His life had also recently received another stimulating motive. Maurice had never been without friends, and the entrée into good Parisian society, where his distinguished, if pensive, appearance, engaging manners, and powers of conversation had made him a favourite. Here he had made the acquaintance of a young orphan lady, of good family and fortune, called Caroline de Gervain, who lived under the guardianship of an aunt. A mutual attachment sprang up between them, and the autumn of this year was enlivened for Le Cayla by a visit from Mdlle. de Gervain and her guardian.
Upon her brother's partial restoration to health, the chief care of Eugénie in regard to him was his disregard of all religious duties. On the day of his return to Paris, in January, 1838, she writes in her journal: "I enter again for the first time this room where you were only this morning. Oh, how sad is the chamber of an absent one! We see tokens of you everywhere, but find no part of the real person. Here are your shoes under the bed, the table quite filled, the mirror suspended from the nail, the books which you read yesterday evening before going to sleep, and I who kissed you, touched you, looked at you! What is this world where everything disappears? Maurice, my dear Maurice, oh!
"When you had gone I went to church, where I could pray and weep at my ease. What do you do, who never pray, when you are sorrowful, when your heart is bruised? For me, I feel that I have need of a consolation more than human, that it is necessary to have God for a friend."
On learning of his arrival she writes (February 8): "Oh! letters; letters from Paris, one of yours! You arrived well, happy, and welcome. God be praised! I have that only in my heart. I say to everybody, 'Maurice has written to us: he has finished his journey safely, had fine weather,' and a hundred things which come to me. A beautiful day, fine weather, sweet air, the clear sky. We only need to see the leaves to believe that it is the month of May. This radiant nature soothes the spirit, disposes it for some happiness. It was impossible, I thought, in my walk this morning, that something was not going to happen, and I have your letter. I did not deceive myself. These letters, this writing, what pleasure it gives! How the heart fastens there and is sustained. But after a while one becomes sad again, the joy falls, regret rekindles and finds that a letter is only a little thing in the place of some person. We are never satisfied; all our joys are mutilated. God wills it, God wills it thus that the better part of us which yearns shall only be satisfied in heaven. There shall be happiness in its fulness, there the eternal reunion."
Again she writes:—
"A letter from Caroline. What happiness to know you are so much loved, so cared for … God be praised. I am tranquil. I see in all this a providential arrangement which makes everything for your good. And then you do not love the good God. His cares for you shine to my eyes like diamonds. See, my brother, all that comes to solace your poor position, these unhoped-for succours, this family affection, this mother, this sister, more than sister, so loving, so sweet, so beautiful, who promises you so much happiness. Do you not see something there, some Divine hand that orders your life? At present I hope for you a future better than the past—that past which has caused us so much suffering. But we all have our time of trouble, misfortune, servitude in Egypt, before the manna and the calm."
Again:—"Is the world in which you move rich enough for your needs? Maurice, if I could make you enter into some of my thoughts thereon, to show you what I believe and what I learn from devotional books, those beautiful reflections of the Gospel! If I could see you a Christian I would give life and everything for that."
After returning to Paris Maurice suffered a sharp relapse, upon his partial recovery from which his marriage was fixed to take place in November. Eugénie was to go to Paris to be present. Before departing she went to Rayssac to spend a few days with her dear friend, Louise de Bayne, who had recently lost her father. A few tender words in her journal upon saying farewell show that her character as a friend was no less true than as a sister: "At seven o'clock I embraced her, and left her all in tears. What affection there was in her good-bye, that pressure of the hand, the 'Come again!' the utterance choked by tears! Poor, dear Louise, I have had the courage to leave her and not to weep at all…. But what matter? I love as much as another; what comes from the heart is worth as much as what flows from the eyes. But this tender Louise loves and weeps. It is because she is very sorry to lose me; she has need of a friend. She told me her trials, her plans, her prospects, perhaps her illusions. Women always have some illusion."
The journey to Paris and a stay there of some months was quite an event in the quiet life of Mdlle. de Guérin. On September 29, she writes in her journal: "Adieu, my little room; adieu my Cayla; adieu my copybook, which I will take with me, but it will go in my trunk." In the interval between this time and the following month of April the journal was, however, discontinued, or has not been found. From letters written during this period to her father and friends, we have pleasing glimpses of her life in Paris. During her visit there, as the guest of the aunt of Mdlle. de Gervain, she was welcomed by the best society, and spent much time in visiting the many places of interest, and making the acquaintance of an hitherto unknown world. Her one source of anxiety was the continued enfeebled condition of her brother's health. Writing to her friend Louise, she says, alluding to this: "When I am with others I imitate their liveliness, but at church and alone I have my own thoughts. I have everything I could wish for; they all love me here; I ought to be happy, but I am weary in spirit, and I say to myself that happiness is nowhere in this world."
The wedding was duly celebrated with much rejoicing and gaiety, and Eugénie wrote a charming account of it to her father, giving all details, as only a woman can, and declaring that all had passed as happily as at the marriage of Cana. She speaks in terms of loving praise of Maurice's "angel of a wife," and does not forget to say that upon the marriage morn Caro read to her husband a chapter of the Imitation.