Accept the expression of my respectful homage.

RAYMOND DE VILLIERS.

XXXII.

RENE DE CHATEAUDUN to MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel of the Prefecture, Grenoble (Isere).

Paris, Aug. 5th 18—.

All of your letters have reached me at once.  I received two yesterday and one this morning, the latter being written first and dated at Berne.  Ah! if it had reached me in due time, what distress I would have been spared!  What! he wrote you, “I love her,” and said nothing to me!  When he left me you know how unhappy he was, and I, who was made so miserable by his departure, I thought he was indifferent!

When I told you that I was about to sacrifice myself to console Madame de Meilhan, you must have thought me insane; I can see by your letter from Geneva, which I received yesterday, that you were dreadfully alarmed about me.  Cursed journey!  Cursed mail!  A letter lost might have destroyed my happiness for ever!  This letter was delayed on the road several days, and, during these several days, I suffered more torture than I ever felt during the most painful moments of my life.  These useless sorrows, that I might so easily have avoided, render me incredulous and trembling before this future of promised happiness.  I have suffered so much that joy itself finds me fearful; and then this happiness is so great that it is natural to receive it with sadness and doubt.

He told you of his delirious joy, on recognising me at the window; but he did not tell you, he could not tell you, of my uneasiness, of my dreadful suspicions, my despair when I saw him in this garret.

Our situations were not the same; what astonished and delighted him, also astonished and delighted me, but at the same time filled me with alarm.  He believed me to be poor, discovered me in an attic; it was nothing to be surprised at; the only wonderful thing about it was that my garret should be immediately opposite the house where he lived....  I knew he was wealthy; I knew he was the Count de Villiers; I knew he was of an old and noble family; I knew from his conversation that he had travelled over Italy in a manner suitable to his rank; I found him in Richeport, elegant and generous; he possesses great simplicity of manner, it is true, but it is the lordly simplicity of a great man....  In fact, everything I knew about him convinces me that his proper place was not a garret, and that if I saw him there, I did not see him in his own house.

Remember, Valentine, that for two months I have lived upon deceptions; I have been disillusioned; I have inspired the most varied and excessive griefs; I have studied the most picturesque consolations; I have seen myself lamented at the Odeon, by one lover in a box with painted women, ... and at Havre by another in a tavern with a slave....  I might now see myself lamented at Paris by a third in a garret with a grisette!