Oh, sweet recollections, how dear you are to me!  Charming details of a calm and holy life, with what happiness do I recall you!  Time in separating you from me seems only to have brought you nearer in recollection.  I have seen life, alas! during these six long months, but, in acquiring a knowledge of the world, I have learned to love still more the innocent ignorance of my past existence.  Wiser than myself, you have remained in the service of the Lord; you have understood the divine mission which had been reserved for you; you have been unwilling to step over the profane threshold and to enter the world, that cavern, I ought to say, in which I am now assailed, tossed about like a frail bark during a tempest.  Nay, the anger of the waves of the sea compared to that of the passions is mere child’s play.  Happy friend, who art ignorant of what I have learned.  Happy friend, whose eyes have not yet measured the abyss into which mine are already sunk.

But what was I to do?  Was I not obliged—­despite my vocation and the tender friendship which called me to your side—­was I not obliged, I say, to submit to the exigencies imposed by the name I bear, and also to the will of my father, who destined me for a military career in order to defend a noble cause which you too would defend?  In short, I obeyed and quitted the college of the Fathers never to return again.

I went into the world, my heart charged with the salutary fears which our pious education had caused to grow up there.  I advanced cautiously, but very soon recoiled horror-stricken.  I am eighteen; I am still young, I know, but I have already reflected much, while the experience of my pious instructors has imparted to my soul a precocious maturity which enables me to judge of many things; besides my faith is so firmly established and so deeply rooted in my being, that I can look about me without danger.  I do not fear for my own salvation, but I am shocked when I think of the future of our modern society, and I pray the Lord fervently, from a heart untainted by sin, not to turn away His countenance in wrath from our unhappy country.  Even here, at the seat of my cousin, the Marchioness K------de C------, where I am at the present moment, I can discover nothing but frivolity among the men, and dangerous coquetry among the women.  The pernicious atmosphere of the period seems to pervade even the highest rank of the French aristocracy.  Sometimes discussions occur on matters pertaining to science and morals, which aim a kind of indirect blow at religion itself, of which our Holy Father the Pope should alone be called on to decide.  In this way God permits, at the present day, certain petty savants, flat-headed men of science, to explain in a novel fashion the origin of humanity, and, despite the excommunication which will certainly overtake them, to throw down a wild and impious challenge at the most venerable traditions.

I have not myself desired to be enlightened in regard to such base depravity, but I have heard with poignant grief men with great minds and illustrious names attach some importance to it.