To be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who knows it and
adds gratitude to love, ah! dear one, this is a conviction which
fortifies the soul, even more than the most passionate love can do.
The force thus developed--at once impetuous and enduring, simple and
diversified--brings forth ultimately the family, that noble product of
womanhood, which I realize now in all its animating beauty.
The old father has ceased to be a miser. He gives blindly whatever I
wish for. The servants are content; it seems as though the bliss of
Louis had let a flood of sunshine into the household, where love has
made me queen. Even the old man would not be a blot upon my pretty
home, and has brought himself into line with all my improvements; to
please me he has adopted the dress, and with the dress, the manners of
the day. We have English horses, a coupe, a barouche, and a tilbury. The livery
of our servants is simple but in good taste. Of course we are looked
on as spendthrifts. I apply all my intellect (I am speaking quite
seriously) to managing my household with economy, and obtaining for it
the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of cost.
I have already convinced Louis of the necessity of getting roads made,
in order that he may earn the reputation of a man interested in the
welfare of his district. I insist too on his studying a great deal.
Before long I hope to see him a member of the Council General of the
Department, through the influence of my family and his mother's. I
have told him plainly that I am ambitious, and that I was very well
pleased his father should continue to look after the estate and
practise economies, because I wished him to devote himself exclusively
to politics. If we had children, I should like to see them all
prosperous and with good State appointments. Under penalty, therefore,
of forfeiting my esteem and affection, he must get himself chosen
deputy for the department at the coming elections; my family would
support his candidature, and we should then have the delight of
spending all our winters in Paris. Ah! my love, by the ardor with
which he embraced my plans, I can gauge the depth of his affection.
To conclude here is a letter he wrote me yesterday from Marseilles,
where he had gone to spend a few hours:
"MY SWEET RENEE,--When you gave me permission to love you, I began
to believe in happiness; now, I see it unfolding endlessly before
me. The past is merely a dim memory, a shadowy background, without
which my present bliss would show less radiant. When I am with
you, love so transports me that I am powerless to express the
depth of my affection; I can but worship and admire. Only at a
distance does the power of speech return. You are supremely
beautiful, Renee, and your beauty is of the statuesque and regal
type, on which time leaves but little impression. No doubt the
love of husband and wife depends less on outward beauty than on
graces of character, which are yours also in perfection; still,
let me say that the certainty of having your unchanging beauty, on
which to feast my eyes, gives me a joy that grows with every
glance.