Chapter XXXV: Letter XXIV: PARIS, Wednesday, June 20, 1672

I send you M. de Rochefoucault’s Maxims, revised and corrected, with additions; it is a present to you from himself. Some of them I can make shift to guess the meaning of; but there are others that, to my shame be it spoken, I can not understand at all. God knows how it will be with you. There is a dispute between the archbishop of Paris and the archbishop of Rheims about a point of ceremony: Paris will have Rheims ask leave of him, as his superior, to officiate, which Rheims will not consent to. It is said that these two right reverends will never agree till they are thirty or forty leagues asunder; if that is the case, they are both of them likely to continue as they are. The ceremony it relates to is the canonization of one Borgia, a Jesuit. The whole opera band is to exert itself on the occasion; the streets will be illuminated, even to the Rue St. Antoine; the people are all mad about it: old Mérinville, however, has died without having seen it.

Do not deceive yourself, my child, by entertaining too good an opinion of my letters. The other day an impertinent fellow, seeing the monstrous length of a letter I was writing to you, asked me very seriously, if I thought any body could possibly read it all: I trembled at the thought of it, but without any intention of amendment; for the correspondence I have with you is my existence, the sole pleasure of my life; and every other consideration is but mean, when put in competition with it. I am uneasy about your brother; poor fellow! The weather is very cold: he lies in camp, and is still on the march to Cologne, for the Lord knows how long! I was in hopes of seeing him this winter, and see where he is now! After all, I find little Mademoiselle Adhémar must be the comfort of my old age: I wish you could but see how fond she is of me; how she cries after me, and hangs about me. She is not a beauty, but she is very pleasing--has a delightful voice, and a skin as clear and white ... In short, I doat on her. You, it seems, doat on your boy; I am very glad of it; we can not have too many things to amuse us; real or imaginary, it does not signify.

To-morrow there is to be a ball at Madame’s. I saw a heap of jewels tossing about at mademoiselle’s, which put me in mind of past troubles: and yet, would to Heaven we were at the same work again! For how can I be unhappy while you are with me? Alas! my whole life is one continued scene of sorrow and disappointment. Dear Monsieur Nicole! have pity on me; and teach me to bear, with patience, the dispensations of Providence. Farewell, my dearest child, I dare not say I adore you; but I can not conceive any degree of love superior to mine: the kind and pleasing assurances you give me of yours, at once lighten and increase my sorrows.