800 Years of Women's Letters (15 page)

In the latter part of this chapter, letters analysing different approaches to courtship are compared to extracts which consider money settlements. A settlement on a Roman bride (the earliest letter we have in a woman's hand) and letters on French dowries in the nineteenth century show the continuing importance of a financial bond.

Mademoiselle, niece of Louis XIII, was a large, ungainly woman appreciated mainly because of her close relationship to Louis XIV. Madame de Sévigné recounts with dramatic suspense the amazed reaction of most courtiers when they heard that Mademoiselle had achieved a triumph, an engagement to the soldier-adventurer Duke of Lauzun. Coulanges, to whom these letters were sent, was cousin and lifelong friend of Madame de Sévigné.

Paris, Monday 15 December 1670

What I am about to communicate to you is the most astonishing thing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, most triumphant, most baffling, most unheard of, most singular, most extraordinary, most unbelievable, most unforeseen, biggest, tiniest, rarest, commonest, the most talked about, the most secret up to this day, the most brilliant, the most enviable, in fact a thing of which only one example can be found in past ages, and, moreover, that example is a false one; a thing nobody can believe in Paris (how could anyone believe it in Lyons?), a thing that makes everybody cry ‘mercy on us', a thing that fills Mme de Rohan and Mme de Hauterive with joy, in short a thing that will be done on Sunday and those who see it will think they are seeing visions – a thing that will be done on Sunday and perhaps not done by Monday. I can't make up my mind to say it. Guess, I give you three tries. You give up? Very well, I shall have to tell you. M. de Lauzun is marry on Sunday, in the Louvre – guess who? I give you four guesses, ten, a hundred. Mme de Coulanges will be saying: That's not so very hard to guess, it's Mlle de La Vallière. Not at all, Madame, Mlle de Retz, then? Not at all, you're very provincial. Of course, how silly we are, you say: It's Mlle Colbert. You're still further away. Then it must be Mlle de Créquy? You're nowhere near. I shall have to tell you in the end: he is marrying, on Sunday, in the Louvre, with the King's permission, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle de . . . Mademoiselle . . . guess the name. He's marrying Mademoiselle, of course! Honestly, on my honour, on my sworn oath! Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, daughter of the late Monsieur, Mademoiselle, granddaughter of Henry IV, Mademoiselle d'Eu, first cousin of the King, destined for the throne, the only bride in France worthy of Monsieur [Louis XIV's brother]. If you shout aloud, if you say we have lied, that it is false, a fine old story, too feeble to imagine, you are perfectly right. We did as much ourselves.

Goodbye, letters coming by this post will show you whether we are telling the truth or not.

TRANS. L. TANCOCK,
MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ; SELECTED LETTERS
(1982)

The following day Louis XIV decided that his cousin should not be allowed to marry a mere duke. Madame de Sévigné wrote again to her cousin.

Paris, Friday 19 December 1670

What you might call a bolt from the blue occurred yesterday evening at the Tuileries, but I must start the story further back. You have heard as far as the joy, transports, ecstasies of the Princess and her fortunate lover. Well, the matter was announced on Monday, as you were told. Tuesday was spent in talk, astonishment, compliments. On Wednesday Mademoiselle made a settlement on M. de Lauzun, with the object of bestowing on him the titles, names and honours needed for mention in the marriage contract, and that was enacted on the same day. So, to go on with, she bestowed on him four duchies: first the earldom of Eu, which is the highest peerage in France and gives him first precedence, the duchy of Montpensier, which name he bore all day yesterday, the duchy of Saint Fargeau and that of Châtellerault, the whole estimated to be worth twenty-two millions. Then the contract was drawn up, in which he took the name of Montpensier. On Thursday morning, that is yesterday, Mademoiselle hoped that the King would sign the contract as he had promised, but by seven in the evening His Majesty, being persuaded by the Queen, Monsieur and divers greybeards that this business was harmful to his reputation, decided to break it off, and after summoning Mademoiselle and M. de Lauzun, declared to them, in the presence of Monsieur le Prince, that he forbade their thinking any more about this marriage. M. de Lauzun received this order with all the respect, all the submissiveness, all the stoicism and all the despair that such a great fall required. As for Mademoiselle, according to her mood she burst into tears, cries, violent outbursts of grief, exaggerated lamentations, and she remained in bed all day, taking nothing but broth. So much for a beautiful dream, a fine subject for a novel or a tragedy, but above all for arguing and talking for ever and ever. And that is what we are doing day and night, evening and morning, on and on without respite. We hope you will do the same. Upon which I most humbly kiss your hands.

Madame de Sévigné

TRANS. L. TANCOCK (1982)

The following letter, again to her cousin, shapes the real romance into a suitable fiction. Madame de Sévigné realized the potential of this drama for the stage, and with her vivid pen she has made the story into art.

Paris, Wednesday 24 December 1670

You now know the romantic story of Mademoiselle and M. de Lauzun. It is a real subject of tragedy according to all the rules of the theatre. The other day we were plotting out the acts and scenes, giving it four days instead of twenty-four hours, and it made a perfect play. Never have such changes been seen in so short a time, never have you seen such general emotion, never have you heard such extraordinary news. M. de Lauzun has played his part as to the manner born; he has endured this misfortune with a self-control, courage and yet grief mingled with profound respect which have earned him universal admiration. What he has lost is of inestimable value, but the goodwill of the King, which he has kept, is also beyond price, and his fortune seems by no means in a parlous state. Mademoiselle has behaved very well too. She has wept a lot, but today she returned to her duty calls at the Louvre, whence she had been receiving all the visitors. So that is that. Good-bye.

TRANS. L. TANCOCK (1982)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) was the eldest daughter of the 1st Duke of Kingston. She fell in love with a mere Member of Parliament, Wortley Montagu, and married him against her father's wishes. The marriage was not happy, as he proved cold and comparatively dull. However she was at first passionately attached to him, and her love letters are as dramatic as fiction. In this first one, dated 26 July 1712, she recounts what she has just written (notice the use of the letter here, though she was living in the same house) to her father, to persuade him to allow her to marry.

I said every thing in this Letter I thought proper to move him, and proffer'd in atonement for not marrying whom he would, never to marry at all. He did not think fit to answer this letter, but sent for me to him. He told me he was very much surpriz'd that I did not depend on his Judgement for my future happynesse, that he knew nothing I had to complain of etc., that he did not doubt I had some other fancy in my head which encourag'd me to this disobedience, but he assur'd me if I refus'd a settlement he has provided for me, he gave me his word, whatever proposals were made him, he would never so much as enter into a treaty with any other; that if I founded any hopes upon his death, I should find my selfe mistaken. . . . I told my intention to all my nearest Relations: I was surpriz'd at their blameing it to the greatest degree. I was told they were sorry I would ruin my selfe, but if I was so unreasonable they could not blame my F[ather] whatever he inflicted on me. I objected I did not love him. They made answer they found no Necessity of Loveing; if I liv'd well with him, that was all was requir'd of me, and that if I consider'd this Town I should find very few women in love with their Husbands and yet a many happy. It was in vain to dispute with such prudent people; they look'd upon me as a little Romantic, and I found it impossible to persuade them that liveing in London at Liberty was not the height of happynesse. . . .

ED. R. HALSBAND,
THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
(1965)

To Phillipa Mundy, August 1712:

For my part, I know not what I shall do; perhaps at last I shall do something to surprize everybody. Where ever I am, and what ever becomes of me, I am ever yours. Limbo is better than Hell. My Adventures are very odd; I may go into Limbo if I please, but its accompanny'd with such circumstances, my courage will hardly come up to it, yet perhaps it may. In short I know not what will become of me. You'l think me mad, but I know nothing certain but that I shall not dye an Old Maid, that's positive.

ED. R. HALSBAND (1965)

To Wortley, 17 August 1712:

Every thing I apprehended is come t[o p]asse. 'Tis with the utmost difficulty [and d]anger I write this. My father is in the house. . . . I am frighted to death and know not what to say. I had yet more to suffer, for I have been forced to promise to write no more to you.

ED. R. HALSBAND (1965)

Anna Seward, who became a friend of the Ladies of Llangollen, wrote many letters at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. She sometimes fell in love with women, but for years felt a deep, chaste love for an unhappily married choirmaster at Lichfield. In 1811 she wrote to a Mrs Hayley:

Men are rarely capable of pure unmixed tenderness to any fellow creature except their children. In general even the best of them give their friendship to their male acquaintances, and their fondness to their offspring. For their mistress, or wife, they feel, during a time, a tenderness more ardent and more secret, a friendship softer and more animated. But this inexplicable, this fascinating sentiment, which we understand by the name of love, often proves an illusion of the imagination; – a meteor that misleads her who trusts it, vanishing when she has followed it into pools and quick sands where peace and liberty are swallowed up and lost.

COLLECTED LETTERS OF ANNA SEWARD
(1811)

Geraldine Jewsbury described the unhappy love affair of Mr —— and the shabby way he treated the mistress who adored him. She died of cancer ‘brought on by grief', but ‘it now seems unreasonable to expect high-pressure efforts except from a steam-engine'.

April 19 1841

He did not come at all for some reason or another, and on the whole I was not sorry, for seeing him now is like the meeting of two ghosts on the other side Styx. Each has been connected so strangely with the history of so many feelings and incidents, which at the time seemed as if their memory could never pass away. And what has been the end of so much passionate suffering, so much love which all the parties thought would endure for ever? The woman he loved so madly – of whom he declared (to one he trusted) that he would rather obtain her friendship even, than have possession of her whole sex – died of a broken heart, or, rather, of a cancer, which Sir Astley Cooper said had been brought on by grief and anxiety of mind. She was a fine creature. I never saw her but once; but I heard of her from many quarters, and from those who knew her best. She was married to a man who did not care for her, and she, till she met ——, did not know what affection meant. His own testimony, and the way he spoke of love to me (that time we had our conversation), was enough to absolve her from all censure except the deepest commiseration. Her sister (who knew nothing of the matter) said, after her death, that she used to sit for hours gazing on the wall without seeing anything or speaking a word. When asked, ‘What are you thinking about?' – ‘Oh, many things; don't talk to me!' He, for whom she has risked everything – very soon after he had obtained everything – began to grow, not indifferent exactly, but satisfied. Unfortunately for her, she and her husband were obliged to leave this country: in absence she lost her influence over him. In a very short time he forced her to break with him: he married for expediency and is now the father of a family, is a respectable man, and in prosperous circumstances. Since her death he professes, to those who knew the facts, bitterly to regret the past; but it is somewhat dubious whether these brave sentiments are real, or assumed as a piece of his respectability.

I, who was a bystander, have the recollection of the faith I then had in his good qualities, and the strong feeling I had for him, and the firm belief in his chivalrous, honourable dealing towards her, and the undoubting trust in her submission to duty, honour, and so forth. I did believe, then, in many fine things, and even now I only doubt their durability, or rather it now seems unreasonable to expect high-pressure efforts except from a steam-engine, and even that wears out; and why should we regret that things are so constituted? The fact of all that is worth having, and even life itself, being precarious, gives it a value beyond its own, and those who have an eternity to trust to, little know the desperate tenacity of those who have to make the most of Time! I cannot explain to you the superstitious value I set on those I ever love, and the sort of religious feeling with which I try to guard every word or thought which might raise a shade between us.

No, my dear, you must first have no hope of anything beyond this world, before you can know how very precious is a friend we really love. This letter has been written
à plusieurs reprises
, for my eyes are rather worse, if anything, to-day than they were this day week, so that now I can hardly write, and what is to become of me I don't know!

I have more time for thinking than is at all agreeable. All this while I have never thanked you for your letter – it made me feel very sad. Those efforts after strength are weary things, and I doubt whether they do much good. They go to exhaust what strength we may possess. On the whole, I cannot help thinking it is the wisest to let ourselves be drifted along. Time brings quiet and strength naturally; in fact, the very change he works in us and in our feelings is equivalent to strength. There are two lines in Coleridge's translation of ‘Wallenstein' that haunt me from morning to night, and have done so ever since I began to know what endurance meant. ‘What pang is permanent with man? From the highest as from the vilest things he learns to wean himself, and the strong hours conquer him!'