match in the universe.  It is only four days since I wrote to her on the subject.  How can I reconcile my letter with my present situation?  But, my dear mother, it would be feebleness in me to go further with the engagement.  I have doubtless been imprudent in contracting an engagement without your consent, but I should be a monster if I violated my oaths and married Mademoiselle de Vesian.  I do not doubt that you tremble at the abyss over which you fear that I am about to fall, but I feel that I can only live with Eleonore, and I hope that you will give your consent to our union.  My fortune will suffice for our wants, and we shall live near you.  But I shall only come to Albi when Mademoiselle de Vesian shall be married, and when I can be sure that another, a thousand times more worthy than I am, shall have sworn to her an attachment deeper than that which it was in my power to offer.  I shall write neither to Madame nor Monsieur de Vesian.  Join to your other kindnesses that of undertaking this painful commission.”

There was no mistaking the firm, if regretful tone, of that letter; and Laperouse married his Eleonore at Paris.

Did Mademoiselle de Vesian break her heart because her sailor fiance had wed another?  Not at all!  She at once became engaged to the Baron de Senegas—­had she seen him beforehand, one wonders?—­and married him in August!  Laperouse was prompt to write his congratulations to her parents, and it is diverting to find him saying, concerning the lady to whom he himself had been engaged only a few weeks before, that he regretted “never having had the honour of seeing her!”

But there was still another difficulty to be overcome before Laperouse and his happy young bride could feel secure.  He had broken a regulation of the service by marrying without official sanction.  True, he had talked of settling down at Albi, but that was when he thought he was going to marry a young lady whom he did not know.  Now he had married the girl of his heart; and love, as a rule, does not stifle ambition.  Rather are the two mutually co-operative.  Eleonore had fallen in love with him as a gallant sailor, and a sailor she wanted him still to be.  Perhaps, in her dreams, she saw him a great Admiral, commanding powerful navies and winning glorious victories for France.  Madame la Comtesse did not wish her husband to end his career because he had married her, be sure of that.

Here Laperouse did a wise and tactful thing, which showed that he understood something of human nature.  Nothing interests old ladies so much as the love affairs of young people; and old ladies in France at that time exercised remarkable influence in affairs of government.  The Minister of Marine was the Marquis de Castries.  Instead of making a clean breast of matters to him, Laperouse wrote a long and delightful letter to Madame la Marquise.  “Madame,” he said, “mon histoire est un roman,” and he begged her to read it.  Of course she did.