Chapter CLXXXIV: Letter III

FROM MADAME DE COULANGES TO MADAME DE SIMIANE.

PARIS, May 2, 1696.

I am truly obliged to you, madame, for still thinking of me. I knew all your excellences; but the affection of your heart, and the regard you have felt for a person so worthy of being beloved as she whom you regret, appear to me to be above all praise. Ah! madam, how much reason have you to believe me to be deeply affected! I can think of no other subject; I can talk of nothing else. I am ignorant of the particulars of this fatal illness, and the eagerness with which I seek for them shows that I have little power over myself. I spent the whole of yesterday with the prior of St. Catharine’s. You may guess upon what our conversation turned. I showed him the letter you have done me the honor to write to me. It gave him real pleasure, for persons of his turn of mind are so convinced that this life ought only to serve as a passport to the other, that the dispositions in which we leave the world are to them the only ones that are worthy of attention. But we think of what we have lost, and we lament it. For myself, I have no female friend left. My turn will soon come; it is reasonable to expect it; but to hear a person of your age entertain such serious and melancholy thoughts is rare indeed. Your understanding, madam, makes me forget your youth; and this, added to the natural partiality I feel for you, seems to authorize me to address you as I do.