Chapter CXXVIII: Letter CXVII

_The Rocks_, Wednesday, January 11, 1690.

Good heavens! what a new year’s gift! what wishes! what could be more calculated to charm me? I will tell you a feeling I have just discovered in myself; if it could repay yours I should be satisfied, for I have no other coin: instead of the kind fears which the frequent deaths that surround you occasion, and which make you think of others, I offer you the real consolation, and even the joy, which frequently arise to me from my being older than you. The thought that the oldest goes first, and that I shall probably and naturally keep my rank with my dear child, constitutes the true charms of this feeling. What have I not suffered, when your ill state of health made me dread a reverse of the order of nature? These were trying times; let us talk no more of them; you are well, God be praised; and every thing has resumed its natural course. _God preserve you_; I believe you hear my tone of voice, and know me.

I now come to the chevalier; I have no hesitation in believing that the climate of Provence would agree with him better in winter than that of Paris. All those who, like swallows, fly to your sunshine, afford sufficient testimony of this. But, while I rejoice at his being sensible of the difference, I am grieved at his having lost a thousand crowns of his income; and by what means? was his regiment worth so much to him? He will sell it then to the marquis;[256] but will not the money arising from it, in payment of debts, diminish the interest of loans? Settle this account for me, which makes me uneasy; I can not figure to myself the Chevalier de Grignan at Paris without his genteel and neat little equipage; I can not see him walking on foot, nor inquiring for places to Versailles; such an idea can not enter my head; this article is interlocutory; ah, how happily this term of chicanery finds admittance here! Neither do I comprehend your sixty-four people, besides guards; you deceive me, this can not be your meaning, you must give me a mathematical demonstration.

[256] The Chevalier de Grignan, attaining the rank of field
marshal in 1688, had leave to keep his regiment, that he might
afterward resign in favor of the Marquis de Grignan his nephew.

With regard to Paulina, you can not surely hesitate respecting the choice you have to take, between good and evil. The superiority of your understanding will easily point out to you the true road; every thing leads you to your duty; honor conscience, and the power you possess. When I consider how much she has corrected herself in a short time to please you, and how much she is improved, you will be answerable for all the good she neglects. As to reading, you are too much engaged in conversation and discussion to attend to it: we are most quiet here, and therefore, have leisure for it. I even read works I had slightly run over at Paris, and which appear quite new to me. We also read, by way of interlude to our grand lectures, scraps that we meet with, such as the fine funeral orations of M. de Bossuet,[257] M. Flechier,[258] M. Mascaron,[259] Father Bourdaloüe: we pay a fresh tribute of tears to M. de Turenne, Madame de Montausier, the Prince, the late Madame, and the Queen of England; we admire the portrait of Cromwell: these are master-pieces of eloquence, which charm the mind. You must not say, “These are old;” they are not old, they are divine. Paulina should be made acquainted and delighted with them; but this is calculated solely for the Rocks. I know not what book to recommend to Paulina: Davila is fine in Italian, we have read it; Guicciardini is very long; I should like the anecdotes of Medicis, which are an abridgment, but they are not in Italian. I will not name Bentivoglio again;[260] let her confine herself to poetry, I do not like Italian prose; to Tasso, _Aminto_, _Il Pastor Fido_, etc. I dare not add Ariosto, there are some bad passages in it; let her also read history; let her cherish this taste, which may long preserve her from idleness; it is to be feared that if this part of reading were suppressed there would be scarcely any thing to read; let her begin with the life of Theodosius the Great, and let her tell me how she likes it. This, my child, is a letter of trifles; we set apart some days for chatting, without offense to serious matters, in which we always take true interest.

[257] The Bishop of Meaux.

[258] The Bishop of Nîmes.

[259] The Bishop of Agen.

[260] Gui Bentivoglio, cardinal, and author of the Civil Wars in
Flanders, and several other works.