Chapter L: Letter XXXIX: PARIS, Wednesday, June 5, 1675

I have not received any of your letters since that from Sens; you will therefore easily conceive how anxious I am to be informed of your health and safety. I am fully persuaded you have written to me, and complain of nothing but the management, or rather mismanagement of the post. According to the calculations of your friends here, you should be by this time at Grignan, unless you were detained at Lyons during the holidays. In short, my dear child, I have accompanied you step by step all the way, and am in hopes the Rhône behaved with proper respect to you. I have been at Livri with Corbinelli; but returned here with all the haste I could, that I might not lose a moment in seeing our dear cardinal. The great affection he has for you, and the long friendship which has subsisted between him and me, have attached me to him very sincerely; I see him every evening from eight till ten, and I think he is very glad to have me with him till his bed-time. Our conversation is constantly about you; this is a subject we are fond of expatiating upon, and indeed it seems the master-sentiment of both hearts. He is for coming hither, but I can not bear this house when you are not in it.

The nuncio informed him yesterday that he had just learned by a courier from Rome that he was appointed to a cardinalship. The pope[108] has lately made a promotion of his creatures, as it is called. The crowns are put off for these five or six years, and consequently M. de Marseilles.[109] The nuncio told Bonvoulour, who went to congratulate him on his promotion, that he hoped his holiness would not now accept Cardinal de Retz’s resignation of his hat; that he should use all his endeavors to dissuade his holiness from doing so, as he had the honor of being his colleague: so now we have another cardinal, Cardinal de Spada. Cardinal de Retz sets out on Tuesday; I dread the day; for I shall suffer extremely in losing so valuable a friend: his courage seems to increase in proportion as that of his friend diminishes.

[108] Clement X.

[109] Toussaint de Forbin-Janson, Bishop of Marseilles, and
afterward Bishop of Beauvois, was not made cardinal till 1690, at
the promotion by Alexander VIII.

The Duchess de la Vallière pronounced her vows yesterday.[110] Madame de Villars promised to take me to see it; but by some misunderstanding we thought we should not get places. Nothing more, however, was necessary than to present ourselves at the door, though the queen had given out that the admission should not be general; and, after all, we did not go. Madame de Villars was very much vexed at it. The beautiful duchess performed this action like every other of her life, in the most charming manner possible: she is surprisingly handsome: but you will be astonished to hear that M. de Condom’s (Bossuet’s) sermon was not so good as was expected. The coadjutor was there; he will tell you how well the affair goes on with respect to M. de Paris and M. de St. Paul; but he finds the shade of M. de Toulon and the spirit of M. de Marseilles every where.

[110] For more than three years she had only received at court
insults from her rival and unkindness from the king. She remained
there, she said, merely from a spirit of penitence, and added,
“When the life of a Carmelite appears to me too severe, I have
only to call to mind what those persons made me suffer,” pointing
to the king and to Madame de Montespan.

Madame de Coulanges goes from hence on Monday with Corbinelli: this deprives me of my companions. You know how good Corbinelli is to me, and how kindly he enters into all my sentiments. I am convinced of his friendship, and feel his absence; but, my child, after having lost you, of what else can I complain? It is true that you are interested in my complaints, because he is one of those with whom I most enjoyed the consolation of speaking of you; for you must not imagine, that those to whom I can not speak freely are as agreeable to me as those who enter into my feelings. You seem to me to be apprehensive that I make myself ridiculous, and that I am too apt to divulge my sentiments on this pleasing subject. No, no, my dear, fear nothing; I am able to govern the torrent. Trust to me, and let me love you, till it shall please God to take you out of my heart, in order to place himself there; for you can yield to none but him. In short, my heart is so entirely occupied with, and so full of you, that finding myself incapable of any other thought, I have been restrained from performing the devotions of the season. Adieu, my dear child, for the present. I shall finish my letter this evening.

I have just received a letter from Macon; I can not yet read it without the fountain playing its old tricks: my heart is so extremely sensible that the least thing that affects it quite overcomes me. You may imagine that, with this fine disposition, I frequently meet with opportunities to try it; but, pray, have no fears for my health. I can never forget the philosophy you inspired me with the evening before we parted; I improve by it as much as I can; but I have such an habitual weakness, that in spite of your good lessons, I often yield to my emotion.

Our cardinal will have left me before you receive this; it will be a melancholy day to me, for I am extremely attached to his person, his merit, his conversation, which I enjoy as much as I can, and the friendship he expresses for me. His soul is of so superior an order that it is not to be expected that his life should be attended with only common events. He that makes it a law to himself, to do always what is most great and heroic, must place his retreat in some proper part of his life, like a shade beautifully disposed in a piece of painting, and leave his friends to lament it.

How facetious you are, my child, with the newspaper in your hand! What! can you derive amusement from it already? I did expect that you would at least have waited till you had crossed the vile Durance. The conversation between the king and the prince appears to me very humorous; I think you would have been entertained with it even here. I have just received a letter from the chevalier, who is well; he is with the army, and has only had five attacks of the ague: this is one subject of uneasiness less; but his letter which is full of friendship, is in the true German style; for he will not believe a syllable of the retreat of Cardinal de Retz: he desires me to tell him the truth, which I shall not fail to do. I shall distribute all your compliments, and I am sure, they will be well received; every body thinks it an honor to be remembered by you; M. de Coulanges was quite proud of it. The coadjutor will relate to you the success of his journey; but he will not boast that he was on the point of being stifled at Madame de Louvois’ by twenty women, who each supposed they had a right to embrace him: this occasioned a confusion, an oppression, a suffocation, of which the bare idea almost suffocates me, accompanied by the most high-flown, reiterated, and affected compliments that it is possible to conceive: Madame de Coulanges describes the scene very drolly. I wish you may have the company at Grignan you mention. My son is well; he sends you a thousand remembrances. M. de Grignan will be very willing for me to embrace him, now that he is no longer occupied with the bustle of the boat.