第29章 MME.DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE.DE CHAULIEU LA CRAMPADE,

Louis has regained his youth,strength,and spirits.He is not the same man.With magic touch I have effaced the very memory of his sufferings.It is a complete metamorphosis.Louis is really very attractive now.Feeling sure of my affection,he throws off his reserve and displays unsuspected gifts.

To be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who knows it and adds gratitude to love,ah!dear one,this is a conviction which fortifies the soul,even more than the most passionate love can do.

The force thus developed--at once impetuous and enduring,simple and diversified--brings forth ultimately the family,that noble product of womanhood,which I realize now in all its animating beauty.

The old father has ceased to be a miser.He gives blindly whatever Iwish for.The servants are content;it seems as though the bliss of Louis had let a flood of sunshine into the household,where love has made me queen.Even the old man would not be a blot upon my pretty home,and has brought himself into line with all my improvements;to please me he has adopted the dress,and with the dress,the manners of the day.

We have English horses,a coupe,a barouche,and a tilbury.The livery of our servants is simple but in good taste.Of course we are looked on as spendthrifts.I apply all my intellect (I am speaking quite seriously)to managing my household with economy,and obtaining for it the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of cost.

I have already convinced Louis of the necessity of getting roads made,in order that he may earn the reputation of a man interested in the welfare of his district.I insist too on his studying a great deal.

Before long I hope to see him a member of the Council General of the Department,through the influence of my family and his mother's.Ihave told him plainly that I am ambitious,and that I was very well pleased his father should continue to look after the estate and practise economies,because I wished him to devote himself exclusively to politics.If we had children,I should like to see them all prosperous and with good State appointments.Under penalty,therefore,of forfeiting my esteem and affection,he must get himself chosen deputy for the department at the coming elections;my family would support his candidature,and we should then have the delight of spending all our winters in Paris.Ah!my love,by the ardor with which he embraced my plans,I can gauge the depth of his affection.