[21] Gresset: Le Méchant.
[22] M. Danceny does not confess the truth. He had already given his confidence to M. de Valmont before this event. See letter the [fifty-seventh].
[23] This expression refers to a passage in a poem by M. de Voltaire.
[24] Racine: Britannicus.
“In just such plain array,
As beauty wears when fresh from slumber’s sway.”
[25] Mademoiselle de Volanges having shortly afterwards changed her confidant, as will appear in the subsequent letters, this collection will include no more of those which she continued to write to her friend at the convent: they would teach the Reader nothing that he did not know.
[26] This letter has not been recovered.
[27] We are unaware whether this line, “These tyrants dragged from off their thrones and made my slaves,” as well as that which occurs above, “Her arms are open still; her heart is shut,” are quotations from little-known works, or part of the prose of Madame de Merteuil. What would lead us to believe the latter is the number of faults of this nature which are found in all the letters of this correspondence. Those of the Chevalier Danceny form the only exception: perhaps, as he sometimes occupied himself with poetry, his more practised ear rendered it easier for him to avoid this fault.
[28] It will appear, in letter the hundred and fifty-second, not what M. de Valmont’s secret was, but more or less of what nature it was; and the Reader will see that we have not been able to enlighten him further on the subject.