I was upon the point of writing to him a second letter, to
which I was certain he would have returned an answer, when I learned
the melancholy cause of his silence relative to the first. He had been
unable to support until the end the fatigues of the campaign. Madam
d'Epinay informed me he had had an attack of the palsy, and Madam
d'Houdetot, ill from affliction, wrote me two or three days afterwards
from Paris, that he was going to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the benefit
of the waters. I will not say this melancholy circumstance afflicted
me as it did her; but I am of opinion my grief of heart was painful as
her tears. The pain of knowing him to be in such a state, increased by
the fear least inquietude should have contributed to occasion it,
affected me more than anything that had yet happened, and I felt
most cruelly a want of fortitude, which in my estimation was necessary
to enable me to support so many misfortunes. Happily this generous
friend did not long leave me so overwhelmed with affliction; he did
not forget me, notwithstanding his attack; and I soon learned from
himself that I had ill judged his sentiments, and been too much
alarmed for his situation. It is now time I should come to the grand
revolution of my destiny, to the catastrophe which has divided my life
in two parts so different from each other, and, from a very trifling
cause, produced such terrible effects.
One day, little thinking of what was to happen, Madam d'Epinay
sent for me to the Chevrette.
Pages:
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693