"I answer by return mail as you request, to ask, first, if you have gone mad, and, secondly, if you really think me ass enough to accede to the most absurd whim that ever visited a woman's brain.
"So, madame, on the plea that Frederick's health requires it, you are planning a pleasure trip to the sunny south with your retinue like some great lady! It strikes me that you have taken it into your head to play the part of a woman rather late in the day!
"'We shall remain in Paris only twenty-four hours at the longest,' you say, but I see through your little game.
"You are dying to see the capital, like all provincials, and your excuse would be a pretty good one if I was such an egregious fool as you seem to think. Once in Paris, you would write: My son is too much fatigued with the journey to go on at once, or, we could secure no places in the diligence, or, I am not feeling well myself, until a week or two weeks or even a month had passed.
"If monsieur, my son, needs diversion on account of his health, send him out fishing,—he has three ponds at his disposal,—or let him go hunting. If he needs change, let him walk from Herbiers to the Grand Pré mill half a dozen times a day, and I'll wager that in three months he'll be strong enough to make the journey from Pont Brillant to Hyères on foot.
"You excite my pity, upon my word! To have such absurd ideas at your age, think of it, and, above all, to suppose me capable of consenting to anything so ridiculous!
"All this confirms me in the opinion that you are bringing up your son to be a perfect nincompoop. I shall hear of his having the blues and nervous attacks next, I suppose. He'll soon get over all this nonsense when I take him in hand, I promise you. I consented to leave him with you until he was seventeen, and even to let him have a tutor, as if he were a young duke or a marquis. I shall keep my word, so you can have your son and a tutor exactly five months longer, after which M. Frederick will enter the office of my friend Bridou, the notary, where he will stain his slender white fingers copying documents as his father and grandfather did before him.
"I write to my banker in Blois by this same mail, telling him not to advance you a centime. I shall also write to my friend Bossard, the notary at Pont Brillant, who is as good as a town crier, to proclaim it from the housetops that, in case you try to borrow any money, no one is to loan you a sou, for any debts contracted by a wife without the husband's consent, or rather when he has given due notice that he has no intention of paying them, are null and void.
"Besides, I warn you that I shall instruct Bridou, in case you have the audacity to undertake this journey on borrowed money, to set the police on your track and bring you back to the conjugal domicile, as I have an undoubted right to do, for no wife can leave her husband's roof without the consent of her lord and master. You know me too well to fancy for one moment that I shall hesitate to carry my threat into execution. You have a will of your own, as you have proved. Very well, you will find that I have one, too.
"Don't take the trouble to answer this letter. I leave Bourges this evening for the Netherlands, where I shall probably remain until the middle of January, returning to the farm in March, to give you and my son the blowing up you so richly deserve.