letter from the marquis de villemer

to the duke d'aléria.

polignac, via le puy (haute-loire),

may 1, '45.

the address i give you is a secret which i intrust to you, and which i am happy to intrust to you. if by any unforeseen accident i should chance to die, away from you, you would know that your first duty would be to send hither and see that the child was not neglected by the people in whose charge i have placed him. these people do not know who i am; they know neither my name nor my country; they are not aware even that the child is mine. that these precautions are necessary, i have already told you. m. de g—— clings to suspicions which would naturally lead him to doubt the legitimacy of his daughter,—really his own, nevertheless. this fear was the torture of their unhappy mother, to whom i swore that the existence of didier should be concealed until laura's fortune had been assured. i have noticed more than once the uneasy curiosity with which my movements have been watched. i cannot therefore cloud them too much in mystery.

this is my reason for placing my son so far away from me and in a province where having no other interests of any kind, i run less risk than i should elsewhere of being betrayed through some accidental meeting. the people with whom i have to deal give me every possible guaranty of their honesty, goodwill, and discretion, in the single fact that they abstain from questioning or watching me. the nurse is the niece of joseph, that good old servant whom we lost a year ago. it was he who recommended her to me; but she, too, is in complete ignorance regarding me. she knows me by the name of "bernyer." the woman is young, healthy, and good-humored, a simple peasant, but comfortably provided for. i should fear that, in making her richer, i could not eradicate the parsimonious habits of the country, which, i perceive, are even more inveterate here than elsewhere; and i have held merely to this, that the poor child, while brought up in the true conditions of rustic development, should not have to suffer from an excess of these conditions; this excess having precisely the same effect upon children that lack of sunlight produces upon plants.

my hosts, for i am writing this in their house, are farmers, having charge of the enclosed grounds, within which rises, from a rocky platform, one of the rudest of mediæval fortresses, the cradle of that family whose last representatives played such an unhappy part in the recent vicissitudes of our monarchy. their ancestors in this province played no less sad a one, and no less important to an age when the feudal system had made the part of king very insignificant. it is not without interest for the historical work upon which i am engaged, to gather up the traditions here and to study the look and character of the old manor and the surrounding country; so i have not absolutely deceived my mother in telling her that i was going to travel in "search of information."

there is really much to be learned here in the very heart of our beautiful france, which it is not fashionable to visit, and which consequently still hides its shrines of poetry and its mines of science in inaccessible nooks. here is a country without roads, without guides, without any facilities for locomotion, where every discovery must be conquered at the price of danger or fatigue. the inhabitants know as little about it as strangers. their purely rural lives confine their ideas of locality to a very limited horizon: on a stroll, then, it is impossible to get any information, if you do not know the names and relative situations of all the little straggling villages; indeed, without a very complete map to consult at every step, although i have been in this country three times in the two years of didier's life here, i could find my way only in a straight line, a thing entirely out of the question over a soil cut up with deep ravines, crossed in every way by lofty walls of lava, and furrowed by numerous torrents.

but i need not go far to appreciate the wild and striking character of the landscape. nothing, my friend, can give you an idea of this basin of le puy with its picturesque beauty, and i can think of no place more difficult to describe. it is not switzerland, it is less terrible; it is not italy, it is more lovely; it is central france with all its vesuviuses extinct and clothed with splendid vegetation; and yet it is neither auvergne nor limosin, with which you are familiar.

* * * * *

but i have said enough to keep my promise and to give you some general idea of the country. my dear brother, you urged me to write a long letter, foreseeing that, in my lonely, sleepless hours, i should think too much about myself, my sad life, and my painful past, in the presence of this child who is sleeping yonder while i write! it is true that the sight of him reopens many wounds, and that it is doing me a kindness to compel me to forget myself while generalizing my impressions. and yet i find here powerful emotions, too, which are not without sweetness. shall i close my letter before i have spoken of him? you see i hesitate; i fear i shall make you smile. you pretend to detest children. as for me, without feeling that repugnance i used formerly to shrink from coming in contact with these little beings, whose helpless candor had something appalling to my mind. to-day i am totally changed in this regard, and even if you should laugh at me, i must still open my heart to you without reserve. yes, yes, my friend, i must do it. that you may know me thoroughly, i ought to conquer my sensitiveness.

well, then, you must know i worship this child, and i see, that sooner or later, he will be my whole life and my whole aim. it is not duty alone that brings me to him, it is my own heart that cries out for him, when i have gone without seeing him for a certain length of time. he is comfortable here, he wants for nothing, he is growing strong, he is beloved. his adopted parents are excellent souls, and, as to caring for him properly, i can see that their hearts are in the matter as well as their interests. they live in a part of the manor-house which yet remains standing and which has been suitably restored. they are neat and painstaking people, and they are bringing up the child within these ruins, on the summit of the large rock, under a bright sky, and in a pure and bracing atmosphere. the woman has lived in paris; she has correct ideas as to the amount of energy and also of humoring that it takes to manage a child more delicate, indeed, than her own children, but with as good a constitution; so i need not feel anxious about anything, but can await the age when it will become necessary to care for and form other material than the body. well! i am ill at ease about him just as soon as i am away from him. his existence then often seems like an anxiety and a deep trouble in my life; but, when i see him again, all fears vanish and all bitterness is allayed. what shall i say then? i love him! i feel that he belongs to me and that i belong equally to him. i feel that he is mine, yes, mine, far more than his poor mother ever was; as his features and disposition become more marked, i seek vainly in him for something which may recall her to me, and this something does not seem to unfold. contrary to the usual law which makes boys rather than girls inherit the traits of the mother, it is his father that this child will resemble, if he continues, henceforth, to develop in the way he seems to be doing now. he has already my indolence and the unconquerable timidity of my earliest years, which my mother so often tells me about, and my quick, impulsive moments of unreserved confidence, which made her, she says, forgive me and love me in spite of all. this year he has taken notice of my presence near him. he was afraid at first, but now he smiles and tries to talk. his smile and broken words make me tremble; and when he takes my hand to walk, a certain grateful feeling toward him, i cannot tell what, brings to my eyes tears which i conceal with difficulty.

but this is enough, i do not want to appear too much of a child myself: i have told you this that you may no longer wonder why i refuse to listen to your plans for me. my friend, you must never speak to me of love or marriage. i have not store of happiness enough to bestow any upon a being that would be new to my life. my life itself is hardly sufficient for my duties, as i see clearly in the affection i have for didier, for my mother, and for you. with this thirst for study, which so often becomes a fever in me, what time should i have for enlivening the leisure hours of a young woman eager for happiness and gayety? no, no, do not think of it; and if the idea of such isolation is sometimes fearful at my age, help me to await the moment when it will be perfectly natural. this will be my task for several years to come. your affection, as you know, will make them seem fewer and shorter. keep it for me, indulgent to my faults, generous even toward my confidence.

p. s. i presume that my mother has left for séval with mlle de saint-geneix, and that you have accompanied them. if my mother is anxious about me, tell her you have heard from me and that i am still in normandy.