Chapter CXLVII: Letter V: PARIS, Friday, January 16, 1671

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

[299] Mary Angelica Henrietta of Lorraine, married the 7th
February, 1671, to Nugno Alvares Pereira de Mello, Duke of
Cadaval in Portugal.