Chapter CLII: Letter I: PARIS, Friday, January 8, 1681

I should be very sorry, sir, if our correspondence were to end with the temple of Montpellier; and all you say to this effect, in doing the honors of your letters, by supposing the assurance of their continuance to contain a threat to me, is so ungenerous that I should be disposed to scold you; nor would the pretty turn you have given to this guarantee you from my reproaches, were it not that the letter you have written to my son makes me eager to tell you how much it has delighted me. The neatness of the beginning has reminded me of our merry stories, and the beauty of the verses has made me regret that you have not continued them in good earnest. If you have done so, let us share the pleasure of reading them. The two Latin verses you explain are very just. In short, we esteem your verse, your prose, and all your productions. My son is still your adorer; my daughter admires and esteems you in the highest degree. I presume you know my own sentiments for you, and that you see plainly there is not a family in the world who so justly appreciates your merit. You do the same in regard to M. de Carcassonne, by praising him as you do. The poor chevalier has been here for these six weeks, laid up with the rheumatism. He receives visits from persons almost as lame as himself. Those who are left-handed show at least that their taste is right. You have returned M. de Noailles to us in a very ill state of health. He has so violent a diarrhœa that it seems as if he had eaten to his own share all that he has expended at Montpellier; in short, he has been obliged to resign the staff, the staff that was the object of his love, the staff he went so far to assume, the staff which was the reward of all his other services. It is natural to suppose that he must be very ill, when he gives it himself to M. de Luxembourg. You say much in his favor when you speak of the distinction and expansion of heart he showed you. I wish his generosity had gone so far as to have induced him to return our mortified friend’s visit.[302] Have I not heard you say that we ought to respect the unfortunate? It can not be doubted that this has increased the mortification. I pity him for having suffered this feeling to take possession of him, and to have surmounted even his Christian philosophy; but I pity him still more if your heart be yet closed against him. A friend like you would be a true consolation in all his afflictions. Our _friend_ (Corbinelli) is entirely occupied here with his affairs. He does wonders. He is become the best lawyer in Paris; and this qualification came to him unexpectedly along with his peruke and brandenbourg, so that we should much sooner have taken him for a captain of cavalry than a man of business. It is thus the exterior often deceives us. If M. de Vardes had not thrown him into this employment, his gratitude and inclination would lead him straight to you. His heart is still perfect in all the moral virtues. They will become Christian virtues when it shall please Providence, whom we still adore, and who seems to treat you well, by the sentiments it inspires you with. Adieu, my dear sir. We should have many things to say to each other if we met. Who knows that some day or other we may not? Our friend writes to you separately; so much the worse for him: he will not know that I have the pleasure of assuring you here of my sincere and faithful friendship.

[302] Anne Jules, Duke de Noailles, had been nominated to the
command in Languedoc, of which the Duke du Maine, then too young
to take it upon himself, had just been appointed governor.
Preparations were making for the destruction of Calvinism.
In conjunction with the intendant d’Aguesseau, father of the
celebrated chancellor, Noailles endeavored for a long time
to engage the court to employ mild measures; and even in the
execution of the most rigorous he at first showed some humanity;
but he afterward became one of the most violent persecutors, and
his dispatches, concerted with Louvois, did not fail to excite
the king to rigors of which he too late repented.

It appears that he thought he could not, with propriety, in the
situation he held, return the visit of M. de Vardes, then an
exile, and whom Madame de Sévigné designates by the title of the
mortified friend.