He continued his badinage, promising to be discreet as well as faithful; but Lamartine, unable to endure it, protested that he could not form any new attachment.
"That linden-tree is older than you," the uncle replied. "I have cut it five times in twenty years, and it has more sap and branches now than when I came here."
"Burn it at the root," Lamartine retorted in desperation, "and then see whether it will spring up again."
It was an adventure of a new character. The two ladies, the princess Regina di —— and her aunt, had been commended to his good offices by the Count Saluce de ——, a Breton nobleman belonging to an emigrant family, then living at Rome. He had come temporarily to France and took service in the Royal Guard, there forming an intimate friendship with Lamartine. The princess was a maiden wife of sixteen who had been forced against her will into a marriage ceremony with an elderly kinsman, and had fled with her aunt to France. The count was her lover, and had been arrested as he was about to accompany her. Lamartine had been apprised of all this before by letters from his friend, and now complied faithfully with his wishes by finding the two fugitives a residence at Noyon near Geneva. Meanwhile a suit was in progress for an annulment of the marriage.
Some days afterward a letter came from the count apprising Lamartine that this would not take place. The princess was liable, therefore, to forfeit her property, and upon her return to Italy, to be imprisoned in a convent. The prince, her husband, who was old and infirm, had desired the marriage only for the purpose of assuring her estate to his heirs. He now offered, if Count Saluce would not press the suit, that he would cast a veil over what had passed, and let her live with her grandmother in future. This would spare her reputation and social position. But Saluce must go far away.
He decided to comply with the conditions, and had already left Italy for Spain to join his uncle's regiment and embark for the Philippine Islands.
Lamartine deplored the fatal necessity but felt himself obliged to approve the course taken by his friend. Yet Regina had not been consulted, and perhaps she would have chosen exile with him before freedom and fortune elsewhere. Certainly, the count had constituted himself judge and sacrificing priest without consulting the victim, but the sacrifice was commended by delicacy of sentiment, by honor, virtue, even by love itself.
When Lamartine met Regina she read all in his face. As she perused the letter she was seized with fury. She denounced her lover as savage and cowardly, not worthy of the least token of regard. Hurrying to her room, she threw his letters and keepsakes out of the window and commanded her nurse to go and sink them in the lake; that thus six months of love and delirium might be swallowed up. The nurse fully reciprocated the sentiments of her mistress. She saw no merit in such generosity as Saluce had exhibited. A Roman would have gone to every extreme, knowing love and nothing else.
Three days passed before the young princess made her appearance. She had become more calm. She told Lamartine that she was now undeceived; what she had thought she loved was a phantom that had vanished.
She was turning her regard upon him. His unflagging kindness and assiduity had affected her. But susceptible as he might be, the memory of his own lost one, and his friendship for Saluce, were intervening. Finally, however, upon learning that Lamartine would be in Paris the coming winter, she declared her purpose to be there likewise.