"March.
"I hope, my own mother, not to bore you this year with a catalogue of fetes and festivals, lamps and girandoles; for Lent is coming. To-day is Ash-Wednesday. Well, we dance to-morrow evening at Madame d'Oilly's. I had hoped not to go, but I saw Louis was disappointed, and I feared to offend Madame d'Oilly, who has acted a mother's part to my husband. Lent here is only an empty name. I sigh to myself: 'Will they never stop! Great heavens! will they never cease amusing themselves?'
"I must confess to you, my darling mother, I amuse myself too much to be happy. I depended on Lent for some time to myself, and see how they efface the calendar!
"This dear Lent! What a sweet, honest, pious invention it is, notwithstanding. How sensible is our religion! How well it understands human weakness and folly! How far-seeing in its regulations! How indulgent also! for to limit pleasure is to pardon it.
"I also love pleasure—the beautiful toilets that make us resemble flowers, the lighted salons, the music, the gay voices and the dance. Yes, I love all these things; I experience their charming confusion; I palpitate, I inhale their intoxication. But always— always! at Paris in the winter—at the springs in summer—ever this crowd, ever this whirl, this intoxication of pleasure! All become like savages, like negroes, and—dare I say so?—bestial! Alas for Lent!
"HE foresaw it. HE told us, as the priest told me this morning: 'Remember you have a soul: Remember you have duties!—a husband —a child—a mother—a God!'
"Then, my mother, we should retire within ourselves; should pass the time in grave thought between the church and our homes; should converse on solemn and serious subjects; and should dwell in the moral world to gain a foothold in heaven! This season is intended as a wholesome interval to prevent our running frivolity into dissipation, and pleasure into convulsion; to prevent our winter's mask from becoming our permanent visage. This is entirely the opinion of Madame Jaubert.
"Who is this Madame Jaubert? you will ask. She is a little Parisian angel whom my mother would dearly love! I met her almost everywhere—but chiefly at St. Phillipe de Roule—for several months without being aware that she is our neighbor, that her hotel adjoins ours. Such is Paris!
"She is a graceful person, with a soft and tender, but decided air. We sat near each other at church; we gave each other side-glances; we pushed our chairs to let each other pass; and in our softest voices would say, 'Excuse me, Madame!' 'Oh, Madame!' My glove would fall, she would pick it up; I would offer her the holy water, and receive a sweet smile, with 'Dear Madame!' Once at a concert at the Tuileries we observed each other at a distance, and smiled recognition; when any part of the music pleased us particularly we glanced smilingly at each other. Judge of my surprise next morning when I saw my affinity enter the little Italian house next ours—and enter it, too, as if it were her home. On inquiry I found she was Madame Jaubert, the wife of a tall, fair young man who is a civil engineer.
"I was seized with a desire to call upon my neighbor. I spoke of it to Louis, blushing slightly, for I remembered he did not approve of intimacies between women. But above all, he loves me!