Chapter XXXVIII: Letter XXVII: PARIS, Friday, May 30, 1672

I had no letter from you yesterday, my poor child. Your journey to Monaco had put you quite out of sorts. I was afraid some little disaster of this kind would befall me. I now send you news from M. de Pomponne; the fashion of being wounded is already begun; my heart is very heavy with the fears of this campaign. My son writes by every opportunity; he is at present in good health.

My aunt is still in a deplorable state, and yet we have the courage to think of appointing a day for our departure, assuming a hope which in reality we can not entertain. I can not help thinking that many of the events of life are ill-arranged; they are, as it were, rugged stones lying across our way, too unwieldy to be removed, and which we must get over as well as we can, though not without pain and difficulty. Is not the comparison just? I shall not bring my little girl with me; she goes on very well at Livri, and is to stay there during the summer. You never saw Livri in such perfection as it is at present; the trees are beautifully green, and the honeysuckles are every where in profusion. I am not yet tired of their perfume. But you despise our shrubberies since you have been accustomed to your groves of orange-trees.

I have a very tragical history to communicate to you from Livri. Do you remember that pretended devotee, who walked so steadily without turning his head that you would have thought he was carrying a glass of water upon it? His devotion has turned his brain. One night he gave himself five or six stabs with a knife, and fell on his knees in his cell, naked, and weltering in his blood. On entering, he was found in this posture. “Good God! brother, what have you done? Who has treated you thus?” He replied, very calmly, “Father, I am doing penance.” He fainted away; he was put to bed; his wounds, which were found very dangerous, were dressed; with uncommon care and attention he recovered at the end of three months, and was sent back to his friends.

If you do not think such a head sufficiently disordered, tell me so, and you shall have the story of Madame Paul,[66] who is fallen desperately in love with a great booby of five or six and twenty, whom she had taken to be her gardener. The lady has managed her affairs admirably; she has married him. The fellow is a mere brute, and has not common sense; he will beat her soon, he has already threatened to do it; no matter, she was resolved to have him. I have never seen such violent love; there is all the extravagance of sentiments imaginable, were they but rightly applied; but they are like a rough sketch of an ill painting; all the colors are there, they want only to be properly disposed. It is extremely amusing to me to meditate on the caprices of love. I feel frightened for myself when I see such things! What insolence, to attack Mme. Paul--that is to say, austere, old, straight-laced virtue herself!

[66] Widow to the gardener at Livri.