Chapter LXXI: Letter LX: PARIS, Wednesday, June 30, 1677

At length you inform me that you are arrived at Grignan. The pains you have taken to keep our correspondence uninterrupted, is a continual mark of your affection. I can assure you that you are not mistaken in the opinion that I stand in need of this support; indeed no one can be more in want of it. It is true, however, and I too often think so, that your presence would have been of much greater service to me; but your situation was so extraordinary, that the same considerations that determined you to go, made me consent to your departure, without doing any thing more than stifle my sentiments. It was considered a crime in me to discover any uneasiness with regard to your health. I saw you perishing before my eyes, and was not permitted to shed a tear. It was killing you, it was assassinating you; I was compelled to suppress my grief. I never knew a more cruel or more unprecedented species of torture. If, instead of that restraint, which only increased my affliction, you had owned that you were ill; and if your love for me had been productive of complaisance, and made you evince a real desire to follow the advice of physicians, to take nourishment, to observe a regimen, and to own that repose and the air of Livri would have done you good, this would indeed have comforted me, but your opposition to our sentiments aggravated my grief and anxiety. In the end, my child, we were so circumstanced, that we could not possibly avoid acting as we did. God explained to us his will by that conduct; but we should endeavor to see whether he will not permit us mutually to reform, and whether, instead of that despair to which you condemned me from a motive of affection, it would not be more natural and more beneficial to give our hearts the liberty they require, and without which it is impossible for us to lead a life of tranquillity. Thus I have declared my mind to you freely once for all. I shall mention the subject no more, but let us each reflect upon the past, that, whenever it pleases God to bring us together again, we may carefully avoid falling into the same errors. The relief which you have found in the fatigues of so long a journey, sufficiently proves the necessity you are under of laying aside restraint. Extraordinary remedies are necessary for persons of an extraordinary character; physicians would never have dreamed of such a one as that I have just mentioned. God grant it may continue to produce the same good effect, and that the air of Grignan may not prove injurious to you! I could not avoid writing to you in this manner, in order to relieve my heart, and intimate to you that we must endeavor, when next we meet, not to give any one an opportunity of paying us the wretched compliment of saying very civilly, that to keep quite well, we should never see one another again. I am astonished at the patience that can bear so cruel a thought.

You brought the tears into my eyes in speaking of your little boy. Alas, poor child; who can bear to see him in such a situation! I do not retract what I always thought of him; but am of opinion that, even from affection, we ought to wish him already in a happier world. Paulina appears to me worthy of being made your play-thing; her resemblance even will not displease you, at least, I hope it will not. That little quadrangular nose is a feature you can not possibly dislike to find at Grignan.[146] It seems to me somewhat odd that the noses of the Grignan family should admit no shape but this, and should be altogether averse to a nose like yours, which might have been sooner formed; but they dreaded extremes, though they did not care about a trifling modification. The little marquis is a very pretty fellow; you should not be at all uneasy at his not being altered for the better. Talk to me a great deal about the persons you associate with, and the amusements they afford you.

[146] This alludes to Madame de Sévigné’s nose, which inclined to
the square.