Your name, dear George, while casting a reflected radiance on my book, can gain no new glory from this page. And yet it is neither self-interest nor diffidence which has led me to place it there, but ...

Paris, September. Sweetheart, I too am free! And I am the first too, unless you have written to Blois, at our sweet tryst of letter-writing. Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening ...

Paris, September. Sweetheart, I too am free! And I am the first too, unless you have written to Blois, at our sweet tryst of letter-writing. Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening ...

November 25th. Next day I found my rooms done out and dusted, and even flowers put in the vases, by old Philippe. I began to feel at home. Only it didn’t occur to anybody that a Carmelite schoolgirl h...

December. My Darling⁠—Here I am ready to make my bow to the world. By way of preparation I have been trying to commit all the follies I could think of before sobering down for my entry. This morning, ...

December 15th. Yesterday, at two o’clock, I went to drive in the Champs-Élysées and the Bois de Boulogne. It was one of those autumn days which we used to find so beautiful on the banks of the Loire. ...

October. How deeply your letter moved me; above all, when I compare our widely different destinies! How brilliant is the world you are entering, how peaceful the retreat where I shall end my modest ca...

Paris, September. The address of this letter, my brother, will show you that the head of your house is out of reach of danger. If the massacre of our ancestors in the Court of Lions made Spaniards and...

What! To be married so soon. But this is unheard of. At the end of a month you become engaged to a man who is a stranger to you, and about whom you know nothing. The man may be deaf⁠—there are so many...

January. Our master is a poor refugee, forced to keep in hiding on account of the part he played in the revolution which the Duc d’Angoulême has just quelled⁠—a triumph to which we owe some splendid f...

December. All is over, my dear child, and it is Mme. de l’Estorade who writes to you. But between us there is no change; it is only a girl the less. Don’t be troubled; I did not give my consent reckle...

January. Oh! Renée, you have made me miserable for days! So that bewitching body, those beautiful proud features, that natural grace of manner, that soul full of priceless gifts, those eyes, where the...

La Crampade. Your Spaniard and you make me shudder, my darling. I write this line to beg of you to dismiss him. All that you say of him corresponds with the character of those dangerous adventurers wh...

February. At nine o’clock this morning, sweetheart, my father was announced in my rooms. I was up and dressed. I found him solemnly seated beside the fire in the drawing-room, looking more thoughtful ...

La Crampade, February. My dear Louise⁠—I was bound to wait some time before writing to you; but now I know, or rather I have learned, many things which, for the sake of your future happiness, I must t...

Madrid. My dear Brother⁠—You did not make me Duc de Soria in order that my actions should belie the name. How could I tolerate my happiness if I knew you to be a wanderer, deprived of the comforts whi...

March. Ah! my love, marriage is making a philosopher of you! Your darling face must, indeed, have been jaundiced when you wrote me those terrible views of human life and the duty of women. Do you fanc...

March. I am dressed in white⁠—white camellias in my hair, and another in my hand. My mother has red camellias; so it would not be impossible to take one from her⁠—if I wished! I have a strange longing...

April 2nd. Yesterday the weather was splendid. I dressed myself like a girl who wants to look her best in her sweetheart’s eyes. My father, yielding to my entreaties, has given me the prettiest turnou...

April. My angel⁠—or ought I not rather to say my imp of evil?⁠—you have, without meaning it, grieved me sorely. I would say wounded were we not one soul. And yet it is possible to wound oneself. How p...

Well, my Renée, you are a love of a woman, and I quite agree now that we can only be virtuous by cheating. Will that satisfy you? Moreover, the man who loves us is our property; we can make a fool or ...

May. If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers count it for nothing in marriage? Why should Society take for its first law that the woman must be sacrificed to the family, introduc...

June. Dear wedded sweetheart⁠—Your letter has arrived at the very moment to hearten me for a bold step which I have been meditating night and day. I feel within me a strange craving for the unknown, o...

I am not pleased with you. If you did not cry over Racine’s Bérénice, and feel it to be the most terrible of tragedies, there is no kinship in our souls; we shall never get on together, and had better...

When God beholds our faults, He sees also our repentance. Yes, my beloved mistress, you are right. I felt that I had displeased you, but knew not how. Now that you have explained the cause of your tro...

October 1825. My dear friend⁠—How is it possible that you, who brought yourself in two months to marry a broken-down invalid in order to mother him, should know anything of that terrible shifting dram...

Saucy girl! Why should I write? What could I say? Whilst your life is varied by social festivities, as well as by the anguish, the tempers, and the flowers of love⁠—all of which you describe so graphi...

March 1825. As Felipe has carried out, with a truly Saracenic generosity, the wishes of my father and mother in acknowledging the fortune he has not received from me, the Duchess has become even more ...

October. I have not written to you, dear, since our marriage, nearly eight months ago. And not a line from you! Madame, you are inexcusable. To begin with, we set off in a post-chaise for the Castle o...

December 1825. My thrice happy Louise, your letter made me dizzy. For a few moments I held it in my listless hands, while a tear or two sparkled on it in the setting sun. I was alone beneath the small...

December 1825. Madame⁠—It is the desire of my wife that you should not learn first from the formal announcement of an event which has filled us with joy. Renée has just given birth to a fine boy, whos...

January 1826. Macumer has just wakened me, darling, with your husband’s letter. First and foremost⁠—Yes. We shall be going to Chantepleurs about the end of April. To me it will be a piling up of pleas...

It is nearly five months now since baby was born, and not once, dear heart, have I found a single moment for writing to you. When you are a mother yourself, you will be more ready to excuse me than yo...

March 1826. Do you know, dear, that it is more than three months since I have written to you or heard from you? I am the more guilty of the two, for I did not reply to your last, but you don’t stand o...

My child⁠—If ever you become a mother, you will find out that it is impossible to write letters during the first two months of your nursing. Mary, my English nurse, and I are both quite knocked up. It...

April 1826. The name on this address will tell you, dear, that my petition has been granted. Your father-in-law is now Comte de l’Estorade. I would not leave Paris till I had obtained the gratificatio...

Marseilles, July. I am ashamed to think how my sudden flight will have taken you by surprise. But since I am above all honest, and since I love you not one bit the less, I shall tell you the truth in ...

Dear⁠—no words can express the astonishment of all our party when, at luncheon, we were told that you had both gone, and, above all, when the postilion who took you to Marseilles handed me your mad le...

Genoa. My beloved beauty⁠—I was bitten with the fancy to see something of Italy, and I am delighted at having carried off Macumer, whose plans in regard to Sardinia are postponed. This country is simp...

September. My dear⁠—There is lying for you at Chantepleurs a full reply to the letter you wrote me from Marseilles. This honeymoon journey, so far from diminishing the fears I there expressed, makes m...

Your atrocious letter has reached me here, the steward having forwarded it by my orders. Oh! Renée⁠ ⁠… but I will spare you the outburst of my wounded feelings, and simply tell you the effect your let...

January 1827. My father has been elected to the Chamber, my father-in-law is dead, and I am on the point of my second confinement; these are the chief events marking the end of the year for us. I ment...

Paris. Poor sweet⁠—Macumer and I forgave you all your naughtiness when we heard of your terrible trouble. I thrilled with pain as I read the details of the double agony, and there seem compensations n...

My little girl is two months old. She is called Jeanne-Athénaïs, and has for godmother and godfather my mother, and an old granduncle of Louis’. As soon as I possibly can, I shall start for my visit t...

For the first time in my life, my dear Renée, I have been alone and crying. I was sitting under a willow, on a wooden bench by the side of the long Chantepleurs marsh. The view there is charming, but ...

Paris, 1829. A whole year passed, my dear, without a letter! What does this mean? I am a little hurt. Do you suppose that your Louis, who comes to see me almost every alternate day, makes up for you? ...

You complain of my silence; have you forgotten, then, those two little brown heads, at once my subjects and my tyrants? And as to staying at home, you have yourself hit upon several of my reasons. Apa...

1829. My sweet, tender Renée, you will have learned from the papers the terrible calamity which has overwhelmed me. I have not been able to write you even a word. For twenty days I never left his beds...

1829. My darling⁠—When you hold this letter in your hands, I shall be already near, for I am starting a few minutes after it. We shall be alone together. Louis is obliged to remain in Provence because...

October 15, 1833. Yes, Renée, it is quite true; you have been correctly informed. I have sold my house, I have sold Chantepleurs, and the farms in Seine-et-Marne, but no more, please! I am neither mad...

October 15, 1833. Yes, Renée, it is quite true; you have been correctly informed. I have sold my house, I have sold Chantepleurs, and the farms in Seine-et-Marne, but no more, please! I am neither mad...

October 1833. My Dear Daniel⁠—I need two witnesses for my marriage. I beg of you to come tomorrow evening for this purpose, bringing with you our worthy and honored friend, Joseph Bridau. She who is t...

Louise, can it be that, with all your knowledge of the deep-seated mischief wrought by the indulgence of passion, even within the heart of marriage, you are planning a life of wedded solitude? Having ...

1835. What has come to you, my dear? After a silence of two years, surely Renée has a right to feel anxious about Louise. So this is love! It brushes aside and scatters to the winds a friendship such ...

The Chalet. So, after a silence of two years, you are pricked by curiosity, and want to know why I have not written. My dear Renée, there are no words, no images, no language to express my happiness. ...

My dear Louise⁠—I have read and reread your letter, and the more deeply I enter into its spirit, the clearer does it become to me that it is the letter, not of a woman, but of a child. You are the sam...

May 20th. Renée, calamity has come⁠—no, that is no word for it⁠—it has burst like a thunderbolt over your poor Louise. You know what that means; calamity for me is doubt; certainty would be death. The...

July 16th. My dear Louise⁠—I send this letter by an express before hastening to the chalet myself. Take courage. Your last letter seemed to me so frantic, that I thought myself justified, under the ci...

Ah! my dear friend, what can I say in answer except the cruel “It is too late” of that fool Lafayette to his royal master? Oh! my life, my sweet life, what physician will give it back to me. My own ha...

The Chalet, August 7th. My love⁠—Take the children away to Provence without me; I remain with Louise, who has only a few days yet to live. I cannot leave either her or her husband, for whose reason I ...