ation.
I at once decided to return to Paris, for I find that in spite of all
my fine programmes of cruelty, I am naturally tender-hearted and
distressed to death at the idea of making any one unhappy. I armed
myself with insensibility, and here I am already conquered by the first
groans of my victim. I would make but an indifferent tyrant, and if all
the suspicious queens and jealous empresses like Elizabeth, Catharine
and Christina had no more cruelty in their dispositions than I have, the
world would have been deprived of some of its finest tragedies.

You may congratulate yourself upon having mitigated the severity of my
decrees, for it is my anxiety to please you that has made me so suddenly
change all my plans of tests and trials. You say it is undignified to
act as a spy upon Roger, to conceal myself in Paris where he is
anxiously seeking and waiting for me; that this ridiculous play has an
air of intrigue, and had better be stopped at once or it may result
dangerously ... I am resigned--I renounce the sensible idea of testing
my future husband ... but be warned! If in the future I am tortured by
discovering any glaring defects and odious peculiarities, that what you
call my indiscretion might have revealed before it was too late, you
will permit me to come and complain to you every day, and you must
promise to listen to my endless lamentations as I repeat over and over
again. O Valentine, I have learned too late what I might have known in
time to save me! Valentine, I am miserable and disappointed--console me!
console me!

Doubtless to a young girl reared like yourself in affluence under your
mother's eye, this strange conduct appears culpable and indelicate; but
remember, that with me it is the natural result of the sad life I have
led for the last three years; this disguise, that I reassume from fancy,
was then worn from necessity, and I have earned the right of borrowing
it a little while longer from misfortune to assist me in guarding
against new sorrows. Am I not justified in wishing to profit by
experience too dearly bought? Is it not just that I should demand from
the sad past some guarantees for a brighter future, and make my bitter
sorrows the stepping-stones to a happy life? But, as I intend to follow
your advice, I'll do it gracefully without again alluding to my
frustrated plans.

To-morrow I return to Fontainebleau. I stayed there five days when I
went back with Madame Langeac; I only intended to