Madame de La Fayette

“ I know very well, it is not the same thing in the eye of the world; but with me there is no difference, since I know that his death was owing to you, and that it was on my account.—Ah! madam, said monsieur de Nemours, what phantom of duty do you oppose to my happiness? What, madam! shall a vain and groundless fancy hinder you from making a man happy, for whom you have an inclination? What! have I had some ground to hope I might pass my life with you? Has my fate led me to love the most deserving lady in the world? Have I observed in her all that can make a mistress adorable? ”

“ Madam, replied Monsieur de Nemours, I cannot keep the silence you enjoined me; you do me too much injustice, and make it appear too clearly that you are far from being prepossessed in my favour.—I confess, answered she, that my passions may lead me, but they cannot blind me; nothing can hinder me from knowing that you are born with a disposition for gallantry, and have all the qualities proper to give success; you have already had a great many amours, and you will have more; I should no longer be she you placed your happiness in ”

“ But admit I could accustom myself to bear a misfortune of this nature, yet how could I bear that of imagining I constantly saw Monsieur de Cleves, accusing you of his death, reproaching me with having loved you, with having married you, and showing me the difference betwixt his affection and yours? It is impossible to over-rule such strong reasons as these; I must continue in the condition I am in, and in the resolution I have taken never to alter it." "Do you believe you have the power to do it, Madam?" cried the Duke de Nemours. ”

“ Sir," replied she, "the world has not an adventure like mine, there is not another woman capable of such a thing. The story I have heard could not have been invented by chance; nobody could imagine any like it; an action of this nature never entered any thoughts but mine. The Queen-Dauphin has just told me the story; she had it from the Viscount de Chartres, and the Viscount from the Duke de Nemours." "The Duke de Nemours!" cried Monsieur de Cleves, like a man transported and desperate: "How! does the Duke de Nemours know that you are in love with him, and that I am acquainted with it?" ”

“ Death, or at least eternal absence, will remove me from a place where I can live no longer, since I have now lost the melancholy comfort I had of believing that all who behold you with love are as unhappy as myself.
Madam de Cleves made only a confused answer, as if she had not understood what the chevalier's words meant: at another time she would have been offended if he had mentioned the passion he had for her; but at this moment she felt nothing but the affliction to know that he had observed the passion she had for the duke de Nemours. ”

“ Mademoiselle de Chartres was not ignorant of it; and he made her sensible at his return, that she was the cause of that deep melancholy which appeared in his countenance. He had so much merit and so much agreeableness, that it was almost impossible to make him unhappy without pitying him, nor could she forbear pitying him; but her pity did not lead to love. She acquainted her mother with the uneasiness which the Chevalier's passion gave her.
Madam de Chartres admired the honour of her daughter, and she admired it with reason, for never was anyone more naturally sincere ”

“ All human beings have blots and slurs in their character, or they would not be human. We judge by the better part—by that which raises a circle or an individual superior to the common run, not by those failings which stamp all our fellow-creatures as sons of Adam. Thus, we may pronounce on madame de la Fayette as being one of the most remarkable women of the age, for talent, for wit, and for the sincerity, strength, and uprightness of her character. ”

“ I am so near death, that I would not know any thing that might make me die with reluctance; you have cleared your innocence too late; however it will be a comfort to me to depart with the thought that you are worthy of the esteem I have had for you; I beg you I may be assured of this further comfort, that my memory will be dear to you, and that if it had been in your power, you would have had for me the same passion which you had for another. He would have gone on, but was so weak that his speech failed him. Madam de Cleves sent for the physicians, who found him almost lifeless ”

“ Did you hope to have an engagement with the queen, and be able to deceive her? She is both an Italian and a queen, and by consequence full of jealousy, suspicion, and pride. As soon as your good fortune, rather than your good conduct, had set you at liberty from an engagement you was entangled in, you involved yourself in new ones; and you fancied that in the midst of the court you could be in love with madam de Martigues without the queen's perceiving it. You could not have been too careful to take from her the shame of having made the first advances; she has a violent passion for you ”

“ Though I never spoke of it before, I cannot believe, madam, that you are not acquainted with my passion, or that you do not know it to be the greatest and most sincere that ever was: What trials has it suffered in things you are a stranger to! What trials have you put it to by your rigour!
Since you are desirous I should open myself to you, answered madam de Cleves, I will comply with your desire, and I will do it with a sincerity that is rarely to be met with in persons of my sex: I shall not tell you that I have not observed your passion for me ”

“ And when she rambles under the shade of melancholy boughs, with Madame de La Fayette and La Rochefoucauld, whose company one would not have supposed exhilarating, their conversations are “so dismal that you would think there was nothing else to do but bury us.” Yet the quick, sweet reaction of her sunny temper shows in the very next sentence. “Madame de La Fayette’s garden is the loveliest thing in the world. It is all flowers, all sweetness.”
She herself assures her friends that they need not fear that country solitude will bore her and make her morbid. ”

“ I conjure you, by all the power I have over you, to seek no occasion of seeing me; I am in a condition which makes that criminal which might be lawful at another time; decency forbids all commerce between us. Monsieur de Nemours threw himself at her feet, and gave a loose to all the violent emotions with which he was agitated; he expressed both by his words and tears the liveliest and most tender passion that ever heart was touched with: nor was the heart of madam de Cleves insensible ”

“ No one was more terrified than she by the dangers of those she loved; but in these times, she rose above herself, and in her devotion to my father, hoped he could prevent the increasing crime.'"
We may infer from these words the perpetual anguish of Madame de La Fayette during the three first years of the revolution. In the Duchesse d'Ayen she found a support full of sweetness and tenderness ”

“ He preserved for her a passion full of violence and inquietude, but without jealousy, which had no share in his griefs. Never was husband less inclined to it, and never was wife farther from giving the least occasion for it. She was nevertheless constantly in view of the court; she frequented the courts of the two queens, and of Madame: all the people of gallantry saw her both there and at her brother-in-law the duke of Never's, whose house was open to the whole world ”

“ If any other motives than those of duty and virtue could have weight with you, I should tell you that if anything were capable of disturbing the happiness I hope for in the next world, it would be to see you fall like other women; but if this calamity must necessarily happen, I shall meet death with joy, as it will hinder me from being a witness of it.
Madam de Cleves bathed with tears her mother's hand, which she held fast locked in her own; nor was Madam de Chartres less moved. ”

“ After the loss of her husband she retired from Court, and lived many years in the country; during this retreat, her chief care was bestowed in the education of her daughter; but she did not make it her business to cultivate her wit and beauty only, she took care also to inculcate virtue into her tender mind, and to make it amiable to her. The generality of mothers imagine, that it is sufficient to forbear talking of gallantries before young people, to prevent their engaging in them; but Madam de Chartres was of a different opinion, she often entertained her daughter with descriptions of love ”

“ Why does fate separate us by such invincible obstacles?" "There are no obstacles, Madam," replied Monsieur de Nemours; "it is you alone oppose my happiness; you impose on yourself a law which virtue and reason do not require you to obey." "'Tis true," says she, "I sacrifice a great deal to a duty which does not subsist but in my imagination; have patience, and expect what time may produce; Monsieur de Cleves is but just expired, and that mournful object is too near to leave me clear and distinct views ”

“ To Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or such intercourse, such sweetness and charm—such confidence and consideration?"
There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sévigné's eloquent outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning glances.
"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has she not? ”

“ The Duke de Nemours, not seeing her any more, fell into desperation and knowing he should not meet with her in any public assembly, or at any diversions the Court joined in, he could not prevail upon himself to appear there, and therefore he pretended a great love for hunting, and made matches for that sport on the days when the Queens kept their assemblies; a slight indisposition had served him a good while as an excuse for staying at home, and declining to go to places where he knew very well that Madam de Cleves would not be. ”