Letters of Two Brides

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.