Letters of Two Brides

RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU

October.

How deeply your letter moved me; above all, when I compare our widely

different destinies! How brilliant is the world you are entering, how

peaceful the retreat where I shall end my modest career!

In the Castle of Maucombe, which is so well known to you by

description that I shall say no more of it, I found my room almost

exactly as I left it; only now I can enjoy the splendid view it gives

of the Gemenos valley, which my childish eyes used to see without

comprehending. A fortnight after my arrival, my father and mother took

me, along with my two brothers, to dine with one of our neighbors, M.

de l'Estorade, an old gentleman of good family, who has made himself

rich, after the provincial fashion, by scraping and paring.

M. de l'Estorade was unable to save his only son from the clutches of

Bonaparte; after successfully eluding the conscription, he was forced

to send him to the army in 1813, to join the Emperor's bodyguard.

After Leipsic no more was heard of him. M. de Montriveau, whom the

father interviewed in 1814, declared that he had seen him taken by the

Russians. Mme. de l'Estorade died of grief whilst a vain search was

being made in Russia. The Baron, a very pious old man, practised that

fine theological virtue which we used to cultivate at Blois--Hope!

Hope made him see his son in dreams. He hoarded his income for him,

and guarded carefully the portion of inheritance which fell to him

from the family of the late Mme. de l'Estorade, no one venturing to

ridicule the old man.

At last it dawned upon me that the unexpected return of this son was

the cause of my own. Who could have imagined, whilst fancy was leading

us a giddy dance, that my destined husband was slowly traveling on

foot through Russia, Poland, and Germany? His bad luck only forsook

him at Berlin, where the French Minister helped his return to his

native country. M. de l'Estorade, the father, who is a small landed

proprietor in Provence, with an income of about ten thousand livres,

has not sufficient European fame to interest the world in the

wandering Knight de l'Estorade, whose name smacks of his adventures.

The accumulated income of twelve thousand livres from the property of

Mme. de l'Estorade, with the addition of the father's savings,

provides the poor guard of honor with something like two hundred and

fifty thousand livres, not counting house and lands--quite a

considerable fortune in Provence. His worthy father had bought, on the

very eve of the Chevalier's return, a fine but badly-managed estate,

where he designs to plant ten thousand mulberry-trees, raised in his

nursery with a special view to this acquisition. The Baron, having

found his long-lost son, has now but one thought, to marry him, and

marry him to a girl of good family.