Chapter CVI: Letter 376: To Mr. Moore

"Ravenna, June 1. 1820,

"I have received a Parisian letter from W.W., which I prefer
answering through you, if that worthy be still at Paris, and, as
he says, an occasional visiter of yours. In November last he wrote
to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some reasons of his own,
his belief that a re-union might be effected between Lady B. and
myself. To this I answered as usual; and he sent me a second
letter, repeating his notions, which letter I have never answered,
having had a thousand other things to think of. He now writes as if
he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic; and I
wish you to assure him that I am not at all so,--but, on the
contrary, obliged by his good nature. At the same time acquaint him
the _thing is impossible. You know this_, as well as I,--and there
let it end.

"I believe that I showed you his epistle in autumn last. He asks me
if I have heard of _my_ 'laureat' at Paris[74],--somebody who has
written 'a most sanguinary Epitre' against me; but whether in
French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he don't
say,--except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best
thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind
that I _ought_ to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to
be something of the usual sort;--he says, he don't remember the
author's name.

"I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your
leisure.

"The separation business still continues, and all the world are
implicated, including priests and cardinals. The public opinion is
furious against _him_, because he ought to have cut the matter
short _at first_, and not waited twelve months to begin. He has
been trying at evidence, but can get none _sufficient_; for what
would make fifty divorces in England won't do here--there must be
the _most decided_ proofs.

"It is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these
two hundred years; for, though they often separate, they assign a
different motive. You know that the continental incontinent are
more delicate than the English, and don't like proclaiming their
coronation in a court, even when nobody doubts it.

"All her relations are furious against him. The father has
challenged him--a superfluous valour, for he don't fight, though
suspected of two assassinations--one of the famous Monzoni of
Forli. Warning was given me not to take such long rides in the Pine
Forest without being on my guard; so I take my stiletto and a pair
of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides.

"I won't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or
the other. She is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion
is so much against him, that the _advocates_ decline to undertake
his cause, because they say that he is either a fool or a
rogue--fool, if he did not discover the liaison till now; and
rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for some bad end, to divulge
it. In short, there has been nothing like it since the days of
Guido di Polenta's family, in these parts.

"If the man has me taken off, like Polonius 'say, he made a good
end,'--for a melodrama. The principal security is, that he has not
the courage to spend twenty scudi--the average price of a
clean-handed bravo--otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for
I ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and
sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a little queer in
solitary bits of bushes.

"Good bye.--Write to yours ever," &c.

[Footnote 74: M. Lamartine.]

* * * * *