XI
[There were grounds to the feelings of jealousy shown in the last letter. No explicit record is left of what happened. But ten years later Coste, now married to Marie de Laussac, the eldest daughter of M. de Laussac, an army chaplain in England, writes to his once dear Suson, since become the wife of one La Coste, a refugee living in Amsterdam.]
TO MADEMOISELLE LA COSTE, IN AMSTERDAM
Mademoiselle,—Then it is true that you complain of my not writing. Never was a complaint more agreeable. I should have accounted it a great favour at such a moment for you to think of me sometimes and to ask Mr. De La Motte news of me when you meet him. That is all I had hoped from you till Mlle. Isabeau's condition changes. But I did not yet know the extent of your generosity. I hear that, in spite of your ordinary and extraordinary business, you find time to read my letters and answer them. I own frankly that I should doubt it, had not Mr. De La Motte taken the trouble to assure me it was so; and though I dare not suspect him of wishing to make sport of me in so serious a matter, nothing can reassure me but the sight of one of your letters.
Then another motive of fear just comes to my mind: in spite of your good intentions, you might not keep your promise, under pretence that my letters need no answer....
Much love and many thanks to all your family. I mean thereby the three houses, nay, the fourth also soon to be founded. I should like to see little Marion again before setting out for Germany. I kiss her with all my heart and am, with a most particular esteem, Mademoiselle, your humble and obedient servant.—Coste. 20th June 1712. From Utrecht.
These quaint letters call for little comment: is it not better to let the curtain drop on their mysteries and leave the story its charmingly indistinct outline? One or two remarks must suffice.
PIERRE BAYLE
After Chéreau
Pierre Coste seems very anxious to clothe his thoughts in appropriate literary dress, and his anxiety is shared by Suson. At times the tone strikes one as so conventional that Coste might be suspected of insincerity if one did not bear in mind that even the language of true love must follow the fashion. At any rate Suson is sincere, and nothing is more touching than her very awkwardness when she tries her hand at the "sublime style." It is hardly possible to improve upon this very obvious statement without venturing upon unsafe ground. These old-fashioned lovers' emotions are tantalisingly unintelligible. Mark that they write to each other quite openly without even hinting at marriage. No doubt a wealthy merchant's daughter could not wed a penniless tutor, but then the Bruns, Durands, and Rouvières are respectable members of the French congregation in Amsterdam over whom watches a Consistory as strict on questions of morality as a Scottish Kirk. So we must fall back upon the hypothesis of a platonic friendship paralleled in England by no less eminent contemporaries than Locke[298] and Bishop Burnet.[299] Perhaps these letters of Coste shed some light on Swift's Journal to Stella.
Yet another observation may be added: though the tragic element is absent, there is pathos, if it be pathetic for exiles to sigh after their native land. Pierre Bayle called Paris the earthly paradise of the scholars, Barbeyrac said that Amsterdam was fit only for merchants to live in. Coste could not brook the Dutch, and Suson laughed at them in unison, instinctively regretting Languedoc and Provence. Such was the way in which the refugees, though devoid of poetic sentiment, "hanged their harps upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon."