Chapter I: HAVE the honour to inform you that this morning, in the corridors of

the Court, there was talk amongst the King’s officers of the affair which you had a few days ago with M. le Vicomte de Valmont, and that it is to be feared that the Government will take proceedings against you. I thought that this warning might be of use to you, either to enable you to seek out what protection you have, to ward off these vexatious results; or, in the event of your being unable to succeed in this, to put you in a position to take measures for your personal safety.

If you will even permit me to give you a piece of advice, I think you would do well to show yourself less often than you have done during the last few days. Although, ordinarily, affairs of this sort are treated with indulgence, this respect nevertheless continues due to the law.

This precaution becomes all the more necessary in that it has come to my ears that a certain Madame de Rosemonde, who, I am told, is an aunt of M. de Valmont, wished to lodge a complaint against you, in which event the public officers could not refuse her requisition. It would not be amiss, perhaps, if you were able to communicate with this lady.

Private reasons prevent me from signing this letter. But I am acting on the consideration that you will not render less justice to the sentiment which has dictated it, because you know not from whom it comes.

I have the honour to be, etc.

Paris, 10th December, 17**.

LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHTH

MADAME DE VOLANGES TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE

MOST surprising and distressing rumours, my dear and revered friend, are being disseminated here in relation to Madame de Merteuil. I am, assuredly, very far from believing them, and I would wager well that it is nothing but a hideous calumny: but I am too well aware of the ease with which even the most improbable slanders acquire credit, and of the difficulty with which the impression they leave is effaced, not to be greatly alarmed at these, easy as I believe it to be to refute them. I should wish, above all, that they could be stopped in good time, before they have spread further. But I only knew yesterday, at a late hour, of these horrors which they were fast beginning to retail; and when I sent this morning to Madame de Merteuil, she had just left for the country, where she was to spend two days. They were not able to tell me to whom she had gone. Her second woman, whom I sent for to speak with me, told me that her mistress had left no orders save that she was to be expected on Thursday next; and none of the servants whom she has left here know any more. For myself, I have no notion where she may be; I cannot recollect any person of her acquaintance who stays so late in the country.

However that may be, you will be able, I hope, between now and her return, to furnish me with information which will be of use to her: for these odious stories are based on the circumstances of M. de Valmont’s death; you are likely to have been informed of them, if they are true; or, at any rate, it will be easy for you to obtain information, which I beg you to do. This is what is being published, or rather, whispered, at present; but it will certainly not be long before it spreads further:

It is said that the quarrel between M. de Valmont and the Chevalier Danceny was the work of Madame de Merteuil, who deceived them both alike; that, as happens almost always, the two rivals began by fighting and only arrived at explanations afterwards; that these explanations brought about a sincere reconciliation; and that, in order to expose Madame de Merteuil to the Chevalier Danceny, and also to justify himself entirely, M. de Valmont supported his revelations by a heap of letters, forming a regular correspondence which he had maintained with her, and in which she relates the most scandalous anecdotes about herself, and in the freest of styles.

People further say that Danceny, in the first heat of his indignation, shewed these letters to all who wished to see them, and that they are now making the round of Paris. Two of them, in particular, are quoted:[17] one in which she relates the whole history of her life and principles, and which is said to attain the height of horror; the other which entirely justifies M. de Prévan, whose story you will remember, by the proof it contains that all he did was to yield to the most marked advances on the part of Madame de Merteuil, and that the _rendez-vous_ was arranged with her.

I have, happily, the strongest reasons to believe that these imputations are as false as they are odious. First, we are both aware that M. de Valmont was assuredly not occupied with Madame de Merteuil, and I have every cause to believe that Danceny was equally without interest in her: thus it seems to me clearly proved that she can have been neither the motive nor the author of the quarrel. I equally fail to understand what interest Madame de Merteuil can have had, assuming her to have been in concert with M. de Prévan, in making a scene which could only be disagreeable by its publicity, and which might become most dangerous to her, since she made, thereby, an irreconcilable enemy of a man who was master in part of her secret, and who, at that time, had numerous partisans. However, it is remarkable that since that adventure not a single voice has been raised in Prévan’s favour, and that even from his own side there has been no protest made.

These reflections would lead me to suspect the author of the rumours which are abroad to-day, and to look upon these slanders as the work of the hatred and vengeance of a man who, knowing himself to be ruined, hopes, by such a means, at least to establish a doubt, and perhaps cause a useful diversion. But, from whatever source these malicious reports arise, the most urgent thing is to destroy them. They would cease of themselves, if it were to be shewn, as is probable, that MM. de Valmont and Danceny had no communication after their unfortunate affair, and that no papers passed between them.

In my impatience to verify these facts, I sent this morning to M. Danceny; he is not in Paris either. His people told my _valet-de-chambre_ that he had left in the night, owing to a warning he had received yesterday, and that the place of his sojourn was a secret. Apparently he is afraid of the results of his duel. ’Tis through you alone, then, my dear and revered friend, that I can be informed of the details which interest me, and which may become so necessary to Madame de Merteuil. I renew my prayer to you to acquaint me with them as soon as possible.

P.S. My daughter’s indisposition has had no consequences; she presents her respects to you.

Paris, 11th December, 17**.

LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINTH

THE CHEVALIER DANCENY TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE

MADAME,

PERHAPS you will think the step I am taking to-day very unusual: but I entreat you to hear before you judge me, and to see neither boldness nor temerity, where only respect and confidence is meant. I do not deny the injury I have done you; and I should not pardon myself for it, all my life, if I could think for a moment that it had been possible for me to avoid it. Be even persuaded, Madame, that, if I am exempt from reproach, I am not equally so from regrets; and I may add, with equal sincerity, that those which I have caused you count for much in those which I feel. In order to believe in these sentiments of which I venture to assure you, it will suffice for you to render justice to yourself, and to reflect that, without having the honour of being known to you, I have, however, that of knowing you.

Meanwhile, whilst I groan over the fatality which has been the cause at once of your grief and my misfortunes, I have been led to fear that, absorbed in your vengeance, you would seek out means of gratifying it, even through the severity of the laws. Allow me, first, to point out to you, on this subject, that here you are led astray by your sorrow, since my interest in this matter is essentially at one with that of M. de Valmont, and that he would himself be involved in the condemnation which you would have provoked against me. I believe then, Madame, that I can count on assistance, rather than on obstacles, on your part, in any efforts I may be obliged to make, so that this unhappy event may remain buried in silence.

But this resource of complicity, which befits the innocent and the guilty alike, is not sufficient for my delicacy: while desiring to remove you as a party to the suit, I demand you as my judge. The esteem of persons whom we respect is too precious that I should let yours be taken from me without defending it, and I believe I possess the means.

In fact, if you will admit that vengeance is allowed, or say rather, that it is one’s bounden duty, when one has been betrayed in one’s love, in one’s friendship, and, above all, in one’s confidence; if you admit this, my wrongs against you will vanish from your eyes. Do not take my word for this; but read, if you have the courage, the correspondence which I place in your hands.[18] The quantity of original letters which it contains seems to lend authenticity to those of which only copies exist. For the rest, I received these letters, just as I have the honour to forward them to you, from M. de Valmont himself. I have added nothing to them, and I have only extracted two letters which I have permitted myself to publish.

One of these was necessary to the common vengeance of M. de Valmont and of myself; to this we had both a right, and I had been expressly charged with it by him. I thought, moreover, that I was rendering a service to society, in unmasking a woman so really dangerous as is Madame de Merteuil, who, as you will see, was the sole and veritable cause of all that passed between M. de Valmont and myself.

A feeling of justice also induced me to publish the second, for the justification of M. de Prévan, whom I hardly know, but who had in no way merited the rigorous treatment which he has experienced, nor the still more redoubtable judgment of the public, beneath which he has been groaning, ever since, without any means of defence.

You will only find copies, then, of these two letters, the originals of which I owe it to myself to keep. For all the rest, I do not believe I can remit in surer hands a deposit the destruction of which is not, perhaps, to my interest, but which I should blush to abuse. I believe, Madame, that, in confiding these papers to you, I am serving the persons interested in them, as well as if I remitted them to themselves; and I spare them the embarrassment of receiving them from me, and of knowing me to be informed of adventures of which they doubtless desire all the world to remain ignorant.

I think I ought to warn you, on this subject, that the adjoined correspondence only forms part of a far more voluminous collection, from which M. de Valmont extracted it in my presence, and which you will find, on the removal of the seals, under the title, which I saw, of “_Account opened between the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont_.” You will adopt, in this matter, whatever course your prudence may suggest.

I am with respect, Madame, etc.

P.S. Certain information which I have received, and the advice of my friends, have decided my absence from Paris for some time: but the place of my retreat, which is kept a secret for everybody, will not be one for you. If you honour me with a reply, I beg you to address it to the Commanderie de .... by P..., under cover to M. le Commandeur de ***. It is from his house that I have the honour to write to you.

Paris, 12th December, 17**.

LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTIETH

MADAME DE VOLANGES TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE