"The day before yesterday, on my arrival at Paris, I heard she was

dead; I sent to his lodgings to enquire if they had any news of him,

and word was brought me he came to town the night before, which was

precisely the day that Madam de Tournon died; I immediately went to see

him, concluding in what condition I should find him, but his affliction

far surpassed what I had imagined.

"Never did I see a sorrow so deep and so tender; the moment he saw me

he embraced me with tears; 'I shall never see her more,' said he, 'I

shall never see her more, she is dead, I was not worthy of her, but I

shall soon follow her.'

"After this he was silent; and then, from time to time, continually

repeating 'She is dead, I shall never see her more,' he returned to

lamentations and tears, and continued as a man bereft of reason. He

told me he had not often received letters from her during his absence,

but that he knew her too well to be surprised at it, and was sensible

how shy and timorous she was of writing; he made no doubt but she would

have married him upon his return; he considered her as the most amiable

and constant of her sex; he thought himself tenderly beloved by her; he

lost her the moment he expected to be united to her for ever; all these

thoughts threw him into so violent an affliction, that I own I was

deeply touched with it.

"Nevertheless I was obliged to leave him to go to the King, but

promised to return immediately; accordingly I did, and I was never so

surprised as I was to find him entirely changed from what I had left

him; he was standing in his chamber, his face full of fury, sometimes

walking, sometimes stopping short, as if he had been distracted;

'Come,' says he, 'and see the most forlorn wretch in the world; I am a

thousand times more unhappy than I was a while ago, and what I have

just heard of Madam de Tournon is worse than her death.'

"I took what he said to be wholly the effect of grief, and could not

imagine that there could be anything worse than the death of a mistress

one loves and is beloved by; I told him, that so far as he kept his

grief within bounds, I approved of it, and bore a part in it; but that

I should no longer pity him, if he abandoned himself to despair and

flew from reason. 'I should be too happy if I had lost both my reason

and my life,' cried he; 'Madam de Tournon was false to me, and I am

informed of her unfaithfulness and treachery the very day after I was

informed of her death; I am informed of it at a time when my soul is

filled with the most tender love, and pierced with the sharpest grief

that ever was; at a time when the idea of her in my heart, is that of

the most perfect woman who ever lived, and the most perfect with

respect to me; I find I am mistaken, and that she does not deserve to

be lamented by me; nevertheless I have the same concern for her death,

as if she had been true to me, and I have the same sensibility of her

falsehood, as if she were yet living; had I heard of her falsehood

before her death, jealousy, anger, and rage would have possessed me,

and in some measure hardened me against the grief for her loss; but now

my condition is such, that I am incapable of receiving comfort, and yet

know not how to hate her.'




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