Letters of Two Brides
To George Sand 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 only the wish that it should bear witness to the solid friendship between us, which has survived our wanderings and separations, and triumphed over the busy malice of the world. This feeling is hardly likely now to change. The goodly company of friendly names, which will remain attached to my works, forms an element of pleasure in the midst of the vexation caused by their increasing number. Each fresh book, in fact, gives rise to fresh annoyance, were it only in the reproaches aimed at my too prolific pen, as though it could rival in fertility the world from which I draw my models! Would it not be a fine thing, George, if the future antiquarian of dead literatures were to find in this company none but great names and generous hearts, friends bound by pure and holy ties, the illustrious figures of the century? May I not justly pride myself on this assured possession, rather than on a popularity necessarily unstable? For him who knows you well, it is happiness to be able to sign himself, as I do here, Your friend, DE BALZAC. PARIS, June 1840.
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 sentence, and keep this excitement for the letter which shall tell you of my first love. By the way, why always first? Is there, I wonder, a second love?
Don't go running on like this, you will say, but tell me rather how you made your escape from the convent where you were to take your vows. Well, dear, I don't know about the Carmelites, but the miracle of my own deliverance was, I can assure you, most humdrum. The cries of an alarmed conscience triumphed over the dictates of a stern policy—there's the whole mystery. The sombre melancholy which seized me after you left hastened the happy climax, my aunt did not want to see me die of a decline, and my mother, whose one unfailing cure for my malady was a novitiate, gave way before her.
Honoré de Balzac
LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES
Translated by R. S. Scott
Contents
DEDICATION
LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES
FIRST PART
I. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE. PARIS, September.
II. THE SAME TO THE SAME November 25th.
III. THE SAME TO THE SAME December.
IV. THE SAME TO THE SAME December 15th.
V. RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU October.
VI. DON FELIPE HENAREZ TO DON FERNAND PARIS, September.
VII. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE
VIII. THE SAME TO THE SAME January.
IX. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU. December.
X. MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE January.
XI. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU La Crampade.
XII. MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE February.
XIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU LA CRAMPADE, February.
XIV. THE DUC DE SORIA TO THE BARON DE MACUMER MADRID.
XV. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE March.
XVI. THE SAME TO THE SAME March.
XVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME April 2nd.
XVIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU April.
XIX. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE
XX. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU May.
XXI. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE June.
XXII. LOUISE TO FELIPE
XXIII. FELIPE TO LOUISE
XXIV. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE October.
XXV. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU
XXVI. LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE March.
XXVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME October.
XXVIII. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER December.
XXIX. M. DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER December 1825.
XXX. LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE January 1826.
XXXI. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER
XXXII. MME. DE MACUMER TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE March 1826.
XXXIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER
XXXIV. MME. DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE April 1826.
XXXV. THE SAME TO THE SAME MARSEILLES, July.
XXXVI. THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER
XXXVII. THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE Genoa.
XXXVIII. THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER
XXXIX. THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE
XL. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER January 1827.
XLI. THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE Paris.
XLII. RENEE TO LOUISE
XLIII. MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE
XLIV. THE SAME TO THE SAME Paris, 1829.
XLV. RENEE TO LOUISE
XLVI. MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE 1829.
XLVII. RENEE TO LOUISE 1829.
SECOND PART
XLVIII. THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE October 15,
XLIX. MARIE GASTON TO DANIEL D'ARTHEZ October 1833.
L. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER
LI. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. MARIE GASTON 1835.
LII. MME. GASTON TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE The Chalet.
LIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. GASTON
LIV. MME. GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE May 20th.
LV. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. GASTON July 16th.
LVI. MME. GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE
LVII. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE COMTE DE L'ESTORADE THE CHALET,
THE END
ADDENDUM