 
 lines ; that would spare you much trouble, but it is not the 
 way to add to your reputation, and I should regret it for you. 
 
 The chevalier is about to have a play he has just written 
 acted ; he has shown it to no one ; that method served him for 
 " Agathe " and I hope it will answer in this instance. They 
 make and play comedies themselves [this plural refers to 
 Mme. de Gl^on, who is understood in speaking of the 
 Chevalier de Chastellux] ; they have constant scenes with 
 each other of a tearful character ; they torment each other 
 from morning till night : it is self-love on one side, complain- 
 ing; and on the other frantic vanity. I am sorely afraid 
 that with the talents they both have for comedy, and even for 
 tragedy, they may bring about a final scene in a play which 
 ought to end without notoriety. Ah ! how unhappy every- 
 body is ! 
 
 You see very well that I cannot write to you until your 
 departure, for I do not know when that will be, and I do not 
 want a letter to be left there after you are gone. Adieu ; I 
 love you wherever I am, but not wherever you are. What is 
 to be the " tinal scene " for us ? 
 
 Wednesday, November 8, 1775. 
 
 My letters miss you, and my presence is not necessary to 
 you. You have spent five days in Paris reproaching me, and 
 yourself too, every moment that you were here. You were 
 two weeks at Fontainebleau ; and there was not a single 
 day when you could not have found opportunity to come and 
 return. You knew that I was ill ; you knew your share in 
 my illness, and you wrote, as if to crown me with joy and 
 gratitude, that if you " could come to Paris I should be the 
 sole object of your journey." You did not take that journey, 
 and now you dare to say that it was because I have gi'own 
 so hard to satisfy and so unjust. Oh ! how you weigh
 
 276 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 upon my heart when you try to prove to me that it ought to 
 be content with yours ! I will never complain, but you 
 force me to cry out, so sharp and deep is the hurt you give 
 me. Mon ami, I have been loved, I am loved still, and I die 
 from regret that it is not by you. — But are we ever loved 
 by what we love ? do justice and reflection ever enter into 
 a sentiment so involuntary and so arbitrary ? 
 
 I have languished since your departure ; I have not had 
 an hour without suffering ; the ills of my soul have passed 
 to my body ; I have fever daily, and my physician, who is 
 not the most skilful of men, repeats to me perpetually that 
 I am consumed by grief, that my pulse and my respiration 
 show an active evil, and then he departs saying, " We have 
 no remedies for the soul." There are none for me ; it 
 is not to be cured that I desire, but to be calmed, to recover 
 some moments of repose which will lead me to that which 
 nature will soon grant me. That one thought is all which 
 rests me ; I have no longer strength to love ; my soul wearies 
 me, tortures me ; nothing sustains me now ; desire and hope 
 are dead within me ; the weaker I grow, the more obsessed 
 I am by one sole thought. No doubt I do not love you 
 better than I have loved you, but I can love nothing else; 
 the ills of the body bring me forever back to my one point. 
 There is no escape, no diversion ; the long nights, the loss of 
 sleep have made my love a sort of madness ; it has become a 
 fixed idea, and I know not how I have escaped a score of 
 times from uttering wot-ds that would have told the secret of 
 my life and of my heart. Sometimes, in society, tears over- 
 take me, and I am forced to fly. 
 
 Alas ! — in picturing this madness I do not seek to touch 
 you, for I believe that you will never read these words. Be- 
 sides, in the state in which I am what have I to claim, or to 
 fear, from you ? It suffices me to think you honest, and to
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 277 
 
 be very sure of all your actions to the end. There are situa- 
 tions which compel even the hardest and most insensible of 
 souls : all who surround me seem more eager for me ; seeing 
 the eternal separation so near, they gather to me. I cannot 
 praise enough the attentions and interest of my friends ; they 
 do not console me, but it is certain that they put a sweetness 
 into my life. I love them, and I would I loved them more. 
 Adieu. I succumb to all these painful thoughts; but stiU, 
 in pouring out my soul I comfort it a little. 
 
 Thursday, eleven at night, November 19, 1775. 
 . Mon ami, I wrote you four pages yesterday; but never 
 can I "end my day without saying the words, " I love you." I 
 have just seen the person in the world by whom I am most 
 beloved, and that has made me feel, more and more, the 
 point to which I love you. Had I heard you annoimced 
 unexpectedly, after three months' absence, how I shoidd have 
 quivered from head to foot ! how I should not have known a 
 word I said, or what was said to me ! Mon ami, one must 
 love to know all that Nature has granted of good and of 
 pleasure to man. It is sweet no doubt to be loved ; but 
 where is the happiness ? for to judge, to appreciate the affec- 
 tion of an excellent man, to respond with kindness to his 
 involuntary emotions, to see alternately sadness and vexa- 
 tion on the face of one all filled with a desire for our 
 happiness — oh ! if that flatters the vanity of silly women, it 
 afflicts an honourable and sensitive soul. 
 
 Mon ami, do you suffer at not hearing from me ? has it 
 made a void in your life ? Are you so occupied, so intoxi- 
 cated that you do not feel in turn an active need and a gi'eat 
 languor ? Am I very near to your thought when I am near 
 you in person ? Ah ! mon ami, these questions picture to 
 you a very feeble part of what I feel \ I die of sadness. My
 
 278 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 friends thiuk me affected by my sorrows. I felt this evening 
 the kindness of M. d'Anlezy and M. de Schomberg; they 
 reassured me as to my Imigs ; my cough distressed them, but 
 they consoled me. Excellent men ! they did not know all I 
 suffer. But I do not deserve to be pitied, even by you : for 
 see the excess of my madness ; I feel that I love you beyond 
 the forces of my soul and body ; I feel that 1 am dying be- 
 cause I have no communication with you ; that privation is 
 the most cruel of all punishments to me. I count the days, 
 the hours, the minutes ; my head wanders ; I W9,nt the im- 
 possible ; I want news of you on the days when there is no 
 courier — in short, what shall I say ? I love you to madness. 
 After that, comprehend me if you can. — I do not send you 
 my letters ; I should shock you, I should irritate you, if only 
 by contradiction ; more than that, if by some chance you 
 were forced to stay in the place where you now are, six 
 months, a year, or all your days, I think I can answer for 
 it that you woidd never hear again from me ! Conceive from 
 this the horror that accursed letter caused me, dated from that 
 place which paints itself to me in a manner more horrible 
 than hell was ever painted to Saint Theresa and the most 
 frenzied brains. No argument on earth could overcome so 
 fatal an impression ; I shudder still, remembering that date 
 and the few short lines that followed it. Oh, heaven ! what 
 had you become ? had you absolutely ceased to be conscious 
 of my woe ? Adieu ; that thought blights my heart. 
 
 After the post hour, November 10, 1775. 
 No, the effects of passion, or of reason (for I know not which 
 inspires me at this moment) are inconceivable. After await- 
 ing the postman with the need, the agitation that makes 
 waiting the greatest torture, I was ill of it physically ; my 
 cough and the spasms in my head lasted five or six hours.
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 279 
 
 Well ! after that violent state, which is not susceptible of 
 either distraction or relief, the postman came ; I had letters, 
 there were none from you. A \dolent internal and external 
 convulsion seized me, and then, I know not what happened 
 to me, but I felt calmed ; it seemed to me that I felt a sort 
 of comfort in finding you more indifferent and colder than 
 you have ever thought me passionate. By proving that I am 
 nothing to you I believe you make it easier for me to detach 
 myself from you. It is so proved to me that you can only 
 make the misery of all the moments of my life that what- 
 ever gives me strength to separate myself and keep apart 
 from you has become the greatest comfort I can feel. And 
 here I am, wishing that you may be kept, by inclination or 
 by force, in the place where you now are ; }'our absence 
 ceases to be an ill to me ; it is repose. Adieu. 
 
 Monday, November 13, 1776. 
 Mon ami, how amiable you are and how you justify the 
 excess of my passion and my unhappiness. Yes, I believe 
 that what I have suffered, what I await, nothing could have 
 had the power to prevent me, to protect me, from loving you. 
 There are things that make me believe in fatality : I was to 
 live to see you again, and then die of it. But, / have loved 
 yon ; I complain no more. Leave me to bear my fate; and 
 keep 3'ourself from crowning all my sorrows by making me 
 love life at the moment I must quit it, or rather when I feel 
 it escaping me. Alas ! mon ami, in pity, in kindness, let 
 me think that death will deliver me from a burden that over- 
 whelms me. Let me pause and rest my thought on that 
 long desired, long expected moment which I feel with a sort 
 of transport is now approaching me. But yesterday, when I 
 saw you, when I listened to you, I thought with tender 
 emotion that soon I must bid you adieu forever. I felt my
 
 280 Liyn'EKS of [1775 
 
 pulse, as it were; 1 tried to think that 1 was not so ill; I 
 regretted to feel there was no hope. My tenderness for you 
 so filled my soul that it would not allow me to have a wish 
 that liad for its object to part from you. Oh ! under that 
 dreadful aspect death is indeed an evil, a great evil. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! you will never know the heart-rending an- 
 guish, the species of death and agony in which I have spent 
 the last three weeks. It is not the loss of my strength, my 
 emaciation, the excessive change in me that are surprising. 
 What is inconceivable is that my life has resisted this 
 agony. — But you are here : I find you again, so full of kind- 
 ness and sensibility ; you have calmed my soul, you have put 
 balm into my blood. It was less painful to me to suffer last 
 night ; I could not sleep, I had fever, I coughed ; but I was, 
 truly, not unhappy, for my soul was occupied by you in a 
 sweet and tender way. I thought that I would write to you, 
 and I dared not hope for a letter, yet it did ntjt seem to me 
 impossible. Judge, therefore, the feeling of happiness that 
 came over me when on entering my room they said to me, 
 " From M. de Guibert." Mon ami, those words strengthened 
 me for my whole day. I do not fear the fever, having your 
 letter ; the remedy has more power over me than the dis- 
 ease. — Only, I must drive from my mind this thought that 
 returns unceasingly : " He arrived in Paris Saturday at five 
 o'clock, and he waited till Sunday at one o'clock to know if 
 I were dead, or ill, or sorrowful." Ah ! mon ami, you forgot 
 that I loved you ; do you no longer know how I love with 
 all the faculties of my soul, my mind, with the air I breathe ? 
 / love to live, and I live to love. 
 
 I am full of eagerness to know what M. de Saint-Germain 
 has said to you. I have thought again over his letter; it is 
 good, very good ; and I do not doubt that you will be satis- 
 fied with the way in which he treats you. If I am not to
 
 1775] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 281 
 
 see you to-morrow (Tuesday) morning, write me a line, for I 
 do not think you will come again this evening. If you do 
 not come in the morning and cannot give me your evening, 
 I shall be alone frum four to half-past five ; so there are 
 three ways to see me. with freedom. Take one of them, mon 
 ami, for I have need to see you. Good-bye. You see I am 
 giving myself compensations. Good God! what I suffered 
 in being forced to silence. Mon ami, do you believe that 
 there is or could be any one in the world more keenly con- 
 scious of all your charm, more profoundly absorbed in you 
 than I ? Do you believe that there is a degree of tenderness 
 and passion beyond that which inspires me ? the beatings of 
 my heart, the throbs of my pulse, my breathing, all that is 
 the effect of passion. This is more marked, more evident 
 than ever — not that it is stronger; but it gleams as it 
 vanishes, like the light that flashes up before it is ex- 
 tinguished. 
 
 Midnight, Saturday, December 30, 1775. 
 
 Mon ami, you did not wait for me, did you ? You have 
 not had time to think of me ; there would therefore be 
 awkwardness and folly in reproaching myself and in making 
 excuses to you. 
 
 But the truth is that, with the will and the desire to write 
 to you, I could not do so. From four o'clock until this in- 
 stant I have not been one minute alone. Besides, what have 
 I to say, mon ami, when you ask me to tell you of myself ? 
 With two words I can always express my physical and 
 moral condition : / love, I suffer ; and that is the order of 
 things for a long time past. Yes, I have suffered much ; I 
 have had fever. I have it now, and I feel that my night 
 will be detestable ; I am dying of thirst, and my chest and 
 stomach are burning ; this is my bad night ; my day has been 
 more tolerable.
 
 282 LETTERS OF [1775 
 
 There has been such good company, such good conversa- 
 tion in my room that I wished for you : as for myself, the 
 good, bad, and indifferent add nothing to the need I always 
 have of seeing you ; it is the need of my soul, just as the need 
 to breathe is the want of my lungs. Mon Dieu ! how I 
 wish I could moderate or even extinguish that need ! it is too 
 active for my feeble body ; and it has become more necessary 
 than ever that I should accustom myself to see you seldom. 
 All things separate us, mon ami, and all things are drawing 
 me nearer to him who was born three hundred leagues away 
 from me. Alas ! he was inspired by that which can do the 
 impossible. But I do not complain ; you grant me enough ; we 
 are always too rich when about to move, or to lose all. 
 
 Well, mon ami, have you carried out your plans ? have 
 you worked hard ? I do not believe it. This is what you 
 have done : dinner ; after dinner, talk ; at five o'clock went to 
 the Temple [the house of the Prince de Conti, grand prior 
 of France] , where you read the changes in the " Conndtable." 
 Of course they praised it to the skies, and with that gentle 
 eloquence the hours flew by. You came home shortly be- 
 fore nine o'clock ; it was then very comfortable to vegetate 
 in your family and to be adored till half-past eleven or mid- 
 night. Here I employ the art of the painter of Agamemnon 
 and say no more. Good-night. I do not know what hour 
 you destine for me to-morrow ; though you said it was the 
 evening, so many things pass through your head that your 
 plans should never be regarded as engagements. In short, 
 mon ami, give me what you can. But do not come at four 
 o'clock : T have told a person to come then, as I felt sure you 
 would not choose that hour. I reproach myself for detain- 
 ing you so long ; you are as much surrounded as a minister. 
 I beg of you to gather up the letters that you have of mine 
 and bring them back to me.
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 283 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night, 1776. 
 
 I have been thinking that if you are not happy, very 
 happy, happiness cannot exist, that there is no such thing 
 on earth ; for you are made expressly to enjoy much and 
 suffer little. Everything serves you for this, — your defects, 
 your good qualities, your sensibility, your levity. You have 
 tastes and no passions ; you have soul and no character. 
 It seems to me that Nature studied to make in you the 
 most accurate combinations which could render a man both 
 happy and agreeable. You will ask me the occasion of 
 these remarks. Ah ! if you cannot find it for yourself, be- 
 lieve that I am rambling incoherently — which would be 
 quite true ninety -nine times in a hundred. I did not ex- 
 pect you this evening, but I tore myself away with difficulty 
 to go with Comte d'Anl^zy to pass an hour with M. de Saint- 
 Chamans, whose state again makes me uneasy. 
 
 When shall I see you ? and how long shall I see you ? 
 My life is so short, our ties are so fragile — ah ! Mon Dieu ! 
 I thought them broken. There is nothing solid between us, 
 nothing well-foimded but sorrow ; you signed the warrant 
 by the sacrifice of yom- liberty and my peace for the little 
 time I have to live. Adieu ; tell yourself that, inasmuch as 
 you have condemned me, you owe me nothing ; be cruel if 
 you can. Give me the coup de grQce, that I may bless and 
 treasure you still. 
 
 My letters, mon ami. 
 
 I have not received the papers which Mme. Geoffrin is 
 awaiting impatiently ; return them to me at once. I en- 
 treat you. 
 
 Five o'clock in the morning, 1776. 
 
 I cannot sleep ; my stomach, my head, my soul, keep me 
 awake and torture me. To charm away my ills I want to 
 talk to you. You see, man ami, that I cannot — I cannot.
 
 284 LETTERS OF [1776 
 
 go to dine with M. Boutin. I sent you word that I had 
 written to excuse myself ; and, in truth, it would be beyond 
 my strength. Excepting you, I could not listen or speak to 
 any one. I have been so u])set, 1 am still in such anxiety, 
 that I can be at ease with no oue but that distressed family ; 
 I suffer and feel with them. Mon ami, my heart is full of 
 tears, and tliose I shed have not only M. de Saint-Chamans 
 for their object. Ah ! how close you are to all that moves 
 my soul ! it is you, always you, under whatever form and in 
 whatever manner I express a painful sentiment. My regrets, 
 my fears, my remorse, — all is filled with you ; how could it 
 not be so ? I exist by you and for you only. 
 
 Ah ! nion Dieu ! you say that I reject and repulse all that 
 you do for me. Explain, then, what it is that fastens me, 
 that chains me to this life of sorrow that I ought to have 
 quitted when I lost him who had made me know the value 
 of life and made me cherish it. AVho held me back ? who 
 holds me still and rends my heart ? You know as well as 
 I do whether I love you ; you know that when I say I hate 
 I only prove how much I love you ; my silence, my cold- 
 ness, my unkindness are to you a proof that no stronger, 
 tenderer passion can exist in all the world. My God ! how 
 I have fought it ! how I have abhorred it ! yet it has 
 always been more powerful than my reason or my will. 
 
 Mon ami, send an excuse at once to M. Boutin. Keep 
 me your good-will for to-morrow, Wednesday, at Mme. 
 Geoffrin's. I hope I may be able to go if we have news 
 to-day. I received your letter from Versailles on coming 
 home; it came at midnight. I have not told you rightly 
 how touched I am by that compassionate kindness. Good- 
 morning — or good-night ; my night is just beginning. It is 
 far sweeter to talk with you than to sleep ; but in order to 
 love you, to suffer a little longer, I must have sleep ; for
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 285 
 
 to love, one must live ; and it is very certain that I live but 
 to love you. Adieu, kindest and most cherished of all created 
 beings. That is forgiving — but forgetting ! ah ! mon ami. 
 
 Six o'clock in the morning, 1776. 
 
 I cannot say that my first thought is for you ; for I have 
 not yet slept : but my thought is full of you, and I want to 
 tell you that 1 love you, before a few moments' sleep takes 
 from me the joy of feeling it. Mon ami, I came to bed 
 very sad ; I had expected you, and that hope animated and 
 sustained my soul. When the hour for hope had passed, ah ! 
 I fell very low ; for my body is so weakened. Persons were 
 all around me, but I could not have been more alone in a 
 desert. " Ah ! mon Dieu!" I said to mj-self as I heard the 
 names announced, " all whom I do not await, all whom I do 
 not desire are punctual, assiduous." It is dreadful to live 
 to one point, to have but one object, one desire, one thought. 
 Mon ami, that is certainly not a remedy for fever ; neverthe- 
 less, my fever has been far less high than it was the previous 
 night; I had neither thirst nor heat nor a species of delirium. 
 Can you imagine that I was unable to fix my mind on you ? 
 my feeling for you escaped me like all the rest ; and this 
 failure of power over my thought increased my agitation. 
 At present I am more tranquil ; I suffer, but in a way that 
 is bearable. 
 
 Are you in Paris, mon ami ? Shall I see you to-day ? I 
 wish you the best, the highest fortune ; still, it is sad to be 
 attached to one from whom all things part us. If M. de 
 Saint-Germain employs you, you will be constantly at Ver- 
 sailles ; and then a wife, a family, tastes, dissipations ! Ah ! 
 mon ami, I complain of nothing, but tell me, in good 
 faith, could I live in the midst of all that ? What you 
 could do for me would cost you much, and what you could
 
 286 LETTERS OP [1776 
 
 not do would torture me. Better say and do like the wife 
 of Paetus : " I weep not, but I die." I do not know if this 
 is fever, but for a long time past my head is exhausted, and, 
 weary with weeping, I have no tears ; that relief is no 
 longer at the call of my sorrow. — But, mun ami, it is of 
 you I want to speak. You must have arrived in Paris very 
 late ; for surely I should have heard of you to-day if you 
 arrived at five o'clock. No matter ; I love you. 
 
 Midday, March, 1776. 
 
 I do not understand what this means. Apropos of my 
 landlord you say, " I never knew any one so difficult." In 
 what ? why ? I do not understand. But inasmuch as you 
 are kind enough to make this lease for me, I would rather 
 it were not done on a Friday. That day, that word still 
 makes me tremble with horror. If it is all the same to you, 
 choose Saturday ; or else, I will not sign till Saturday. For- 
 give this trouble. 
 
 No, I do not send for you any longer ; I do not urge you 
 to give me your time. It seems to me that it is forcing 
 nature to seek to bring you nearer. By the nature of things, 
 by circumstances, by our tastes, by our ages, we are too 
 separated to be able to come nearer to each other now. 
 We must therefore submit to that which has more power 
 than will or even liking, namely : necessity. You are mar- 
 ried ; your first duty, your chief care, and your greatest 
 pleasures are there ; follow that course therefore ; and reflect 
 that whatever you might subtract from it could not satisfy a 
 sensitive soul. The weakness and exhaustion of my whole 
 being make me avoid the convulsions of passion ; I want 
 repose, I want to breathe, I want to try what the truest 
 feelings, the tenderest friendship can do for the consolation 
 of a being sunk in sorrow and misfortune for so many years
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 28? 
 
 Oh ! leave me ; give yourself up to your tastes, your duties, 
 your work ; surely that is enough to fill your life. 
 
 No, do not come this evening ; you have a pleasure and re- 
 laxation beside you which are much more efficacious than those 
 you seek with me ; besides, I stayed at home last evening, 
 and I do not wish to go two days without seeing Mme. de 
 Saint-Chamans, who is ill. To-moiTOw, if you like, I will see 
 you. I dine with the Neapolitan ambassador, and shall not 
 go out in the evening. To-day I dine with Mme. Geoffrin. 
 Adieu. Of all whom I know, of all whom 1 love, of all who 
 love me, you are the one T see least. I do not complain ; I 
 tell myself it could not be otherwise ; and I hasten to turn 
 away my thoughts from that which I cannot change. 
 
 Midnight, 1776. 
 
 Oh ! you are all ice, you happy people ! Men of the world, 
 your souls are shut to keen and deep impressions. I am 
 ready to thank Heaven for the ills that overwhelm me, and 
 of which I die, because they have left me the twofold sensi- 
 bility and the deep passion which make me comprehending 
 of all that suffers, all that knows sorrow, all that is tortured 
 by the joy and the misery of loving. Yes, mon ami, you 
 are more fortunate than I, but I have more pleasure than 
 you. 
 
 I have just finished the first volume of the " Paysan Per- 
 verti." That final page did not delight you ! you felt no 
 need to speak to me about it, to read it to me ! soul of ice ! 
 It is happiness, it is heaven's own language. And Manon's 
 death, and her passion, her remorse, and those dolorous and 
 passionate words that she employs ! All ! we passed a whole 
 evening together, the book was there, 3'ou had read it, and 
 you never said one word of it to me ! Mon ami, there is a 
 little corner of your soul, and a large part of your conduct
 
 288 LETTERS OF [1776 
 
 which might cause, without injustice or folly, a comparison 
 which you would not like. Yes, there is a little of Edmond 
 in your make-up ; you do not resemble him iii the full face, 
 but a little in profile. Mon ami, this book, this bad book, 
 so wanting in taste, in delicacy, in good sense even, — this 
 book, unless I am much mistaken, is made with a portion of 
 the passion and warmth which inspired SaLut-Preux and 
 Julie. Oh ! there are delightful sayings ! if Ihey are not 
 the last sparkles of thy genius, Jean-Jacques, if they are not 
 the ashes, half -extinguished, of the passion that fired thy 
 soul, read, 1 conjure tliee, this book, and tliy heart will be 
 stirred to interest in its author, who has, it is true, so ill- 
 conceived and ill-arranged his work, but who is certainly 
 capable of writing a better [R^tif de La Bretonne]. Yes, I 
 punish yo\x,mon ami, I put that task upon you also ; but you 
 will get out of it, as usual, by not reading the book. That 
 is what Edmond woidd have done, and he was less occupied 
 than you, Mon ami, here is the title, or rather the headings 
 of a letter I should have written had I been Pierre the 
 editor : " Edmond to Manon. How is it possible to apply 
 the same feelings to so many different objects ? — The 
 world is a dangerous abode for whosoever has a heart 
 like Edmond's." 
 
 You will please return my book and my letters. You tell 
 me that you have been more dissipated than occupied this 
 afternoon, — opera, visits, attentions, manners, frivolity of 
 people in society, talent, genius, the necessity for winning 
 credit ! Oh ! the amazing contrast ! and what a dreadful 
 misfortune to see so closely a man even more seductive 
 than he is lovable. Mon ami, I cough enough to frighten all 
 around me, and I can no more. Truly, you ought to love 
 me; you have but a moment. I feel that. 
 
 A box with four places for women ; three tickets to the
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 289 
 
 parquet; think about it and do not neglect an attention 
 which will oblige one you love. 
 
 I shall not go out ; I have fever, and my cough is continued. 
 
 Six in the evening, 1776. 
 
 I would, mon ami, that during the few days I have to live, 
 you should not pass a single one without remembering that 
 you are loved to madness by the most unhappy of human 
 beings. Yes, mon ami, I love you. I will that that sad 
 truth pursue you, that it trouble your happiness ; I will that 
 the poison which forbids my life, which consumes it, and will 
 no doubt end it, shall put into your soul a sorrowful sensi- 
 bility which may incline you to regret one who loved you 
 with tenderness and passion. Adieu, mon ami, do not love 
 me ; for that is contrary to your duty and against your will ; 
 but suffer me to love you, and let me say it and resay it to 
 you a hundred times, a thousand times, but never with ex- 
 pressions that answer to what I feel. 
 
 Mon ami, come and dine to-morrow with Mme. Geoffrin. 
 I have so little time to live that nothing you can do for me 
 could have consequences in the future. The future ! how I 
 pity those who await it, if they love you. Adieu ; I have 
 company in my room. Ah, how irksome it is to live in 
 society when one has but one thought. 
 
 Half-past nine o'clock, 1776. 
 
 I know it well ; you write me charming notes, but you 
 leave me to die. I am cold, so cold that my thermometer is 
 twenty degrees lower than that of Edaumur. This concen- 
 trated cold, this state of perpetual torture, throw me into 
 such deep discouragement that I have no strength to desire a 
 better condition. In fact, what is there to desne ? That 
 which remains for me to feel is worth no more than what I 
 have already felt. Ah, yes ! let me cease to be ! I do not
 
 290 LETTERS OF [1776 
 
 repulse your pity, or your generosity. I should feel I did 
 you harm in refusing them ; keep the illusion that you are 
 able to comfort me. 
 
 1776. 
 
 I am chilled, I tremble, I die of cold, I am bathed in 
 sweat. You revive that part of me which suffers most ; my 
 heart is cold, and wrung, and agonized ; I might say, like that 
 mad soul in Bedlam, " It suffers so that it will burst." — 
 Mon ami ! it seems to me a century has passed since yes- 
 terday; I fear I may not reach this evening; then I shall 
 see you, and my pain will lessen. My God ! I have not 
 strength enough to bear my soul, it kills me. Good-day, mon 
 ami ; I love you better and more than you have ever loved. 
 Yes, I suffer, I cough, but I shall see you. You will be 
 active enough between now and this evening ; and I, I shall 
 have but one thought, making me repeat incessantly, " Ah ! 
 for the sad how slow the hours fly." 
 
 Mon ami, see if you can dine with me to-morrow or Mon- 
 day at the Comte de C . . .'s. Choose your day; I would 
 rather it were Monday, but you shall decide. 
 
 One o'clock, 1776. 
 
 If any kindness remains in you, ah ! pity me ; I cannot 
 
 answer you, I know nothing more ; body and soul are both 
 
 annihilated. That lease ? break it ; bind me ; do what you 
 
 will ; all is to me beyond indifference. Ah ! my God ! I 
 
 know myself no more. 
 
 1776. 
 
 You are mistaken ; it is not I who am necessary to you ; 
 but no matter as you wish it I will expect you and pass the 
 evening with you. But it is, in truth, sacrificmg my rest to 
 you ; I regret it, because it is doing nothing for your happiness. 
 There are two sorts of things in nature which cannot tolerate
 
 1776'j MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 291 
 
 mediocrity, and you lead me to that quality which I detest 
 and for which my soul was never made. Oh, heaven ' why 
 did I ever know you ? I should never have felt remorse, 
 and I should not now be living. And see with what you 
 fill my life and my soul ! I make you no reproaches, but I 
 express the keen regret I feel for the terrible mistake into 
 which I fell. 
 
 Bring back to me the letter of the Comtesse de Boufflers. 
 M. de Yaines will not come this evening; he stayed yester- 
 day till eleven o'clock ; he charged me to remind you of 
 Monday, because he did not know where you were lodging. 
 
 1776. 
 
 I send away M. de La Eochefoucauld that I may answer 
 you. Your kindness, this active interest touches me deeply ; 
 but, mon ami, if the feeling that you have for me is painful 
 to you and sorrowful, I must wish to see it chilled ; for it 
 would be dreadful to see you suffer. Ah ! we ought both to 
 have the same regret ; the day we met was a fatal day ; 
 why did I not die before it dawned ? — My day has been 
 filled with pain and, what is quite extraordinary, with a 
 depression that I did not think could be allied with active 
 suffering. 
 
 What sad pleasure I had in again seeing Mme. Geoffrin ! 
 it did me harm ; I saw that her end was nearer than even 
 mine. I have never been able to master tears ; they con- 
 quered me before her, and I was grieved. Ah ! my bonds 
 are too strong, they are fastened too directly to my heart ; 
 it seems as though I ought to have but one regret, one 
 sorrow, and yet I often find my soul all living with affections 
 and with interests that rend it. If you continue to grieve 
 over my troubles you will make me feel the duration of 
 them intolerable. I know you well, mon ami ; my death will
 
 292 LETTERS OF [1776 
 
 be a trouble for you ; but the rapidity of your ideas assures 
 me that you are forever sheltered from great sorrows. Ah ! 
 so much the better ; I 1 dess God for it. 
 
 Eleven o'clock, 1776. 
 
 Why do you suppose that I am prompted by a dreadful 
 sentiment ? See better. Should I have strength for it, even 
 if I had the inclination ? and besides, there would be a lack 
 of delicacy in showing resentment now, when I have reached 
 a point where I have no longer need of defence or ven- 
 geance. Man ami, I am dying ; that fills all, and it settles 
 all. But do you know what must be done for that frightful 
 feeling you suppose me to have ? — a sedative for your feel- 
 ings, to which my danger has given a moment's vigour. You 
 must chill yourself, harden yourself, and flee the unhappy 
 being who sheds around her only sadness and fear ; you must 
 bring yourself to a state of mind in which, when the event 
 happens, you will feel no further ill-effects. This is what 
 my generosity and my interest in your peace of mind lead 
 me to counsel you, aud I do it from the bottom of my soul. 
 Do not oppose me on the moral side. Moii ami, you owe 
 nothing to one who has renounced all ; all compact, all bond 
 between us, everything is broken. You surely see it ; my 
 soul is now impenetrable to consolation ; scarcely do I dare 
 to hope for a few moments' respite from my physical ills. I 
 think them as incurable as those of my heart. 
 
 I have yielded to friendship in seeing Bordeu [physician, 
 friend of d'Alembert]. Before long the same friendship will 
 groan at the uselessness of that succour. Good-night ; I 
 suffer much; I wish that you may never have to say the 
 same. 
 
 Half-past ten o'clock, 1776. 
 
 I could neither read, nor write, nor dictate at eight o'clock 
 when I received your note ; I was in a paroxysm of cough-
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 293 
 
 ing and pain which did not allow me to open the letter till 
 an hour later. This morning my pains became so severe 
 that I was threatened with inflammation. I tried all 
 remedies to obtain relief; and in such a crisis you see, of 
 course, that my door was closed necessarily. The Arch- 
 bishop of Aix and two other persons came before you did. 
 Why should I exclude you ? — because you did not see me 
 yesterday ? Such thoughts, such emotions only come when 
 we believe ourselves loved, and above all when we expect 
 pleasure ; but now, in my state, there can be none. I long 
 only for relief. 
 
 Do not come to-morrow morning ; my door will be closed 
 without exception till four o'clock. I am no longer mistress 
 of my ills ; they have takerr possession of me, and I yield 
 to them. Do not think that I have no desire to see you ; 
 but I grieve for the melancholy manner in which you would 
 have to pass your evening with me ; whereas at home you 
 are surrounded with all sorts of pleasure. No sacrifices, 
 mon ami ; the sick repulse such efforts — although so few are 
 made for them ! 
 
 1776. 
 
 Friendship does miracles. Here is the matter : the 
 Vicomte de Chamans has asked for a furlough ; if he does 
 not obtain it and is not able to go to Monaco, he is a lost 
 man. He has the fatal experience of the last two winters. 
 I do not say to you, " Ask for his furlough," because that 
 may not be the best thing to do. But speak of his bad 
 health, of the danger he is running, especially in an air that 
 is deadly to him. In short, mon ami, plead for his life ; it 
 will be averting from the remainder of mine one of the 
 deepest sorrows I can henceforth feel. Ask Baron d'Holbach 
 to unite his efforts with yours, and tell the effect of the sea 
 (which he has seen) on this unfortunate young man.
 
 294 LETTERS OF [!776 
 
 1 am awaiting news of you, because you promised them to 
 me ; though I thhik it much sweeter and more natural to 
 talk with her who has consecrated her life to you than with 
 me who am about to part with mine. Ah ! I can no more 
 — and that is true. Good-night. 
 
 1776. 
 
 Yesterday I was lost in the void ; that degree of depres- 
 sion resembles death, Init, uiilia])i)ily, it is not death. At six 
 o'clock I thought you might perhaps be very near to me, but 
 even so, you may have been far away in thought, for persons 
 in the same room are often little together. Mon ami, do not 
 come at ten o'clock at night ; come earlier. Do you know 
 what inures me a little to your hardships ? it is that M. de 
 Condorcet, who goes on foot to 'Nogent every week, tells me 
 that those walks have strengthened him perceptibly. His 
 walk is four leagues long ; I ■ think your street is too far 
 off; you ought to come in a carriage and dismiss it at my 
 door. 
 
 As a favour bring me this evening your journey to Prussia 
 and Vienna. Yes, I want it just as it is ; if you say no, we 
 shall quarrel. 
 
 Monday, ten o'clock in the morning, 1776. 
 
 Man ami, you have seen me very weak, very unliappy. 
 Usually your presence suspends my ills, and arrests my tears. 
 To-day I succumb, and I know not which, my soul or my 
 body, gives me the most pain. This condition is so deep- 
 seated that I have just refused the comforts of friendship ; I 
 prefer to be alone, and talk with you a moment before I go 
 to bed, to the sweetness and sadness of complaining and oblig- 
 ing others to share my pain. 
 
 I have just remembered that you told me you liked to stay 
 at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Your kindness made 
 you forget it, and now I give you back your promise. 3Ion
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 295 
 
 ami, never did I less desire that you should make sacrifices 
 to me. Alas ! you see yourself if I am in a condition to en- 
 joy ; I can only cry to you, " Do not reopen my wound." 
 All my desires are limited to that. 
 
 It seems to me that, if you were willing, yom- trips to 
 Versailles might be less frequent. — Mon ami, if you come 
 to me to-morrow, bring me the rest of your " Journey," and 
 my blue pamphlet ; if you have the latter at hand give it 
 to my servant. — Mon ami, have you sent my note to the 
 landlord of this house ? How often I regret the trouble 
 which I gave you about this lodging. Adieu. I have not, 
 truly, the strength to hold my pen ; all my faculties are em- 
 ployed in suffering. Ah ! I have reached the end of life, 
 where it is almost as painful to die as to live ; I fear pain 
 too much; the troubles of my soul have exhausted all my 
 strength. Mon ami, sustain me ; but do not suffer ; for that 
 would become my keenest pain. I repeat to 3-ou heartily, 
 sincerely, do not take to-morrow evening from your family ; 
 to-morrow is Tuesday. 
 
 1776. 
 
 How like you that is ! so beyond all measure ; sending 
 twice in one night ! Ah ! best of men ! — Yes, calm your- 
 self ; I repeat, you will increase my ills ; your grief does me 
 harm, much harm. I have just taken sedatives ; I am not 
 yet relieved. I am in my bed, and I shall think much of 
 the sorrow you are feeling. — Do not come before midday. 
 Adieu, 
 
 Four o'clock, 1776. 
 
 You are too kind, too amiable, mon ami. You are seeking 
 to revive, to sustain a soul which succumbs at last beneath 
 the weight and duration of its suffering. I know all tlie 
 value of your feeling, though I do not any longer seek it. 
 There was a time when to be loved by you would have left
 
 296 LETTERS OF [1776 
 
 me nothing to desire, or, at least, would have softened all 
 bitterness ; I should have wished to live. To-day I wish 
 only to die. There is no compensation, no alleviation for the 
 loss that I have met with ; I ought not to have survived it. 
 That, mon ami, is the only bitter feeling that I find in my 
 soul to you. — I would I could know your fate ; I wish that 
 you may be happy. 
 
 I received your letter at one o'clock ; I had a burning 
 fever. I cannot tell you the time it took and the ditticulty 
 I had to read it. I would not put it off imtil to-day, and the 
 effort threw me almost into delirium. I expect more news of 
 you to-night. Adieu, mon ami. If ever I returned to life I 
 would again employ it in loving you — but there is now no 
 time.
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 297 
 
 
 J Facsimile of the handwriting of Mile, de Lespinasse and of her seal
 
 -98 LiyriKiis OF mllk. de lespinassp:. 
 
 Q ty^ C^^/^ /^^ />^^^A^
 
 PORTEAIT OF MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 
 
 By D'ALEMBERT. 
 
 [Portraits of the living and Eulogies of the dead were a 
 fashion of the period ; the Eulogies were usually offered for com- 
 petition and read before the French Academy; the Portraits 
 circulated in the salons or were given to their originals. Mile, 
 de Lespinasse wrote one on tlie Marquis de Condorcet. That of 
 herself by d'Alembert was addressed to her in 1771, and first 
 published in his " GEuvres Postliumes " in 1799. The " Eulogy of 
 Eliza, " by M. de Guibert, appearetl for the first time in a collec- 
 tion of Eulogies written by him and published by his widow in 
 1806, before her publication of the Letters, edited by Barrere, 
 in 1809. The name Eliza is given in memory of Eliza Draper, 
 the friend of Sterne, the favourite author of Mile, de Lespinasse. 
 At the close of the Eulogy M. de Guibert names her Claire- 
 FranQoise, and no explanation is given of this misnomer. The 
 Address to her Manes by d'Alembert appeared first in his Posthu- 
 mous Works above-mentioned.] 
 
 Time and habit, which change all things, Mademoiselle, 
 which destroy our opinions and our illusions, which anni- 
 hilate or enfeeble love itself, can do nothing against the 
 feeling that I have for you, which you have inspired in me 
 for the last sixteen years ; that feeling is strengthened more 
 and more by the knowledge that I have of the lovable and 
 solid qualities that form your character ; it makes me feel 
 at this moment the pleasure of occupying my mind with you 
 that I may paint you such as I see you. .
 
 300 PORTRAIT OF 
 
 You say you do not wish me to limit myself to making 
 half your portrait by writing a panegyric ; you wish the 
 shadows to be in it, aj)}>arently to put in relief the truth of 
 the rest ; and you order me to tell you your faults, and even, 
 if occasion be, your vices, should 1 know of any. I know 
 of none, and I am almost sorry, so eager am I to obey you. 
 Of faults, I know several, and some of them are quite dis- 
 pleasing to those who love you. Do you think that declara- 
 tion too coarse ? I could wish that you had other defects 
 than those for which I must blame you. I would like to 
 find in you those faults that make us lovable, that are the 
 effect of passions ; for I own that I like defects of that 
 nature ; but, unhappily, those for which I have to blame you 
 are not of it ; they prove, perhaps (I whisper this in your 
 ear), that passion is not in you. 
 
 I shall not speak to you of your face ; you make no pre- 
 tensions for it, and besides, it is a matter of which an old 
 and sad philosopher like me takes no heed ; he is no judge, 
 he may even pique himself on his lack of judgment, be it 
 ineptitude, be it vanity, which you jjlease. I shall, however, 
 say of your exterior, what seems to me to strike every one, 
 that you have much nobleness and grace in your bearing, 
 and (what is far preferable to cold beauty) much expression 
 and soul in your countenance. I could name to you more 
 than one of your friends who would have for you some- 
 thing other than friendship did you permit it. 
 
 The liking one has for you does not depend exclusively on 
 your external charms ; it is, above all, derived from those of 
 your mind and your nature. Your mind pleases, and ought 
 to please, through many fine qualities, by the excellence of 
 your tone, by the correctness of your taste, by the art you 
 have of saying to each that which suits him. 
 
 The excellence of your tone would not be praise for a per-
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 301 
 
 son born at Court, who can speak and act only in the manner 
 she has learned ; you, on the contrary, came from the depths 
 of a province, where you had no one to teach you. Never- 
 theless, you were as perfect on this point the morrow of your 
 arrival in Paris as you are to-day. From that first day you 
 have been as free, as little out of place, in the most brilliant 
 and most fastidious society as if you had lived in it all your 
 life ; you felt its usages before you knew them ; which re- 
 veals an accuracy and delicacy of tact that is very uncom- 
 mon, and also an exquisite knowledge of conventions. In 
 a word, you divined the language of what is called " good 
 society " just as Pascal in his " Provincials " di\dned the 
 French language, which was not formed in his day, and the 
 tone of polite pleasantry, which he certainly could have 
 learned from no one ui the retreat where he lived. But as 
 you thoroughly feel that you have this merit, and even that 
 in you it is not an ordinary merit, you have perhaps the 
 defect of attaching too much value to it in others ; they must 
 have many real qualities to make you pardon the absence 
 of this one ; on this point, of little importance, you are 
 pitiless to the extent of being finical. 
 
 Yes, Mademoiselle, the only thing on which you are over- 
 delicate, and over-delicate to the point of being odious (here 
 I am like Mme. Bertrand in the comedy ; " I start with in- 
 vectives " because I am defending my onnii hearthstone), is 
 your extreme sensitiveness to what is called " good style " in 
 manners and speech ; the lack of that quality you think 
 scarcely effaced by the truest sentiment that can be shown 
 to you. On the other hand, there are men in whom the 
 presence of that quality supplies the lack of all the others ; 
 you know them such as they are, weak, selfish, full of au-s, 
 incapable of deep and consistent feeling, but agreeable and 
 full of graces, and you have a great inclination to prefer
 
 302 POKTRAIT OF 
 
 them to your faithful aud more sincere friends ; with a few 
 more cares and attentions for you they might eclipse all 
 others in your eyes, and perhaps take the place of all. 
 
 The same correct taste which has given you so great a 
 sense of the usages of society, shows itself, as a general 
 thing, in your judgment of books. You are seldom mis- 
 taken ; and you would be even less so if you were always 
 firmly of your own opinion and did not judge by that of per- 
 sons at whose feet your intellect has the kindness to prostrate 
 itself, though they. are very far from possessing the gift of 
 infallibility. You do them sometimes the honour to wait 
 for their advice to form an opinion which is not worth that 
 which you would have formed for yourself. 
 
 You have still another fault ; it is to prepossess yourself 
 or, as they say, infatuate yourself, to excess in favour of cer- 
 tain works. You judge with sufficient justice and accuracy 
 of all books in which there is a moderate degree of feeling 
 . and warmth ; but when those two qualities dominate certain 
 parts of the work, all its blemishes, however considerable 
 they may be, at once disappear to you ; it is " perfect " in 
 your eyes ; you need more time and cooler judgment to 
 see it as it really is. I must add, however, to console you 
 for this censure, that all that belongs to sentiment, to feeling, 
 is a matter in which you are never mistaken ; it may be 
 called your domain. 
 
 Wliat distinguishes you above all in society is the art of 
 saying to each one that which suits him ; and this art, though 
 little common, is very simple in you ; it consists in never 
 speaking of yourself to others, but much of them. That is 
 your infallible means of pleasing ; consequently you please 
 widely, though it is very far from everybody who pleases 
 you ; you even defer to persons who are the least agi-eeable 
 to you. This desire to please every one made you say a
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 303 
 
 thing which might give a bad opinion of you to those who 
 did not know you thoroughly. " Ah ! " you exclaimed one 
 day, " how I wish I knew everybody's foible ! " That wish 
 seemed to come from consummate policy, and a policy that 
 bordered on duplicity; nevertheless you have no duplicity 
 in you ; your policy is simply the desire to be thought agree- 
 able ; and you desire this, not through a feeling of vanity, 
 from which you are only too far removed, but through your 
 liking and need to shed more charm over your daily life. 
 
 Though you please every one in general, yet you please 
 agreeable people specially ; and you please them by the 
 effect which they produce on you, by the species of enjoy- 
 ment which their self-love derives from seeing how much 
 you feel their charm ; you have the air of being grateful to 
 them for those charms, as if they were for you only, and you 
 thus double, so to speak, the pleasure they have in feeling 
 that they are charming. 
 
 The refinement of taste, which is coupled in you with this 
 continual desire to please, results, on the one hand, in there 
 being nothing studied or laboured about you, while on the 
 other hand, there is nothing careless ; | hence it may be said 
 of you that you are very natural, and not at all simjjle. j 
 
 Discreet, prudent, and reserved, you possess the art of 
 controlling yourself without effort, and of hiding your feel- 
 ings without dissimulating them. True and frank with those 
 you esteem, experience has rendered you distrustful with 
 others ; but this characteristic, which is a vice when we 
 begin life, is a precious quality in those who have lived. 
 
 Nevertheless, this care, this circumspeetion in society, 
 which are usual in you, do not prevent you from being some- 
 times inconsiderate. It has happened, though in truth very 
 rarely, that you have suffered certain speeches to escape you 
 m presence of certain persons which have injured you much
 
 304 PORTKAIT OF 
 
 with those persons; tliis comes from your being frank by 
 nature, and discreet from reflection only ; nature will escape 
 sometimes in spite of all our efforts. 
 
 The various contrasts offered by your character, of natural- 
 ness without simplicity, of reserve and imprudence, contrasts 
 wliich come in you from the struggle between art and nature, 
 are not the only ones that exist in your manner of being; 
 you have others, and always from the same cause. You are 
 both gay and melancholy — gay by nature, melancholy from 
 reflection ; your fits of melancholy are the result of the many 
 misfortunes you have met with ; your physical or your men- 
 tal condition of the moment gives birth to them ; you yield 
 yourself to them with dolorous, and at the same time 
 such deep satisfaction that ycni will hardly allow yourself to 
 be snatched from melancholy by gaiety ; while, on the con- 
 trary, you fall back with a species of pleasure from gaiety to 
 melancholy. 
 
 Though you are not always melancholy, you are perpetually 
 filled by another feeling that is sadder still : disgust of life ; 
 and that disgust so seldom leaves you that, if in a gay mood 
 some one proposed to you to die, you would consent without 
 difficulty. This feeling is derived from the deep and keen 
 impression that your sorrows have left upon you ; . even your 
 affections, the species of passion which you put into them, 
 cannot remove it ; it is plain that sorrows, if I may so say 
 it, have fed you, and that affections can do no more than 
 comfort you. 
 
 It is not only by your charm and your intellect that you 
 please generally ; it is also by your character. Though much 
 alive to the ridiculous, no one is farther than you from cast- 
 ing ridicule on others ; you abhor malignity and satire ; you 
 hate no one — unless it may be one woman, who has, in 
 truth, done all she could to make you hate her ; but even so,
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 305 
 
 your hatred to her is not active, though hers to you has 
 reached the point of being ridiculous and of making that 
 woman extremely unhappy. 
 
 You have another very rare quality, especially in a woman : 
 you are not in any way envious ; you do justice, with the 
 sincerest satisfaction, to the charms and good qualities of all 
 the women whom you know ; you do this even to your enemy 
 in all she has that is good and estimable, agreeable and 
 piquant. 
 
 Nevertheless, — for I must not flatter you, even in saying 
 what is true of you, — that good quality, rare as it is, is perhaps 
 less praiseworthy in you than it would be in many others. 
 If you are not envious it is not exactly because you think it 
 right that others should have advantages over you ; it is that 
 looking around you, all existing beings seem to you equally, 
 to be pitied, and you feel that there are none with whom you 
 would desire to change situations. If there were, or you 
 knew a being sovereignly happy, you would perhaps be very 
 capable of bearing him envy ; you have often been heard to 
 say that it was just that persons who have great advantages 
 should also have great sorrows to console those who were 
 tempted to be jealous of them. Do not think, however, that 
 your lack of jealousy ceases to be a virtue, though its source 
 may not be as pure as it might be ; for how many persons 
 there are who do not believe that others are happy, and who 
 would not desire to be in their place, and yet are jealous of 
 them. 
 
 Your aversion to malignancy and envy presupposes in you 
 a noble soul ; and yours is such in every respect. Though 
 you desire fortune and have need of it, you are incapable of 
 taking any action to procure it ; you have not even profited 
 by the favourable occasions which you have had at times to 
 make yourself a happier lot. 
 
 20
 
 306 PORTRAIT OF 
 
 Not only is your soul very lofty, it is also very sensitive ; 
 but your sensitiveness is to you a torture, not a pleasure. 
 Your are convinced that happiness comes only through the 
 passions, and you know the danger of the passions too well 
 to yield to them. You therefore love only so far as you 
 dare ; but you love all that you can and as much as you can. 
 You give to your friends out of the sensibility that overloads 
 you all that you can permit yourself to give ; but there still 
 remains a superabundance which you know not what to do 
 with, and which you woidd willingly fling, so to speak, to all 
 passers. This superabundance of sensibility renders you 
 very compassionate to the unhappy, even to those you do not 
 know; you think no trouble too great to comfort them. 
 With that disposition, it is natural that you should be very 
 obligmg; and no one can do you a greater pleasure than to 
 furnish you the occasion ; it is giving food to both your kind- 
 ness and your natural energy. I have said that you give to 
 your friends " all the feelings that you can permit yourself 
 to give ; " you even grant them something beyond what they 
 think they have a right to expect ; you defend them with 
 courage, under all circumstances and states of the case, 
 whether they are right or wrong. It may not be the best 
 way to serve them ; but so many persons abandon their 
 friends, even when they could and ought to defend them, 
 that we should be grateful to your friendship which abhors 
 and flees that baseness, even to excess. 
 
 The species of muffled, intestine emotion which agitates 
 your soul incessantly makes it not as equable internally as it 
 outwardly seems, even to your friends. You are often sharp 
 and out of humour ; but in consequence of your desire to 
 please generally you let this be seen by none but the author 
 of this portrait ; it is true that you do justice to his friend- 
 ship in not fearing to let him see you such as you are ; but
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 307 
 
 this very friendship feels itself obliged to tell you that sharp- 
 ness and ill-humour take away from you many a charm ; there- 
 fore, in the interests of your own self-love, friendship coun- 
 sels to you to give way to this defect as little as you can, unless 
 your friends deserve it ; which can happen very rarely, thanks 
 to the deep and just feelings that fill their souls for you. 
 You admit this baleful sharpness, and it is right in you to 
 do so ; what would be better still would be to correct it. 
 
 To dispense with doing that, you try to persuade yourself 
 it is incorrigible, and belongs to your nature. I think you 
 deceive yourself; it belongs much more to the situation in 
 which you are placed. You were born with a tender, gentle, 
 sensitive soul ; it has been too severely tried, and the effects 
 upon you have been too cruel. You may say what you please ; 
 extreme sensibility excludes innate sharpness. That vile 
 fault is therefore not the work of nature in you, but (what 
 is dreadful) the work of others. Tlirough being thwarted, 
 shocked, wounded in all your sentiments and all your tastes, 
 you grew accustomed to attach yourself to nothing ; through 
 repressing the sentiments that might have made your misery, 
 you numbed those which would have shed softness into 
 your soul. They remained, as it were, asleep in the depths of 
 your nature, without motion, without energy ; and you pre- 
 pared much harm for your friends when you took . shelter 
 from that which your enemies were seeking to do to you. 
 In striving to make yourself hard to yourself you have be- 
 come so to those who love you. 
 
 It is true — for the sentiment is not annihilated in you, 
 only dormant — that you never fail to repent of the gi-ief that 
 your sharpness causes whenever you see that the impression 
 is deep ; you then recover your natural sensibility ; one mo- 
 ment, one word, repairs all. In other people the first im- 
 pulse is the effect of nature, the second is that of reflection ;
 
 308 PORTRAIT OF 
 
 with you it is the contrary ; and such is, in your soul, other- 
 wise so estimable, the cruel and unfortunate effect of habit. 
 
 Another proof that this sharpness is not natural to you is 
 that other defect for which I have already blamed you, 
 which is almost the opposite of this one ; I mean the com- 
 monplace desire of pleasing all about you. This last defect 
 belongs far more to your nature than the first ; it has given 
 to your mind the qualities most fitted to please, — nobleness, 
 accomplishment, gi-ace. It is very natural that you should 
 try to gain the good of it, and you succeed but too well. 
 I know no one, I repeat, who pleases so generally as you, 
 and few who feel the pleasure of it more ; you do not even 
 refuse to make advances when they are not made previously 
 to you ; on this point your pride is sacrificed to your vanity. 
 Sure of preserving those whom you have once acquired, 
 you are principally occupied by acquiring others; you are 
 not, it must be allowed, as fastidious in your selections as 
 you should be. The refinement and nicety of your tact 
 ought to make you sensitive on the choice and style of ac- 
 quaintances ; but the desire to have a court and what society 
 calls friends makes you rather easy in your selections, and 
 you are not much annoyed by tiresome persons provided such 
 persons pay you attention. 
 
 Names and titles do not impress you ; you receive the 
 great as they should be received, without servility and with- 
 out disdain. Misfortune has given you the honourable pride 
 which it inspires always in those who have not deserved it. 
 Your small means and the sad knowledge you have of men 
 make you dread benefits, the yoke of which is often to be 
 feared for well-born souls; perhaps you have carried this 
 feeling to excess ; but in this respect excess is a virtue. 
 
 Your courage is greater than your strength ; indigence, 
 ill-health, misfortunes of all kinds have tried your patience
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 309 
 
 without dejecting it. That interesting patience, and the 
 spectacle of what you have suffered ought to make you 
 friends, and has made them; you have found some consola- 
 tion in their attachment and their esteem. 
 
 There, Mademoiselle, is what you seem to me to be. You 
 are not perfect, no doubt ; and it is, truly, so much the better 
 for you ; the perfect Grandison has always seemed to me an 
 odious personage. I do not know if I see you aright ; but 
 such as I see you no one seems to me more worthy to ex- 
 perience in herself and to make others experience that which 
 alone can soften the ills of life, — the comforts of tenderness 
 and confidence. 
 
 In finishing this portrait I cannot add, in the words of the 
 
 old song : — 
 
 " The prior who made it 
 Is satisfied with it," 
 
 but I feel that I can apply to you, and with all my heart, 
 
 Dufresny's lines : — 
 
 " What faults she has. 
 That youthful thing ! We love her with them."
 
 THE EULOGY OF ELIZA. 
 
 By M. DE GUIBERT. 
 
 What darkness ! what solitude ! dreadful emblem of my 
 heart ! To-morrow the night that surrounds me will have 
 passed, but the night that enfolds Eliza is eternal ! to-morrow 
 the universe will waken again ; Eliza alone will never waken. 
 
 Soul sublime, where art thou ? in what region ? Ah ' thou 
 hast returned to thy source ; thou hast taken thy flight to thy 
 native country ! An emanation from heaven, heaven has re- 
 called thee. It had left thee too long to dwell among men. 
 
 Yes, without a decree of heaven Eliza could not have fallen 
 a prey to death. She was so active, so animated, so living ! 
 Alas : for the last two years her soul deceived my anxiety 
 and allayed my fears. Daily I saw her fading and weaken- 
 ing, but never was her mind more brilliant, never was her 
 heart so loving. " She will live, she will live," I said to my- 
 self on quitting her. " So much life must surely conquer 
 death." I could no more conceive the idea of her dying than 
 that of the sun extinguished. 
 
 Eliza is no more ! who will enlighten my judgment, who 
 will warm my imagination, who will spur me to glory, who 
 will replace in me the profound sentiment with which she 
 inspired me ? What shall I do with my soul and with my 
 life ? my heart ! recall to my thoughts what she was ! I 
 wish to extol her, and to extol her I need only paint her. 
 Eliza can never die in the memory of her friends, but her
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 311 
 
 friends will some day die as she has died, and I wish her 
 to live in the future ; I wish that after me some tender soul, 
 reading this funeral dirge, may regret that he never knew 
 her, and pity my misfortune in survi\aiig her. 
 
 Eliza related to me several times the first years of her life. 
 All that we see in our theatres, all that we read in our 
 novels, how cold and barren they are beside that narrative ! 
 We must penetrate the interior of families to see the great 
 scenes of passion and human calamities. Our writers mar 
 them with their imagination ; none but their actors and their 
 victims can picture them. Eliza was born under the auspices 
 of love and misfortune. Her mother was a woman of a 
 great name, living separate from her husband. She brought- 
 up this daughter publicly, as though she had the right to 
 acknowledge her as her own, and she kept from her knowl- 
 edge the mystery of her birth. But often, in secret, she 
 bathed her with tears ; she seemed, in redoubling her tender- 
 ness, to wish to compensate her for the fatal gift she had made 
 her of life. She loaded her with caresses and benefits. She 
 gave her, herself, the first of all benefits, an excellent educa- 
 tion ; it was soon to be all that remained of her. She died 
 almost suddenly, and at the moment when she was about to 
 endeavour to give her daughter the social position that the 
 laws might perhaps have granted her. Eliza was left aban- 
 doned to relatives who soon were no other than persecutors. 
 They told her what she was ; from the position of a cherished 
 daughter she descended, suddenly, and in the same house, to 
 that of orphan and stranger. Disdainful and brutal pity 
 took charge of the unfortunate girl, until then so tenderly 
 cared for by remorse and by natural love ; she lived, because 
 she was then of an age when unhappiness does not kill, 
 or, to speak more truly, when there is no such thing as 
 unhappiness.
 
 312 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 She was far from beautiful, and her features were still 
 further marred by the small-pox ; but her plainness had noth- 
 ing repulsive at the first glance ; at the second the eye grew 
 accustomed to it, and as soon as she spoke it was forgot- 
 ten. She was tall and well-made. I did not know her imtil 
 she was thirty-eight years old, and her figure was still noble 
 and full of gi-ace. But what she possessed, wliat distin- 
 guished her above all, was that chief charm without which 
 beauty is but a cold perfection — expression of countenance 
 Iphysionomie']. Hers had no particular character; it united 
 all. Thus one could not say precisely that it was clever, or 
 brilliant, or sweet, or noble, or refined, or gracious, — a species 
 of praise by which, as I think, we degrade the faces we wish 
 to praise ; for when a face has an habitual expression, that 
 expression is more the effect of conformation and what may 
 be called style of feature, than physionomie — revelation of 
 nature. That revelation on the countenance comes from 
 within, it is born of thought, it is mobile and fugitive; it 
 escapes the eye and mocks the brush. O Eliza, Eliza, whoso 
 has not had the happiness to live in your intimacy, in your 
 affections, your emotions, your confidence, knows nothing of 
 what is meant by expression of countenance. I have seen 
 faces animated by intellect, by passion, by pleasure, by pain ; 
 but lights and shades were all imknown to me until I knew 
 Eliza. That flame of heaven, that energy- of feeling, — in short, 
 if I may so express it, that abundance of life, — Eliza, when 
 she was not overwhelmed by troubles, shed on aU that she 
 wished to animate ; but she wished nothing for herself ; she 
 animated all without personal pretensions or projects. One 
 never approached her soul without feeling drawTi by it. I 
 have known apathetic hearts which she electrified ; I have 
 seen dull minds that her companionship had elevated. "Eliza," 
 I said to her once, after seeing her perform that operation,
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 313 
 
 " you make marble feel and matter thiDk." "What must have 
 been that celestial soul for him whom she had made its first 
 object, for him who animated her soul in return ! 
 ■ thou who wert that object, Gonsalve ! [M. de Mora] 
 happy Gonsalve ! thou must have felt thyself beneath the 
 burning climate of the equator, beloved by a daughter of the 
 Sun. Death removed thee in the midst of thy career, but 
 thou hadst, in those few years, exhausted all the happiness 
 that heaven grants to man on earth : thou wert loved by 
 Eliza. Ah ! if thou couldst know what she became after 
 thee ! she lived for two years withered by sorrow, bearing the 
 wound of grief like a tree struck by lightning, and she ended 
 blessing death as she expired. 
 
 It might be thought that Eliza, thus eagerly occupied by 
 one object, was less than before to her friends ; but never did 
 she love them better, never was she dearer to them. Passion 
 and misfortune seemed to have given to her soul fresh 
 activity, new vigour. Ah ! who like her could make us taste 
 the charms of friendship ? who knew like her how to ap- 
 proach the hearts of those she loved ? She drew confidence 
 so gently ; she understood so well the language of passion. 
 With whatever sentiment the soul was fiUed she made it 
 feel it needed to communicate with hers; and each was 
 happier, or less unhappy, beside her. Were we in that 
 state of languor which is the habitual condition of persons 
 in society when they have neither pleasure nor pain, in Eliza's 
 presence we came out of it; for, seeing her suffering and 
 unhappy, we were filled with a sense of her sorrows, or — 
 as happened oftener — her mind and soul took the ascen- 
 dency, and then what interest ! what conversation ! In spite 
 of one's self one had to listen, to think, to revive. 
 
 Often, in comparing Eliza with the charming women and 
 the men of intellect whom I have known, I try to explain
 
 314 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 to myself the principle of that charm which no one possessed 
 as she did, and here is what, it seems to me, it consisted in : 
 she was always free from personality, and always natural. 
 Free from 'personality : never was any one as much so. 
 With her friends it was from feeling ; she had always more 
 need to speak to them of their selves than of herself ; with ^ 
 the rest of the world it was from delicacy of mind and judg- 
 ment. She knew that the great secret of pleasing was in 
 forgetting self to give our interest to others, and she forgot 
 herself perpetually. She was the soul of a conversation, but 
 she never made herself its object. Her great art lay in show- 
 ing the minds of others to advantage ; she enjoyed that more 
 than to show her o^vn. Ahvays natural : she was that in her 
 bearing, in her movements, in her gestures, in her thoughts, 
 in her expressions, in her style ; and at the same time this 
 naturalness had something that was elegant, noble, sweet, 
 gay ; part of it was no doubt perfected by a sound educa- 
 tion, an exquisite taste, by the habits of her youth passed in 
 the best company, and among the most agreeable persons of 
 her day ; but it had become so a part of herself that we 
 never felt that art had aught to do with it ; an amiable de- 
 lusion which vanishes as to most women when we converse 
 with them for any length of time. 
 
 What struck me most in conversing with Eliza was the 
 relation, the harmony, so to speak, that reigned between her 
 thoughts and their expression. When animated by her 
 mind, or by her heart, her motions, her face, — all, even to the 
 tones of her voice, was in perfect accord with her words. It 
 is from lack of this accord that the conversation of so many 
 persons of mind and talent is without warmth and without 
 effect. . . . Again, what Eliza possessed in a supreme degree 
 was tact, — so rare and so difficult in dealing with persons 
 ^ud conventions. Never was she mistaken ; never did she
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 315 
 
 say a thing of feeling to one who could not feel it, or ex- 
 press a noble thought to those who could not understand it. 
 Her conversation was neither above nor below those to whom 
 she spoke. She seemed to have the secret of all natures, the 
 measure and the shades of all minds. 
 
 Eliza was not learned ; she was well-informed and made 
 no pretension in being so. Her knowledge was based so 
 securely in her mind, and her mind so niled her, that it was 
 always she, and not her knowledge, that we felt the most. 
 She knew English and Italian and read the literatures of 
 several other languages in our best translations. But, above 
 all, she knew her own language perfectly. She made sev- 
 eral definitions of synonyms which the Abbd Ghard and the 
 best minds of the Academy would not have disowned. I 
 never knew any one to have as she had the precious gift of 
 the right word, — that gift without which we cannot have 
 either accuracy or gradation of expression ; a gift which 
 presupposes equally a trained mind, a profound knowledge 
 of grammar, and — - independently of natural good taste — 
 that perfected and conventional taste which can be acquired 
 only by intercourse with men of letters and men of the 
 world both. 
 
 The best-written books have their moments of tedium and 
 their lacunae of interest. Eliza's conversation, whenever 
 she would or could give herself up to it wholly, had none. 
 She said simple things, but she never said them in a common 
 way, and that art — which seemed no art at all in her — 
 never made itself felt, and never let her drop into mannerism 
 or affectation. She used no novel terms and employed no 
 antitheses or double-meanings. She sometimes applauded a 
 play on words by others, but it had to be appropriate, in 
 good taste, or else said naturally, on the spur of the mo- 
 jueut and with ease, which to her eyes was always a chief
 
 316 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 merit in all things ; for pretension, of whatever kind it was, 
 was repugnant to her. She could not endure whatever 
 showed effort and preparation. She would almost have pre- 
 ferred the rough and sketchy to what was too graceful, too 
 finished. Hence we may suppose how she hated the affected 
 manners, the airs, and other follies of people in society. 
 
 She had the same delicacy, the same severity of taste 
 about works of the mind. She was never able to accustom 
 herself to the verses of Cardinal de Bernis, Dorat, and other 
 poets of that school. She thought nothing of the novels of 
 Cr(5billon, Marivaux, and all those to which their style had 
 given birth ; but, on the other hand, she fed herself with 
 Kacine, Voltaire, and J^a Fontaine. She knew them by 
 heart ; she grew impassioned over Jean-Jacques, she loved 
 Le Sage and Provost ; but she put above them all the im- 
 mortal Richardson ; and Sterne she had read, re-read, trans- 
 lated, and adored. It was she who made in Paris the 
 reputation of the " Sentimental Journey." Unequal works, 
 imperfect, fantastic even, obtained favour in her eyes pro- 
 vided she found in them traits of genius or sensibility. It 
 was thus she had the patience to decipher " Tristram 
 Shandy." The death of ]\Ianon in the " Paysan Perverti," 
 made her defend that work, filled in other parts with ridicu- 
 lous and commonplace things. 
 
 Oh! how she was the friend of what was good in all 
 directions ! how she enjoyed, how she knew how to praise 
 what had pleased her, — above aU, what had touched her ! 
 What need she had to commimicate her feeling to all whom 
 she thought capable of sharing it ! And it was not only for 
 works of literature that she grew impassioned : all the Eirts 
 of taste and beauty had claims upon her. A fine picture, a 
 good piece of sculpture, excellent music soothed and de- 
 lighted her ; and in those different arts she was moved by
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 317 
 
 all styles. She admired the mausoleum of Cardinal de 
 Richelieu, and the little dying bird of Houdon went to her 
 heart ; she could passionately admire Eubens, and the next 
 moment she enjoyed a miniature by Petitot ; the music of 
 Gr^try enchanted her, but on the morrow an air from 
 Orpheus was to her the music of heaven. She never con- 
 foimded these styles ; she felt them all and in feeling them 
 she judged them. . . . 
 
 She was accused of enthusiasm and prejudice in her feel- 
 ings. People declared tliat they could not conceive how her 
 heart could suffice for so many friends. Narrow and vulgar 
 minds, was it for you to measure and comprehend hers ? In 
 the first place, all her feelings were not passions. It was 
 with her feelings as with her tastes, they had different de- 
 grees according to the difference iu their essence. She loved 
 from esteem, from attraction, from gratitude. She loved in 
 Areste [d'Alembert] genius vmited to virtue; lq Sainval 
 [probably himself] a soul of fire which had, perhaps, some 
 affinity with hers ; in Cleon, Ergaste, Valfere, etc., such or 
 such quality of mind or nature which justified her i^cnchant. 
 O you who were her friends, say if ever one of you had 
 cause to blame her friendship ! did it not seem to you, when 
 suffering, ill, or unhappy, that you were her first object? She 
 bound us to one another by an interest of which she was the 
 mainspring and the goal. We felt ourselves friends in her 
 house because we were there imited by the same sentiments, 
 — the desire to please her and the need of loving her. Alas ! 
 how many persons saw one another, sought one another, 
 suited one another through her, who will never see, or suit, 
 or seek themselves again ! The charm of her circle was so 
 in her that the persons who composed it were not the same 
 as they were elsewhere. It was only in her presence that 
 they had their full value. " We are separated," I said yester-
 
 318 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 day, bursting into tears, to her friends gathei-ed around her 
 at the moment of her death ; " we may apply to ourselves 
 the words of Scripture : ' The Lord hath smitten the shep- 
 herd, and the flock is scattered.' " 
 
 Eliza's mind, kindly and animated as it was, united to 
 those qualities precision and solidity. She had never culti- 
 vated the exact sciences ; but she studied moral questions, 
 she loved sound metaphysics, and read Montaigne much. 
 She knew Locke, before Kousseau, under pleasanter forms 
 [in "Elmile"], had made him pass into our language. She 
 took delight in Tacitus, and in Montesquieu. One of the 
 living authors whom she esteemed the most was the Abb^ 
 de Condillac. All that was strong pleased her nature ; all 
 that was subtle or profound pleased her mind. 
 
 So many natural and acquired advantages might have 
 justified in Eliza an emotion of pride, but she never had it. 
 She who felt and judged so well of the minds of others 
 seemed to ignore her own, and even to distrust it ; thus she 
 wrote nothing for the public. If sometimes her soul needed 
 to pour itself out, either for her own sake or for that of her 
 friends, she took the greatest care that the secret was known 
 only to them, and she exacted from their friendship that her 
 letters should be either returned to her or destroyed. Divers 
 little works composed by her are, apparently, lost forever, 
 such as three chapters in the style of the " Sentimental 
 Journey," a great number of Synonyms, an Apology for her 
 faults, especially that facility for enthusiasm and infatua- 
 tion with which she was reproached, — a charming bit of 
 writing addressed to me, of which I was too scrupulous to 
 take a copy. She had also begun the memoirs of her life, 
 or rather of her passion for Gonsalve ; for she began them at 
 that epoch, as if her life had dated, to her eyes, from the 
 moment only when she knew him. But what are most to
 
 MLLE. DE LESPlNASSE. 319 
 
 be regretted, because they would have formed a vast and 
 varied and most precious collection, are her letters. They 
 had a character, a touch, a style, which had no model and 
 could not, I believe, have imitators. The style was neither 
 that of Mme. de S^vign^ nor that of Mme. de Maintenon. 
 It was her own, and, in my opinion, far above theirs. Her 
 letters were fuller, more varied, stronger in thought, drawn 
 more completely from her own being ; for she did not live, 
 like those two women, on what was happening at Court and 
 in Europe ; her letters were, above all things, living. Ah ! it 
 is in that that this celestial creature can be compared to no 
 other woman. Her letters had the impulse and the warmth 
 of conversation. They filled the place of absence at the mo- 
 ment of receiving them. I made the tour of Europe and her 
 letters followed me, consoled me, supported me. Alas ! I 
 must now expect and hope for them in vain ! It is not the 
 seas, not time nor space that parts us, it is that which can- 
 not be seen or measured — it is the unknown and eternal 
 gulf. 
 
 So far, I have considered Eliza under the different aspects 
 of her mind only ;• but what was her mind, compared to her 
 nature and her soul ' How can I laud enough her virtues, 
 her lofty spirit, her generosity, her disinterestedness, her 
 benevolence, her love for the unfortunate ! Each of those 
 virtues was natural and familiar to her ; she practised them 
 as one walks, as one breathes, and she drew no self-praise 
 from themj they never shone in her conversation with pre- 
 tension or conceit ; and this, because the moral of virtues 
 exercised from feeling and from native character never 
 advertises itself ; it is only the fictitious virtues which need 
 an outward exhibition. 
 
 But to paint the virtues of Eliza it does not suffice to men- 
 tion thenu Each was accompanied by circumstances which
 
 320 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 enhanced its merit and its charm. The same virtues in other 
 persons did not j)roduce the same effect. Her soul was 
 strong and lofty. All that was vile and base, or merely 
 petty and feeble, excited her contempt and indignation. 
 She would often have let herself go into vehement pro- 
 nouncements if the indulgence and amenity of mind which 
 were natural to her liad not tempered her first impulse. By 
 this great nobility of soul and character she was, in a way, 
 replaced in the rank where her birth would have put her 
 could it have been recognized ; the silence she kept about 
 her fate added to its interest, and the delicate position in 
 which she was never affected injuriously either her own 
 bearing or the. consideration in which she was held. She 
 received many women, and women of high rank, with 
 whom she had that noble ease which, accompanying respect, 
 compels a return of consideration from the other person. 
 She paid to their position what she would, if need were, 
 have refused to their pride ; but no one was ever tempted 
 to indulge in that sentiment with her. They felt she had 
 other advantages that more than placed her on their level ; 
 but she herself never made those advantages felt. They 
 were wrapped in manners so gentle, so amiable, so simple, 
 that they never wounded either pretension or mediocrity. 
 
 Oh ! how that dignity of soul and character shone in the 
 constant contempt she felt for riches and the means of ac- 
 quiring it. Her fortune was more than slight. She was 
 surrounded by powerful friends who could have, served her 
 . in this respect without wounding her delicacy. She asked 
 nothing from them and refused their assistance often. One 
 day I was talking with her on this point and I reproached 
 her for rejecting an offer of service that had just been made 
 to her. " Ah ! " I said, " if Gonsalve had made you that ofifer 
 would you have refused him ? " " Yes," she replied, " Oon-
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 321 
 
 salve more than any one ; " and when I exclaimed at that, 
 " Listen, mon ami" she said ; " 1 wish, once for all, to explain 
 to you my principles ; you may condemn me, but you cannot 
 make me change them." And the next day she wrote me 
 the following letter : — 
 
 " Yes, I should have refused that sort of service had Gon- 
 salve offered it, and it is the only one I would not have ac- 
 cepted from him with transport. I know all that can be 
 said against such scruples by philosophy and sentiment, but 
 it is our detestable institutions, it is the corruption of society 
 that forces me to think as I do. Surrounded by other man- 
 ners and morals, other prejudices than ours, I woidd have no 
 more scruple in relying on the influence and wealth of Gon- 
 salve than on his courage, his counsels, and all the ser\dces 
 he could render me. But in a society and a country where 
 money has become the motive power of all actions, where by 
 its means men cau corrupt all hearts and buy all feelings, 
 never shall a vile calculation of self-interest stain my inter- 
 course with those I love. All ! what would Gonsalve have 
 thought of me had he seen me for one moment resemble in 
 this so many other women ? What could then have guar- 
 anteed to him the purity of my feeling ? Esteem is so deli- 
 cate a flower that the slightest impairment withers it. Ah ! 
 think what sorrow it would have been to me to be lowered 
 in Gonsalve's opinion. I preferred the place I occupied 
 there to the highest throne in the world. 
 
 " With regard to my friends, I will own to you that I 
 have always considered equality as the first condition to 
 render friendship durable. Now, it cannot exist from the 
 moment that one friend becomes the benefactor, the other 
 the obliged and beholden. Eemember that I am speaking of 
 one kind of benefit only ; as for the cares, attentions, coun- 
 sels, feelings of my friends, I receive them because I can 
 
 21
 
 J^S2 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 return them; hence there is reciprocity, and consequently 
 equality between us. But liow could I return what they 
 might do t(j increase my means ? I should be, f(jr the rest of 
 my life, ill at ease with them ; wherever my affection worked 
 I should fear they saw only my gratitude. In sliort — and 
 it is a secret of the luiman heart tliat 1 am about to tell 
 you — be sure that, without accounting for it to themselves, 
 without even perceivuig it, they would love me less ; and as 
 for me, I should feel oppressed by the sort of ascendency I 
 had given them over me. 
 
 " If such has been my way of thinking towards him I 
 loved best in the world and towards my friends in general, 
 you can judge how my soul would revolt at the idea of solic- 
 iting, or even accepting the services of those who, not being 
 my friends, desire to serve me from foolish conceit, for 
 appearance' sake only, or, I am willing to say, from benevo- 
 lence. But, in order not to give up my principles, and yet 
 never find myself harassed between necessity and those 
 principles, I have trained myself to order and economy. I, 
 who was brought up in habits of prodigality, I, who from 
 living always with others never knew the cost of anything, 
 I, who through philosophy am led to consider gold as dust 
 beneath my feet, I have subjected and trained myself to 
 reckon incessantly. I manage to reach the end of each year 
 without embarrassments and without debts ; hence my friends 
 never hear me speak of my want of means ; never does a 
 complaint escape me in their presence, nor a wish — an in- 
 direct manner in which persons often solicit services they 
 would not ask openly. My friends see me in such apparent 
 security on this point, and with such freedom of mind, that 
 they must now have forgotten that my means are paltry, and 
 that is what I wish. Finally, whether it is that my delicacy 
 attaches me to poverty, or that being so occupied with active
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 323 
 
 interests the enjoyments of wealth are nothing to me, or 
 whether, again, it is that, feeling my life so near extinction, 
 I do not think of the future, I protest to you that never once 
 have I had the wish to see my fortune changed." 
 
 This was not a mere display of maxims ; Eliza's conduct 
 never contradicted those words. I will merely add that her 
 economy was so adroitly managed that it was never felt. 
 She was always simply dressed, but with taste. All that 
 she wore was fresh and well assorted. It gave the idea of 
 richness which was vowed by choice to simplicity. But 
 where her soul and her generosity gave even more illusion 
 as to her means, was when she met with suffering and 
 miserable humanity ; never did a poor person go to her with- 
 out receiving aid. " Ah ! if I were only Lord Clive ! " she 
 would say on hearing of some imfortunate whom she was 
 unable to help. . 
 
 All forms of misfortune had rights over the soul of Eliza. 
 By her manner of pitying those who bore them it was plain 
 to see that she had suffered herself. I have often seen her 
 ill, oppressed, sinking under the weight of her own troubles, 
 yet reviving and recovering her strength to feel and share 
 the troubles of others. And this love for the unhappy was 
 not only a virtue in her, it was a passion. Here is what she 
 wrote me, about six months ago, in a letter I have just found 
 and wet with my tears : — 
 
 "I sent you a packet this morning; you will think me 
 crazy when you find in it among other things, the ' Gazette 
 de France,' but I send it on account of an article which 
 will do you good [the aunouncement of the edict about the 
 corvees]. How can one fail to be comforted in seeing that 
 so many, many unfortunates are about to be so. This class 
 of interest is now all that can reach my heart. Unhappiness 
 — ah ! what empire that word has over me ! I think I told
 
 324 EULOGY OF ELIZA, 
 
 you tliat I had beeu to the Invalides a few days ago with 
 the Duchesse de Chatillou ; T came away heart-broken. I 
 did not make one step without seeing the most painful sights : 
 blind and mutilated men, frightful wounds, broken limbs. 
 'Ah! my God!' I thought, 'all that breathe here suffer; 
 and their woes are not the ills of imagination ; these are not 
 those who love and torture one another in loving ; this is not 
 pain at privation of letters, not even regret for having lost 
 that which was dearest to them ; these are bodily ills to 
 which all men are equally subject ! ' And then I added, to 
 myself : ' yet I am more unhappy than all whom I see here ; 
 for I could pity, could console, could relieve these unfortu- 
 nates with succour and money, )jut they can do nothing for 
 me ; they know not even the language of the ills I suffer ; 
 and all there is of happiness, and kinds of happiness upon 
 earth, if all were offered to me, could do me -no good.' " 
 
 Oh, Eliza ! Eliza ! how feeble, how impe'rfect is this poor 
 sketch of thee ! Is there an exquisite feeling, a rare virtue 
 that honours humanity, which was not in thy heart ? If I do 
 anything that is good, honourable, if I attain to anything that 
 is great it will be because thy memory still perfects and still 
 inspires my soul. Oh, you who were her friends, and whom 
 I have, through her, the right to call my own, let us all 
 address to her memory the same invocation. In Eliza's 
 name let us be friends, let us be dear to one another, let us 
 do in presence of her memory the good we should have 
 wished to do in her li\dng presence ; so that from heaven, 
 where her soul has doubtless risen, she may see it and ap- 
 plaud, and men on earth, beholding it, may say of each : 
 " He was Eliza's friend." Let that eulogy be graven on our 
 tombs. 
 
 I speak of tombs, and it is of hers that we now must 
 think. Ah 1 let her mortal remains consume away in the
 
 MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 325 
 
 vault of some temple ; it is not there that we must raise her 
 monument ; it is not there that her Shade will love to 
 wander. Banks of the Savonni^re, meadows of Vaucluse, 
 regions where the souls of Laura and La Suze still breathe, 
 ye are too far away from us. Let us rather choose some 
 solitary grove, through which a rivulet, gently flowing o'er 
 its pebbles, shall murmur ever in its plaintive tones. Come, 
 we will raise a monument, simple as herself, a marble column, 
 broken off breast-high, o'er which the cypresses shall stretch 
 their melancholy arms — But no ! it is the tomb of the 
 sinner that needs to go beyond the sight of men. Let us 
 choose for her beside some travelled road a little hill, planted 
 with shrubs, at foot of which a limpid spring shall gush ; a 
 path, all green, shall lead there ; so that the weary traveller, 
 finding shade and water, may rest him with delight and 
 bless her memory, still, like herself, beneficent ; and on her 
 tomb be these words graven : — 
 
 To the Memory 
 
 of Claire-FraiKjoise de Lespinasse, 
 
 Taken May 23, 1776, 
 
 From her friends, whose happiness she made ; 
 
 From a choice Society of which she was the boi)d ; 
 
 From Letters which she cuUivated without pretension : 
 
 From the Unhappy, whom she never approached without 
 
 consoling them. 
 She died at the age of 42 years. But if to think, to love, 
 o suflfer, is that which composes life, she lived in those few years 
 many centuries.
 
 TO THE MANES OF MLLE. DE 
 LESPINASSE. 
 
 By D'ALEMBERT. 
 
 July 22, 1776. 
 
 YOU who can no longer hear me, you I have so tenderly 
 and so constantly loved, you by whom I thought for a while I 
 was beloved, you whom I preferred to all things, you who 
 could have been to me all things had you so willed it ; alas ! 
 if you still can feel, in that abode of death for which you 
 longed and which will soon be mine, behold my sorrow and 
 my tears, the solitude of my soul, the awful void which you 
 have caused, the cruel abandonment in which you have left 
 me ! 
 
 But why speak to you of the solitude in which I am, since 
 you are no more ? Ah ! my unjust and cruel friend, had you 
 willed it that crushing solitude might have begun for me 
 while you still existed. Why did you repeat to me, ten 
 months before your death, that I was always what you treas- 
 ured most, the object most necessary to your happiness, the 
 only one which bound you to life, when you were on the eve 
 of proving to me, so cruelly, the contrary ? For what reason, 
 which I can neither imagine nor suspect, did that feeling, so 
 tender for me, which perhaps you felt at the time you as- 
 sured me of it, change suddenly to estrangement and aver- 
 sion ? What had I done to displease you ? A^Tiy did you 
 not complain to me if you had anything to complain of? 
 You would have seen to the bottom of my heart, that heart
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 327 
 
 which has never ceased to be yours, not even when you 
 doubted it and repulsed it harshly. Or, my dear Julie, had 
 you (for I could never do wi'ong by you) — had you done me 
 some wrong of which I was ignorant, and which it would 
 have been so sweet to pardon had I known of it ? You said 
 to one of my friends, who reproached you for the way in 
 which you treated me, and for which you blamed yourself, 
 that the reason of your change to me was because you 
 were unable to bare your soul to me and let me see the 
 wounds that rent it. Ah ! you knew by experience that I 
 had closed them more than once, of whatever nature they 
 were. 
 
 But why did I not discover myself the pain you felt at 
 being unable to speak to me of your sorrows ? Why did I 
 not forestall your confidence, and assist by all of mine the 
 outpouring that you desired to make to me ? Twenty times 
 have I been upon the point of throwing myself into your arms 
 and asking you to tell me what was my crime ; but I feared 
 that those arms would repulse mine that I held out to* you. 
 Your countenance, your words, your silence even, all seemed 
 to forbid me to approach you. I thought sometimes to recall 
 you by my tears, but the sad state of your suffering and de- 
 stroyed body made me fear to depress you. 
 
 For nine months I sought the moment to tell you all 
 I suffered and all I felt ; but during those nine months I 
 always found you too feeble to bear the tender reproaches I 
 had to make to you. The only moment when I could have 
 shown to you, uncovered, my dejected and dismayed heart 
 was that dreadful moment when, a few hours before your 
 death, you asked me, in that heart-rending manner, for par- 
 don, — last testimony of your love, the dear and cruel memory 
 of which will ever remain in the depths of my heart. But 
 you had then no longer the strength to either speak to me or
 
 328 TO THK MANES OF [1776 
 
 hear nie ; 1 was forced, like Phbdre, to deprive myself of tears 
 which would have troubled your last moments ; and thus I 
 lost, without recovery, the moment of my life which would 
 have been to me most precious, — that (jf telling you, once 
 more, how dear you were t(j me, how much I shared your 
 woes, and how deeply I desired to end my own with you. I 
 would give all the moments that remain to me to live for 
 that one instant which I can never have again, that instant 
 when by showing you aU the tenderness of my heart, I might 
 perhaps have recovered yours — 
 
 But you are gone ! you have descended into the gi-ave con- 
 vinced that my regrets do not follow you ! Ah ! if you had 
 only expressed some grief at ]»arting from me, with what de- 
 light would I have followed y<iu to that eternal haven which 
 you now inhabit ! But I dare not even ask to be laid beside 
 you when death has closed my eyes and stanched my tears ; 
 I should fear lest your Shade would still repulse me and pro- 
 long my anguish beyond this life. 
 
 Alas ! you have taken from me everything — the sweet- 
 ness of life, the sweetness of even death. Cruel and unhappy 
 friend ! it seems as if in cliaiging me with the execution of 
 j'our last wishes you wished to add still further to my pain. 
 AVhy have the duties thus imposed upon me told me what 
 I ought not to have known, and what I should have desired 
 not to know ? Why did you not order me to burn unread 
 that fatal manuscript [probably the Memoir of herself after 
 her connection with M. de Mora], which I believed I could 
 read without finding subjects of pain, but which revealed 
 to me that for eight years at least I was not the first object 
 of your heart, in spite of assurances you had so often given 
 me ? What can assure me now, after that grievous dis- 
 covery, that during the eight or ten other years when I 
 believed myself so much beloved by you, you were not
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 329 
 
 even then betraying my tenderness ? Alas ! have I not 
 reason to think it, when I found that among the vast mul- 
 titude of letters which you charged me to burn, you had not 
 kept a single one of mine ? By what ill fate for me had 
 they become so uiditferent to you, in spite of the expressions 
 of sensibility, self-abandonment, devotion with which they 
 were filled ? \^'^hy, in your will, of which you made me the 
 unhappy executor, did you leave to another what would have 
 been to me so dear, — those manuscripts in which there were 
 many things, written by my hand as well as yours, which 
 would have brought you back to me incessantly ? What can 
 have chilled you to that degree towards the unfortunate man 
 to whom you said, ten years ago, that your feeling for him 
 made you so happy that it frightened you ? . . . 
 
 But why reproach you now, when you cannot justify your- 
 self if you do not deserve it ? Why trouble your ashes with 
 my regrets when you can no longer solace them ? Adieu, 
 adieu forever ! my dear and unfortunate Julie ! Those two 
 titles affect me far more than your faults towards me can 
 offend me. Enjoy at last, and, to my sorrow, enjoy without 
 me, that repose which ni}- love and my cares were unable to 
 procure for you during life. Alas ! why were you unable to 
 love or to be loved m peace ? You said to me so many 
 times, and you owned it, sighing, a few months before you 
 died, that, of all the feelings you had inspired, mine for you, 
 and yours for me were the only ones that had not made you 
 unhappy. Why did not that feeling satisfy you ? Why 
 was it that love, made to soften all the other ills of life, 
 should have been the torture and the despair of yours ? 
 Why, when I gave you my portrait a year ago with the 
 words, — 
 
 "And tell yourself sometimes, in looking at me : 
 
 * Of all those who love me who loves me as he ? ' " —
 
 330 TO THE MANES OF [1776 
 
 why, I say, did you uot see all that I still was for you, all 
 that I wished to be ? Wliy did you think these words mere 
 " kindness ; " why did you praise them with that cruel term ? 
 But above all, why did you think that happiness and tran- 
 quillity were not for you except in death ? 
 
 Alas ! if there still lives something of you, may you enjoy 
 that happiness of which your life let me taste so little and 
 your death makes me lose forever. You have taught me, my 
 dear Julie, that the greatest unhappiness is not to mourn 
 those we love, but to mourn those who have ceased to love 
 us, Alas ! I have lost with you sixteen years of my life ; 
 who will till and console the few remaining years of it ? 
 you, whoever you may be who could stanch my tears, in 
 whatever region of the earth you are I would seek you with 
 joy. Ah ! hear my sighs, behold my heart, and come to me, 
 or call me to you. Deliver me from the crushing situation 
 in which I am, the dreadful loneliness which makes me say 
 each time that I return to my sad dwelling : " No one is 
 waiting for me ; no one will wait for me again." . . . 
 
 All things, even our common fate seemed destined to 
 unite us. Both without family, without relatives, having 
 experienced from the moment of our birth neglect, misfor- 
 tune, and injustice, — Nature seemed to have put us in the 
 world to seek each other out, like two reeds beaten by the 
 wind which cling together and support each other. Why 
 did you seek for other supports ? Soon, to your sorrow, those 
 supports failed you ; you died belie\dng yourself alone in 
 the world, when you had but to stretch out your hand to 
 take what was so near, but which you would not see. Ah ! 
 if your life had been prolonged, perhaps Nature, which had 
 made us for each other, would have brought us together never 
 to part again. Perhaps you would have felt — for your soul, 
 though too ardent, is honest — how necessary I was to you
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 331 
 
 through the very need that I have of you. Perhaps you 
 would have ceased to reproach yourself, as you have some- 
 times done in moments of calmness and justice, for not being 
 happy though loved as you were by me. 
 
 But — you are no more ; I am alone in the universe ! 
 Nothing remains to me but the dreadful consolation of those 
 who have no other, — that melancholy which likes to drink 
 its tears and shed them without seeking others to share its 
 gloom. Adieu, my dear Julie, adieu ; for these eyes, which 
 I would gladly close forever, are filled with tears as I write 
 these lines, and can see no longer the paper on which 1 writ 
 them.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE KING OF PRUSSIA, VOLTAIRE, AND 
 
 D'ALEMBERT, ON THE DEATH OF MLLE. DE 
 
 LESPINASSE. 
 
 From the King of Prussia to d'Alembert. 
 
 Potsdam, July 9, 1776. 
 
 I SYMPATHIZE with your misfortune in losing a person to 
 whom you were attached. The wounds of the heart are the 
 keenest of all; and in spite of the tine maxims of philoso- 
 phers, nothing but time will cure them. Man is an animal 
 more feeling than reasonable. I have experienced, to my 
 sorrow and only too well, what one suffers from such losses. 
 The best remedy is to compel one's self against one's will to 
 distract the mind from sorrowful ideas, which would other- 
 wise root too deeply in the soul. It is well to choose a geo- 
 metric occupation which requires application, and so put 
 aside as best we can the dreadful ideas that ceaselessly 
 return and must be evaded as much as possible. I propose 
 to you the best remedy that is known to me. Cicero, to con- 
 sole himself for the death of his dear Tullia, threw himself 
 into composition, and vsrrote many treatises, some of which 
 have come down to us. Our reason is too weak to conquer 
 the pain of a mortal wound; we must grant something to 
 nature, and say to ourselves, especially at your age and mine, 
 that we ought to be comforted by the thought that it cannot 
 be long before we rejoin the ones we regi'et. 
 
 I accept with pleasure the hope you give me of coming to 
 spend some months of the following year with me. If I can,
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 333 
 
 I will efface from your mind the sad and melancholy ideas 
 that this fatal event has piit there. We will philosophize 
 together on the nothingness of life, on the folly of men, on 
 the vanity of stoicism and of all our being. These are inex- 
 haustible topics with which to compose many in-folios. 
 Nevertheless, I beg you to make all the efforts of which you 
 are capable to prevent the excess of pain from injuring your 
 health, about which I interest myself too much to think of 
 it with indifference. 
 
 D'Alembert to the King of Prussia. 
 
 Paris, August 15, 1776. 
 
 My soul and pen have no expression to testify to your 
 Majesty the deep and tender gratitude with which the letter 
 you have deigned to write to me has filled me, — a letter so 
 full of truth and interest, feeling and reason combined. 
 Permit me. Sire, this expression of friendship — for why 
 should I. not venture to use with a great king the word 
 which makes that great king so dear to my heart ? I should 
 not have delayed a moment in replying to this fresh mark, 
 so touching for me, of the kindness with which your Majesty 
 honours me, and in reiterating to you more warmly than 
 ever the expression of feelings which I owe to you, if that 
 expression would not have drawn me, in spite of myself, into 
 fresh paroxysms of sorrow ; which your Majesty would doubt- 
 less have pardoned, but which might have troubled the sweet 
 and proper satisfaction which your Majesty is now enjoying. 
 The newspapers announce the visit of the Grand-duke of 
 Russia to Berlin, and the union that you are about to con- 
 tract with that young prince, so worthy, it is said, for his 
 rare qualities, to unite himself with you. [The Grand-duke 
 Paul married the niece of Frederick the Great.] I have 
 waited for his departure to pour my soul once more into that
 
 334 LETTERS ON THE DEATH OF [1776 
 
 of your Majesty, and above all to return you thanks for a 
 letter which is so little that of a king that it is all the more 
 precious and dear to me. 
 
 Your Majesty has no need to tell me that you have " felt 
 to your sorrow, and only too well, what we suffer in losing 
 that which we love." It can be seen. Sire, that you have 
 experienced that cruel anguish by the feeling and truthful 
 manner in which you speak to an afflicted heart and tell it 
 that which is best adapted to its deplorable condition. All 
 my friends are seeking, like you, to comfort me ; they all 
 tell me, like you, to distract my mind, but none have 
 thought to add, as you have done, that " our reason is too 
 weak to conquer the pain of a mortal wound ; we must 
 grant something to nature and say to ourselves, especially 
 at your age and mine, that it will not be long before we 
 rejoin the object of our affections." Alas ! Sire, that is the 
 only hope that comforts me, or rather, which makes me able 
 to endure the few remaining days I have to live. . . . 
 
 I wrote a few years since to your Majesty, at a time when 
 my frail body was daily growing feebler, that I desired 
 nothing more upon my tomb than a stone with these words : 
 " The Great Frederick honoured him with his kindness and 
 his benefits." That stone and those words are to-day more 
 than ever my desire : life, fame, even study, all have become 
 indiff'erent and tasteless to me ; I feel nothing but the soli- 
 tude of my soul, the void in my life. My brain, fatigued 
 and almost exhausted by forty years of profound meditation, 
 is to-day deprived of the resource which has so often soothed 
 my troubles. I am left alone, abandoned to my melancholy ; 
 and nature, blighted for me, off"ers me no object of attach- 
 ment, nor even one of occupation. 
 
 But, Sire, why talk to you of my woes when you have to 
 comfort those of so many others ? . . .
 
 1776] Mlle. de lespinasse. 335 
 
 The King of Prussia to d' Alembert. 
 
 Potsdam, September 7, 1776. 
 Your letter, my dear d'Alembert, reached me on my re- 
 tm-n from Silesia. I see that your tender heart is still 
 sensitive, and I do not blame you. Tlie powers of our souls 
 have their limits, and we must exact nothing from them that 
 is not possible. If a very strong and robust man were 
 required to upset the Louvre by applying his shoulder, he 
 could not do it ; but give him a stone of a hundred pounds 
 to move, and the result is certain. It is the same thiacr with 
 reason ; it can conquer obstacles proportioned to its strength, 
 but there are others that force it to give way. Nature has 
 made us feeling ; philosophy can never make us do the im- 
 possible : and suppose it could, that would be harmful to 
 society ; the result would be no compassion for the troubles 
 of others ; the human species would end in becoming hard 
 and pitiless. Reason ought to serve us in moderating what- 
 ever is excessive in us, but not in destroying the human 
 being in the man. 
 
 Therefore regret your loss, my dear friend ; I will even 
 add that the losses of friendship are irreparable ; and that 
 whoever is capable of appreciating things as they are must 
 judge you worthy of having true friends because you know 
 how to love. 
 
 But as it is above the powers of man, and even of the 
 gods, to change the past, you ought to try to preserve your- 
 self for the friends who remain to you, in order not to cause 
 them the mortal grief of losing you. I have had friends, 
 both men and women ; I have lost five or six, and I thouglit 
 to die of my grief. By a mere chance these losses fell upon 
 me during the different wars in which I have been en- 
 gaged, — a time in which 1 was continually obliged to
 
 336 LETTERS ON THE DEATH OF [1776 
 
 make and chauge my arrangements. Those inevitable dis- 
 tractions did, perhaps, prevent me fnjin succumbing to my 
 grief. I strongly wish that some very difficult pnjblem to 
 solve could be proposed to you, which would force you to 
 think of other things. There is, in truth, no remedy but 
 that and time. We aie like rivers that keep their name 
 while their waters are forever changing. When a part of 
 the molecules that compose us are replaced by others, the 
 memory of objects which gave us pleasui-e or grief is weak- 
 ened, because, really, we are n(jt the same men} time is 
 renewing us incessantly. This is a thought for the un- 
 happy, and every one who thinks ought to make use of it. 
 
 I rejoiced for myself at the thought of seeing you here, 
 and now I rejoice for you ; y(ju will see new objects and 
 other persons. I warn you that I shall do all that depends 
 on me to take from your memory whatever may remind you 
 of sad and grievous things, and I shall feel as much joy in 
 tranquillizing- your mind as I do in winning a battle. Not 
 that I think myself a great philosopher, but because I have 
 an unhappy experience of the state in which you are, and I 
 feel 1 am in that way better fitted than others to tranquillize 
 you. Come, then, my dear d'Alembert ; be sure of being well 
 received, and of finding, not perfect remedies for your sor- 
 rows, but lenitives and anodynes. 
 
 D'Alembert to the King of Prussia, 
 
 Paris, October 7, 1776. 
 Sire, very violent and continual headaches which for three 
 weeks have prevented me from writing and thinking and are 
 the sad result of my mental condition, have seemed to me 
 the more cruel because they have not permitted me to reply 
 sooner to the letter which your Majesty has vrritten to me 
 about my grief. What a letter. Sire ! and how few — I do
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPINASSE. 337 
 
 not say kings, for they know not such language, but — friends 
 would know how to speak as you do to an oppressed and suf- 
 fering soul ! I read and reread daily a letter so fitted to 
 soothe my trouble ; I have read it to my friends who are, 
 like me, full of gratitude to your Majesty, and I say to 
 myself as I read it, and after reading it, " That great prince 
 is right," but I continue, nevertheless, to grieve. Your 
 Majesty must not be surprised or give up hope of my cure, 
 though I myself see none as yet. Objects of deep study 
 would be the only means of bringing it about ; your Majesty 
 suggests with as much kindness as wisdom that powerful 
 remedy ; but my poor brain is no longer capable of using it. 
 It is to time alone that I can look for some relief to my dis- 
 tress ; and 1 fear that cruel time will destroy rather than 
 cure me. 
 
 The comparison that your Majesty makes between our un- 
 happy individuality and the rivers which ever change though 
 preserving their names, is as ingenious as it is philosophical, 
 and explains with as much reason as wit why time should 
 console us ; but at present. Sire, my sad river feels only the 
 pain of flowing, and sees no hope of a peaceful and happier 
 current. If I were twenty -five years younger I might per- 
 haps have the happiness of forming another attachment 
 which would make life endurable to me; but. Sire, I am 
 nearly sixty years of age, and at that time of life we cannot 
 replace the friends we have the misfortune to lose. I feel 
 this the more at this moment in an afflicting manner through 
 a fresh loss with which I am threatened. . . . An excellent 
 woman, full of intelligence and virtue, . . . Mme. Geoffrin, 
 who for thirty years has shown me the tenderest friendship, 
 and who quite recently has given to my sorrow all the con- 
 solations and distractions that her friendship could imagine, 
 has been struck down with paralysis. ... I thus lose in the 
 
 22
 
 338 LETTERS ON THE DEATH OF [1776 
 
 space of a few months the two persons 1 loved best and by 
 whom I was best loved. There, Sire, is the sorrowful condi- 
 tion in wliich I am, my heart dejected and withered, and I 
 myself not knowing what to do with my soul or my time. 
 
 Voltaire to d'Alembert. 
 
 June 10, 1776. 
 
 This is the moment, my dear friend, when philosophy is 
 very necessary to you. I have heard very late, and not 
 through you, of the loss you have met with. IJere is your 
 whole life changed. It will be very difficult to accustom 
 yourself to sucli a privation. They tell me that the lodging 
 you have in the Louvre is very gloomy. I fear for your 
 health. Com-age serves for combat, but it does not serve to 
 console us, or make us happy. . . . 
 
 D'Alembert to Voltaire. 
 
 June 24, 1776. 
 
 I did not tell you of my misfortune, my very dear and 
 worthy master, tirst, because I had not the strength to write, 
 and next, because I was sure that our mutual friends would 
 tell you of it. 
 
 I shall not feel the help of philosophy until nature suc- 
 ceeds in restoring to me the sleep and the appetite I have 
 lost. My life and my soul are in the void ; the abyss of 
 doubts in which I am seems to me bottomless. I try to 
 shake myself, to distract myself, but hitherto without suc- 
 cess. I have not been able to occupy my mind during the 
 last month since this dreadful sorrow, except with a Eulogy 
 which I read to the Academy at La Harpe's reception. , . . 
 But that success has only increased my affliction, because it 
 will be unknown forever to my unhappy friend, who would 
 have taken such interest in it.
 
 1776] MLLE. DE LESPlNASSE. 339 
 
 Adieu, my dear master ; when my poor soul is calmer, less 
 blighted, I will speak to you of other giiefs which we share 
 in common ; but at this moment they are stifled by a sorrow 
 more keen, more piercing. Take care of your health and 
 continue to love tuum ex animo.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Agcesseau (The Chevalier d), 54, 56, 
 61, 62, 76, 89, 127, 166. 
 
 Aix (The Archbishop of), 141, 152. 
 
 Albon (The Cointesse d'), 3, 22, 311. 
 
 Alembert (Jeau-Le-Koud d'), 4, 5, 18, 
 21, 28-30,32,33,39,40, 61, 84,89, 91, 
 106, 114, 118, 122, 136, 141, 143, 155, 
 161, 162, 177, 179, 207, 209, 210, 222, 
 223, 241, 244, 248, 253, 299, 326, 332- 
 339. 
 
 Anlezy (J. P. de Damas, Comte d'), 28. 
 
 Anville (The Duchesse d'), 99, 154, 
 244. 
 
 Akgenson (Marc-Pierre, Comte d'), 65, 
 154. 
 
 BARRiiKE (de Vieuzac), 2. 
 Beauvau (Prince de), 33, 89. 
 Bernis (Cardinal de), 135, 316. 
 BouFFLERS (Marie Christine, Comtesse 
 
 de), 64, 73. 89, 108, 12.3, 152, 1.58, 167, 
 
 168, 219, 265. 
 Breteuil (Baron de), 265. 
 Brienne (Lomc'nie de). Archbishop of 
 
 Toulouse, 118, 141, 156, 270. 
 BuKFON (Georges-Louis-LeClerc Comte 
 
 de), 36. 
 
 Caraccioli (Marquis de), 82, 244. 
 Catherine II., Empress of Russia, 173, 
 
 179. 
 Chastellux (Francois-Jean, Chevalier 
 
 de), 18, 28, 76, 84, 88, 89, 127, 160, 
 
 179, 180, 275. 
 Chatillon (Duchesse de), 28, 163, 174, 
 
 186, 202, 210, 219. 
 Choisell (fetienne-Fran9oi3 Due de), 
 
 29, 123, 155. 
 
 Clement XIV. (Pope), 150. 
 CoNDORCET ( Marie- Jean- Antoine-Nico- 
 
 las. Marquis de), 18, 21, 155, 176, 206, 
 
 210, 238, 294, 297, 298. 
 
 " CoNSETABLE DE BODRBON," 53, 69, 
 
 73, 94, 232, 250. 
 Courcelles (Alexandrine des Hayes 
 
 de Boutinon, Mile, de), Comtesse de 
 
 Guibert, 113, 218, 254, 256, 278. 
 Creutz (Comte de), 176, 184, 193, 212, 
 
 256. 
 
 Deffand (Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, 
 Marquise du), 3, 4, 22, 23, 25-28, 33, 
 82, 141, 243, 244,304. 
 
 Diderot (Denis), 33, 47, 61, 173, 179. 
 
 DoRAT (Jean), 37, 38, 70. 
 
 Droz and his automatons, 202. 
 
 DuPLESSis (Joseph-Silfrede), 157. 
 
 DuRAS (Mare'chal Due de), 222. 
 
 " Eulogy of Catiuat," by M. de Guibert, 
 199, 220, 227, 232, 235-237, 240, 245- 
 247. 
 
 " Eulogy of La Fontaine," by d' Alem- 
 bert, 135, 173, 237. 
 
 " Eulogy of Eliza," by M. de Guibert, 
 310-335. 
 
 FoNTENELLE (Bernard le Bovier), 170. 
 Frederick the Great, King of Prus- 
 sia, 55, 63, 69, 70, 81, 332-338. 
 FuENTiis (Comte de), 62, 142, 143, 162. 
 
 Geoffrin (Marie Therfese, Mme.), 32, 
 
 33, 84,91, 189, 291,337. 
 Gluck (Christoph Wilibald von), 138, 
 
 157, 202.
 
 342 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Grimm (Friedrich Melchior, Baron), 21, 
 
 33, 35, 37, 173, 
 GuiBEKT (Cotnte de), 7-10, 14; letters 
 
 to him 42 el seq. ; his inarriiige, 224 et 
 
 seq. ; his Eulogy on Mile, de Lespi- 
 
 nasse, 310-325. 
 
 Helvetius (Claude-Adrien), 78. 
 Henault (l'resideut),33, 141, 154. 
 
 KocK (Baruu de), 70, 176. 
 
 La IIaupe (Jean-Frau9ois de), 21,31, 
 234, 235-237, 246, 247. 
 
 LAN90N (painter), 190. 
 
 Lkspinas.sk (Julie-Jeanne-Eleonorede), 
 Saiiite-Beuve's estimate oi her, 1-20; 
 publication of her letters, certain let- 
 ters not hers, 1,2; her birth, 21 ; edu- 
 cation, 22 ; unhappy position after her 
 mother's death, 23 ; generous conduct 
 as to money, 24 ; letters to her from 
 Mme. du l)effaud, 25, 26; goes to 
 live with Mme. du Deffaud, 27 ; rup- 
 ture between them, establishes an in- 
 dependent salon, 28; relations with 
 d'Alembert, 29, 30, 39 ; description of 
 her person by her friends, 31 , 32 ; her 
 salon, 32 ; what it was, and her 
 management of it, described by those 
 who frequented it, 33-38; her influ- 
 ence on the French Academy, 37, 38 ; 
 the struggle of her double love for 
 M. de Mora and M. de Guibert, 7, 10, 
 38; her death, 40; letters to M. de 
 Guibert during his journey to Prus- 
 sia, 42-89 ; until M. de Mora's death, 
 89-97 ; until M. de Guibert's mar- 
 riage, 97-218 ; from that marriage till 
 her death, 218-298 ; her Portrait by 
 d'Alembert, 299-309 ; her Eulogy by 
 M. de Guibert, 310-325 ; to her Manes, 
 by d'Alembert, 326-331 ; letters on 
 her death from Frederick the Great 
 and Voltaire, 332-339. 
 
 Louis XV., 100. 
 
 Louis XVL, 125, 224. 
 
 Luxembourg (Duchesse de), 29. 
 
 Malesherbes (Chre'tien-Guillaume de 
 Lamoiguon de), 18, 168, 235. 
 
 Manes of Mlle. ue Lespi.nasse (To 
 the), by d'Alembert, 326-331. 
 
 Mauie-Antoinette (Dauphine and 
 Queen), 65, 202. 
 
 Makmontel (Jean-Fran9oi8), 21, 28, 
 29, 31, 34, 160, 196, 222. 
 
 Mora (Gon.salvo, Marquis de), 7, 8,52, 
 54, 58, 62, 81, 83, 8.5, 86, 92, 9.% 
 96, 99, 107, 110. Ill, 116, 120, 121, 
 128-131, 141, 142, 151, 161, 175, 200, 
 203, 209, 216, 222, 248, 249, 258, 267, 
 274, 282, 284, 313. 
 
 MouELLET (Abbe de), 20, 36, 108, 152. 
 
 MouLiN-JoLi, 8, 59. 
 
 Muv (Marechalde), 140. 
 
 Necker (Jacques), 78. 
 
 " Orpheus and Eurydice," 138, 158, 159, 
 166. 
 
 PiGNATELLi (Prince), 220. 
 
 Portrait of Mlle. de Lespinasse, 
 
 by d'Alembert, 299-309. 
 
 RiccOBONi (Mme.), 229, 239. 
 Richardson (Samuel), 239, 316. 
 Rougher (Jean-Antoine), 197, 217. 
 Rousseau (Jean- Jacques), 225. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve (C.-A.), on Mile, de 
 
 Lespinasse, 1-20. 
 Saint-Chamans ( Vicomte de), 287, 293. 
 Saint-Germain (Comte de), 271-273, 
 
 280. 
 Shelburne (Earl of). Marquis of 
 
 Lansdowne, 18, 155, 168, 182, 183. 
 
 Terrai (Abbe'de), 122, 126, 139, 146. 
 TuRGOT (Robert Jacques), 18, 122, 125, 
 
 126, 133, 138, 139, 141, 146, 159, 191, 
 
 265, 269. 
 
 Vaines (M. de), 127, 133, 139, 146, 
 
 159, 207, 212, 269. 
 Vichy-Chamrond (Marquise de), 26, 
 
 24. 
 Voltaire (M. de), 157, 185, 212, 338.
 
 THE VERSAILLES 
 
 HISTORICAL SERIES 
 
 Reign of Louis XIII and XIV 
 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville 
 
 On Anne of Austria and her Court. With an Intro- 
 duction by C.-A. SAINTE-BeUVE. 3 volumes. 
 
 Reign of Louis XIV 
 Memoirs of the Due de Saint-Simon 
 
 On the Times of Louis XIV and the Regency. Trans- 
 lated and arranged from the edition collated with the 
 original manuscript by M. Cheruel. With an Intro- 
 duction by C.-A. SAINTE-BEUVE. 4 volumes. 
 
 Reign of Louis XIV 
 The Correspondence of Madame, Princess Palatine 
 
 Mother of the Regent; of Marie-Adelaide de Savoie, 
 Duchesse de Bourgogne; and of Madame de Mainte- 
 non, in relation to Saint-Cyr. Preceded by Introduc- 
 tions from C.-A. SaINTE-BEUVE. i volume. 
 
 Reign of Louis XV 
 Journal and Memoirs of the Marquis d'Argenson 
 
 Published from the autograph MSS. in the Library of 
 the Louvre. By E. J. B. Rathery. With an Intro- 
 duction by C.-A. SaINTE-BEUVE. 2 volumes. 
 
 Reign of Louis XV 
 Memoirs and Letters of Cardinal de Bernis 
 
 Published from the original MSS. by FREDERIC Mas- 
 SON. With an Introduction by C.-A. Saixte-Beuve. 
 
 2 volumes.
 
 The Versailles Historical Series 
 
 Reign of Louis XV 
 Letters of Mile. Julie de Lespinasse 
 
 With Notes upon her life and character by D'Alem- 
 BERT, Marmontel, and De Guibert, and an Intro- 
 duction by C.-A. SAINTE-BeUVE. i volume. 
 
 Reign of Louis XV and XVI 
 The Prince de Ligne 
 
 His Memoirs, Letters, and Miscellaneous Papers. 
 With Introduction and Preface by C.-A. Sainte- 
 Beuve and Madame de STAiiL-HoLSTEiN. 
 
 2 volumes. 
 
 Reign of Louis XVI 
 
 Diary and Correspondence of Count Axel Fersen, 
 Grand Marshal of Sweden 
 
 Relating to the Court of France. Selections pub- 
 lished by his great-nephew, Baron R. M. Klinckow- 
 
 STROM. I volume. 
 
 Reign of Louis XVI 
 The Life and Letters of Madame Elisabeth de France 
 
 Followed by the Journal of the Temple by Clerv and 
 the Narrative of Marie Therese de France, Duchesse 
 d'Angoul^me. i volume. 
 
 The Valois Period 
 The Book of the Ladies 
 
 By Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbe de Br.\nt6me. 
 With elucidations on some of those ladies by C.-A, 
 SaINTE-BeUVE. I volume.
 
 The Old French Monarchy 
 
 ITS DECLINE AND FALL 
 
 As told in the curious memoirs written in the 
 times of Louis XIII to Louis XVI and published 
 in eighteen volumes under the general title of 
 
 ^~l"^HIS series pictures the pageantry of the court at Versailles, 
 -*- Fontainebleau, Marly, and Paris during the reigns of Louis 
 XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI, as related in the original memoirs of 
 noted men and women who lived at court and who were in close 
 touch with the sovereigns and their attaches. It gives a complete 
 and graphic succession of actual events which transpired during 
 these most important reigns. The pages are alive with the figures 
 of statesmen and soldiers, with brilliant adventurers and charming 
 ladies, and with all the wit and wickedness, the splendor and the 
 corruption of these fascinating periods. 
 
 If one cares to read the volumes of Dumas understandingly, he 
 will find all of the characters portrayed to the life by contempora- 
 ries. Should he care to place the noted rulers and people of 
 France in consecutive order for two centuries, these books will 
 furnish the means of doing so. The satisfaction of having a per- 
 fect knowledge of French royalty and court life as gleaned from 
 those pages can be had for the reading. If one is a little hazy on 
 French history, or is uncertain just what relation one sovereign 
 bears to another, who the famous mistresses of the kings were, who 
 were the powers behind the thrones, what the social life of the 
 people was, — here it can be found with a fidelity to which only 
 contemporary observers could attain. Until now these memoirs 
 have been inaccessible to English readers. The unexpurgated
 
 THE OLD FRENCH MONARCHY 
 
 revelations of the court life hold us with breathless interest, and 
 read like novels. 
 
 The introductions to these memoirs, by C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, 
 form an important feature. They elucidate the works with candor 
 and buoyancy, and are masterpieces of criticism and graceful 
 appreciation. 
 
 The illustrations are unique, being portraits of royalty and noted 
 personages by the most celebrated painters of the times, and old 
 chateaux and scenes as they existed, reproduced in photogravure 
 and printed in various tints with charming effect. In securing 
 these illustrations, special agents were appointed to search the dif- 
 ferent capitals of the world. Ambassador White at Berlin took 
 an active interest, and contributed much of his valuable time in 
 the search. The minister of the public instruction of fine arts and 
 the keeper of the Gallery of Illustrations in Paris both rendered 
 valuable assistance in tracing obscure subjects. Persons in high 
 standing at St. Petersburg very kindly lent their time and experi- 
 ence. Subjects from Italy were procured through the assistance 
 of a connoisseur of noted repute. The publishers are enabled to 
 present in this collection illustrations of noted pictures from the 
 galleries of the famous old chateau at Beloeil which was lately 
 burned, and which cannot be replaced. 
 
 Paper, print, and binding together form a series of beauty and 
 durability, — a most important acquisition for a private library. 
 The paper is of fine quality, the print is large and clear and new, 
 and the binding artistic, but not too showy, with deckle edges, 
 flat backs. 
 
 Publication — The series is complete in eighteen volumes, and 
 the publishers would be pleased to send a thirty-two page illus- 
 trated brochure of the series and to quote prices and terms for 
 complete sets on application.
 
 Date Due 
 
 m WR 
 
 6W 
 
 ^ j 11981 
 
 M 001339 298 
 
 Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137 
 
 IiR^■\:TXS0•9 
 
 ■^totioners, 
 -luare, 
 > I'RX. 
 
 3 1210 00297 4986