THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE1 DE VALMONT, AT THE CHTEAU DE …
COME BACK, MY DEAR Vicomte, come back; what are you doing, what can you be doing with an old aunt, whose whole property is settled on you? Set off at once; I have need of you. I have an excellent idea, and I should like to confide its execution to you. These few words should suffice; and only too honored at my choice, you ought to come, with enthusiasm, to receive my orders on your knees: but you abuse my kindness, even since you have ceased to take advantage of it, and between the alternatives of an eternal hatred and excessive indulgence, your happiness demands that my indulgence wins the day. I am willing then to inform you of my projects, but swear to me like a faithful cavaliern that you will embark on no other adventure till this one be brought to an end. It is worthy of a hero:2 you will serve both love and vengeance; it will be, in short, one rouerieo the more to include in your Memoirs: yes, in your Memoirs, for I wish them to be printed, and I will charge myself with the task of writing them. But let us leave that, and come back to what is occupying me.
Madame de Volanges is marrying her daughter: it is still a secret, but she imparted it to me yesterday. And whom do you think she has chosen for her son-in-law? The Comte de Gercourt. Who would have thought that I should ever become Gercourt’s cousin? I was furious…. Well! do you not divine me now? Oh, dull brains! Have you forgiven him then the adventure of the Intendante!p And I, have I not still more cause to complain of him, monster that you are?q But I will calm myself, and the hope of vengeance soothes my soul.
You have been bored a hundred times, like myself, by the importance which Gercourt sets upon the wife who shall be his, and by his fatuous presumption, which leads him to believe he will escape the inevitable fate.r You know his ridiculous preferences for convent education and his even more ridiculous prejudice in favor of the discretion of blondes. In fact, I would wager, that for all that the little Volanges has an income of sixty thousand livres, he would never have made this marriage if she had been dark or had not been bred at the convent. Let us prove to him then that he is but a fool: no doubt he will be made so one of these days; it isn’t that of which I am afraid; but ’twould be pleasant indeed if he were to make his débuts as one! How we should amuse ourselves on the day after, when we heard him boasting, for he will boast; and then, if you once form this little girl, it would be a rare mishap if Gercourt did not become, like another man, the joke of all Paris.
For the rest, the heroine of this new romance merits all your attentions: she is really pretty; it is only fifteen, ’tis a rosebud, gauchet in truth, incredibly so, and quite without affectation. But you men are not afraid of that; moreover, a certain languishingu glance, which really promises great things. Add to this that I exhort you to it: you can only thank me and obey.
You will receive this letter tomorrow morning. I request that tomorrow, at seven o’clock in the evening, you may be with me. I shall receive nobody until eight, not even the reigning Chevalier: he has not head enough for such a mighty piece of work. You see that love does not blind me. At eight o’clock I will grant you your liberty, and you shall come back at ten to sup with the fair object; for mother and daughter will sup with me. Adieu, it is past noon: soon I shall have put you out of my thoughts.
PARIS, 4TH AUGUST, 17–.