In a question of lofty sentiments no proofs are trifling; the daily walk is in such cases more trustworthy, perhaps, than great bursts of devotion; the former is the habit, the latter the accidents, of life.
Thus three poor and obscure persons had rendered important services to Létorière during his adversity,—Dominique, the tailor, and his wife.
With keen delight, Mlle. de Soissons learned from Martha that the Marquis continued to keep Dominique near him, and that he always treated him with deferential affection.
Very often Létorière recounted, with manifestations of profound gratitude, the obligations he was under to these excellent people. A man of his age, whom the most unbounded prosperity and the most brilliant success did not blind, who remained simple, good, and emphatically grateful to such obscure benefactors, ought to be esteemed a man of noble heart.
The project of Mlle. de Soissons was irrevocably resolved upon. She would freely, boldly, offer her hand to him whom she found so worthy.
No objection of birth or fortune could change her resolution. She was an orphan, and felt herself free to choose a husband. Profoundly indifferent to all the reasons which her aunt daily brought to prove to her that she, a princess of a royal house, ought to make certain alliances, the princess Julie replied distinctly, that though she saw no need of quoting example, Mlle. de Montpensier married M. de Lanzun. . . . As to herself, she would marry an artizan, without scruple, if an artizan seemed to her to deserve her love.
Madame Rohan-Soubise, utterly ignorant of her niece's secret, treated these ideas as phantasies, foolish reveries, encouraged by the romances of Rousseau. Mlle. de Soissons answered nothing, but secretly followed her plan with incredible pertinacity.
Her love increased, so to speak, in proportion to the successes of him she loved. One would have said that she waited until the Marquis was at the height of his triumphs, in order that she might offer him her love as their supreme consecration.
When she was assured of the nobility and solidity of his character, without remorse, without shame, with all the security of candor, all the serene confidence of an exalted soul, she wrote to M. de Létorière the letter which we have already seen, to offer him her hand.
Happily for him, and for Mlle. de Soissons, Létorière comprehended all the grandeur and all the devotion of such a love. Satiated with too easy successes, he consecrated himself from that time to the adoration of the young girl who so nobly confided to him her future.