"Next day the Triumph of Bacchus was played. I appeared as Ariadne, all covered with vine-leaves and flowers. I never danced so badly. I had recognized Monsieur de Marteille among the gentlemen of the court. He looked at me with a serious air. I had hoped to have had an opportunity to speak with him before the end of the ballet, but he had already gone. I was offended at his abrupt departure.—'How!' said I to myself, 'he sees me dance, and this is the way he makes me his compliments.'—Next morning, he breakfasted with us; he did not say a word about the evening; finally, not being able to resist my impatience, 'Well, Monsieur de Marteille,' said I to him, somewhat harshly, 'you left early last night; it was hardly polite of you.'—'Ah! when you were to dance no more!' said he, with a sigh. This was the first time that I was ever spoken to thus. Fearing that he had said too much, and in order to divert Monsieur de Melun, who observed him with a look of surprise, he began to speak of a little singer of no great moment, who had a voice of some freshness.
"In the afternoon, the count detained at home for some reason or other, begged his cousin to accompany me in a ride to the woods. He was to join us on horseback. The idea of this ride made my heart beat violently. It was the first time that I had listened with pleasure to the beatings of my heart.
"We started on a fine summer's day. Every thing was like a holyday: the sky, the houses, the trees, the horses, and the people. A veil had fallen from my eyes. For some minutes we remained in the deepest silence; not knowing what to do, I amused myself by making a diamond that I wore glisten in the rays of the sun that entered the carriage. Monsieur de Marteille caught hold of my hand. We both said not a word the whole time. I tried to disengage my hand; he held it the harder. I blushed; he turned pale. A jolt of the carriage occurred very opportunely to relieve us from our embarrassment; the jolt had lifted me from my seat; it made me fall upon his bosom.—'Monsieur,' said I, starting. 'Ah, madame, if you knew how I love you!'—He said this with a tenderness beyond expression; it was love itself that spoke! I had no longer the strength to get angry. He took my hand again and devoured it with kisses. He did not say another word; I tried to speak, but did not know what to say myself. From time to time our looks met each other; it was then that we were eloquent. Such eternal pledges, such promises of happiness!
"Notwithstanding, we arrived at the woods. All of a sudden, as if seized with a new idea, he put his head out of the window, and said something to the coachman. I understood, by the answer of La Violette, the coachman, that he was not willing to obey; but Monsieur de Marteille having alluded to a caning and fifty pistoles, the coachman made no further objections. I did not understand very well what he was about. After an hour's rapid travelling, as I was looking with some anxiety as to where we were, he tried to divert me by telling me some episodes of his life. Although I did not listen very intelligently to what he said, I heard enough to find out that I was the first woman he had ever loved. They all say so, but he told the truth, for he spoke with his eyes and his heart. I soon found out that we were no longer on our right road; but observe how far the feebleness of a woman in love will go: I hadn't the courage to ask him why he had changed our route. We crossed the Seine in a boat, between Sèvres and St. Cloud; we regained the woods, and after an hour's ride through them, we reached an iron park-gate, at the extremity of the village of Velaisy.
"Monsieur de Marteille had counted without his host. He expected not to have found a soul in his brother's chateau, but, since the evening before, his brother had returned from a journey to the coast of France. Seeing that the chateau was inhabited, Monsieur de Marteille begged me to wait a little in the carriage. As soon as he had gone, the coachman came to the door.—'Well, madame, we breathe at last! my opinion is that we should make our escape. Depend upon the word of La Violette, we shall be in less than two hours at the hotel.'—'La Violette,' said I, 'open the door.'—I ran a great risk. La Violette obeyed.—'Now,' said I to him, when I had alighted upon the ground, 'you may go!'—He looked at me with the eye of an old philosopher, mounted his box, and snapped his whip; but he had hardly started, when he thought it better to return.—'I will not return without madame, for if I return alone, I shall be sure of a good heating, and of being discharged.'—'Indeed, La Violette! as you please.' At that moment I saw the count returning.—'It is all for the best,' he cried out, in the distance; 'my brother has only two days to spend in Paris: he has stopped here to give his orders; he wishes, at all hazards, to see Camargo dance! I told him that she was to appear this evening. He will leave in a moment. You must wait in the park till he is gone. I will return to him, for I must take my leave of him, and wish him a pleasant journey.
"An hour afterward we were installed in the chateau. La Violette remained, at our order, with his carriage and horses. In the evening there was great excitement at the opera. It was solemnly announced to the public that Mademoiselle de Camargo had been carried off! The Count de Melun surprised at not finding us in the woods, had gone to the theatre. He was hissed; he swore revenge. He sought every where; he found neither his horses, nor his carriage, nor his mistress. For three months the opera was in mourning! Thirty bailiffs were on my track; but we made so little noise in our little chateau, hid away in the woods, that we were never discovered."
Mademoiselle de Camargo became pale; she was silent, and looked at her listeners as if she would say by her looks that had been lighted up at that celestial flame which had passed over her life: "Oh, how we loved each other during those three months!"
She continued as follows: "That season has filled a greater space in my life than all the rest of my days. When I think of the past, it is there where my thoughts travel at once. How relate to you the particulars of our happiness? When destiny protects us, happiness is composed of a thousand charming nothings that the hearts of others cannot understand. During those three months I was entirely happy; I wished to live for ever in this charming retreat for him that I loved a thousand times more than myself. I wished to abandon the opera, that opera that the Count de Melun could not make me forget for a week!
"Monsieur de Marteille possessed all the attraction of a real passion; he loved me with a charming simplicity; he put in play, without designing it, all the seductions of love. What tender words! what impassioned looks! what enticing conversation! Each day was a holyday, each hour a rapture. I had no time to think of the morrow.
"Our days were spent in walks, in the shade of the woods, in the thousand windings of the park. In the evening I played the harpsichord, and I sang. It often occurred that I danced, danced for him. In the middle of a dance that would have excited a furor at the opera, I fell at his feet, completely overcome; he raised me up, pressed me to his heart and forgave me for having danced. I always hear his beautiful voice, which was like music, but such music as I dream of, and not such as Rameau has composed... But now I am speaking without knowing what I say."