I left that evening; she wished to accompany me on the road to Frapesle; and we stopped under my walnut-tree.  I showed it to her, and told her how I had first seen her four years earlier from that spot.  “The valley was so beautiful then!” I cried.

“And now?” she said quickly.

“You are beneath my tree, and the valley is ours!”

She bowed her head and that was our farewell; she got into her carriage with Madeleine, and I into mine alone.

On my return to Paris I was absorbed in pressing business which took all my time and kept me out of society, which for a while forgot me.  I corresponded with Madame de Mortsauf, and sent her my journal once a week.  She answered twice a month.  It was a life of solitude yet teeming, like those sequestered spots, blooming unknown, which I had sometimes found in the depths of woods when gathering the flowers for my poems.

Oh, you who love! take these obligations on you; accept these daily duties, like those the Church imposes upon Christians.  The rigorous observances of the Roman faith contain a great idea; they plough the furrow of duty in the soul by the daily repetition of acts which keep alive the sense of hope and fear.  Sentiments flow clearer in furrowed channels which purify their stream; they refresh the heart, they fertilize the life from the abundant treasures of a hidden faith, the source divine in which the single thought of a single love is multiplied indefinitely.

My love, an echo of the Middle Ages and of chivalry, was known, I know not how; possibly the king and the Duc de Lenoncourt had spoken of it.  From that upper sphere the romantic yet simple story of a young man piously adoring a beautiful woman remote from the world, noble in her solitude, faithful without support to duty, spread, no doubt quickly, through the faubourg St. Germain.  In the salons I was the object of embarrassing notice; for retired life has advantages which if once experienced make the burden of a constant social intercourse insupportable.  Certain minds are painfully affected by violent contrasts, just as eyes accustomed to soft colors are hurt by glaring light.  This was my condition then; you may be surprised at it now, but have patience; the inconsistencies of the Vandenesse of to-day will be explained to you.

I found society courteous and women most kind.  After the marriage of the Duc de Berry the court resumed its former splendor and the glory of the French fetes revived.  The Allied occupation was over, prosperity reappeared, enjoyments were again possible.  Noted personages, illustrious by rank, prominent by fortune, came from all parts of Europe to the capital of the intellect, where the merits and the vices of other countries were found magnified and whetted by the charms of French intellect.