Whether this be favorable or
unfavorable, the reader will hereafter be able to judge. The person
with whom I became acquainted was the Marchioness of Verdelin, my
neighbor, whose husband had just bought a country-house at Soisy, near
Montmorency. Mademoiselle d'Ars, daughter to the Comte d'Ars, a man of
fashion, but poor, had married M. de Verdelin, old, ugly, deaf,
uncouth, brutal, jealous, with gashes in his face, and blind of one
eye, but, upon the whole, a good man when properly managed, and in
possession of a fortune of from fifteen to twenty thousand a year.
This charming object, swearing, roaring, scolding, storming, and
making his wife cry all day long, ended by doing whatever she
thought proper, and this to set her in a rage, because she knew how to
persuade him that it was he who would, and she who would not have it
so. M. de Margency, of whom I have spoken, was the friend of madam,
and became that of monsieur. He had a few years before let them his
castle of Margency, near Eaubonne and Andilly, and they resided
there precisely at the time of my passion for Madam d'Houdetot.
Madam d'Houdetot and Madam de Verdelin became acquainted with each
other, by means of Madam d'Aubeterre their common friend; and as the
garden of Margency was in the road by which Madam d'Houdetot went to
Mont Olympe, her favorite walk, Madam de Verdelin gave her a key
that she might pass through it. By means of this key I crossed it
several times with her; but I did not like unexpected meetings, and
when Madam de Verdelin was by chance upon our way I left them together
without speaking to her, and went on before.
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