Chapter CXLVI: Letter IV: PARIS, Wednesday, December 10, 1670

Madame de Coulanges has told me several times that you love me sincerely, that you talk of me, that you wish me with you. As I made the first advances toward this friendship, and loved first, you may judge how happy I am to find that you return the partiality I have so long had for you. All that you write of your daughter is admirable, and I had no doubt that the good health of the mother would comfort you for your disappointment. The joy I should have had in acquainting you with the birth of a son would have been too great--it would have been showering too many blessings at once; and the pleasure I naturally take in being the messenger of good news, would have been carried to excess. I shall soon be in the same condition you saw me in last year. I must love you extremely to send my daughter to you at this inclement season of the year. How foolish it is to leave a good mother, with whom you assure me she is very well satisfied, to run after a man at the furthest end of France! I give you my word, nothing can be more indecorous than such behavior. I do believe you were greatly concerned at the death of the amiable duchess. I was so afflicted myself that I stood in need of comfort while I was writing to you about it.

My daughter desires me to acquaint you with the marriage of Monsieur de Nevers;[296] that Monsieur de Nevers who was so difficult to be caught, who used to slip so unexpectedly through the hands of the fair, is at length going to wed. And whom think you? Not Mademoiselle de Houdancourt, nor yet Mademoiselle de Grancei, but the young, the handsome, the modest Mademoiselle de Thianges,[297] who was brought up at the Abbaye aux Bois. Madame de Montespan[298] has the wedding solemnized at her house next Sunday; she acts as mother on the occasion, and receives the honors as such. The king restored Monsieur de Nevers to all his posts, so that this _belle_, though she does not bring him a penny of fortune, will be worth more to him than the richest heiress in France. Madame de Montespan does wonders in every thing.

[296] Philip Julian Mazarini Mancini, Duke of Nevers.

[297] Diana Gabriel de Damas, daughter of Claud Leonor, Marquis
de Thianges, and Gabriel de Rochechouart Mortemar, sister to
Madame de Montespan.

[298] Then mistress to Louis XIV.

I forbid you to write to me. Write to my daughter, and leave me to the freedom of writing to you, without embarking you in a train of answers which would rob me of the pleasure I have in acquainting you with every little trifle. Continue to love me, my dear count. I dispense with your honoring my motherly dignity, but you must love me, and assure yourself that there is not a place in the world where you are so dearly beloved as you are here.