CHAPTER XXI
DIPLOMACY
When M. de Sérigny had left me, I fell back into the bitter thoughts from which this interview had drawn me.
In spite of my efforts to drive away all thought of Madame de Fersen, I could not succeed. I suffered greatly, but my grief, though deep, had a certain charm which I had not previously known.
I was conscious of having conducted myself nobly towards Catherine, of not deserving her severe disapproval, and this comforting consciousness gave me a proud and courageous resignation.
I have always faced boldly the most cruel phases of my life. No hope was left to me of ever gaining Madame de Fersen's love. I therefore gathered religiously in my heart and memory the slightest traces of this ineffable love, as one gathers the sacred and precious remnants of a departed being, to come daily and contemplate them with dreamy sadness, and ask of them the melancholy charm of memory.
Not wishing, however, to be prostrated, and hoping to find some distraction in work, I went assiduously to M. de Sérigny's study.
He was truly an excellent man.
He showed himself full of kindness to me. Having doubtless assured himself of my scrupulous discretion, he soon gave me a flattering mark of his confidence in me, by entrusting me to make a clear and concise summing up of his diplomatic correspondence. This brief was to be handed daily to the king.
This work, it is true, appeared of much greater importance than it really was, since there was at that time no great political question pending in Europe. Almost all these despatches, written mostly in very faint ink, and very poor French, contained only vague and trifling particulars about foreign courts, particulars which had frequently even been discounted in the public print.