by Madame
de Lafayette
(1634-1693)
translation by Christy
Sheffield Sanford
© 1996, used by permission.
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In the first year of Catherine de Medici's reign, Mademoiselle Strozzi, daughter of a marshall and the queen's nearest relative, married the Count of Tende, of the house of Savoie-rich, handsome, a lord of the court, living in greatest splendor and better at making himself respected than in pleasing. Nevertheless, at first his wife loved him with a passion. She was so young; he saw her only as a child, and he soon made love to another. The Countess of Tende, lively and of Italian descent, became jealous; she gave herself no peace; she gave her husband none either; he avoided her presence and no longer lived with her as a man lives with his wife.
The beauty of the Countess grew; she appeared full of spirit; everyone regarded her with admiration; she occupied herself and imperceptibly cured herself of jealousy and of passion.
She became the intimate friend of the Princess of Neufchâtel; young, beautiful and widow of the Prince of this name, who had on dying left her a principality that rendered her the most esteemed and the most splendid party of the court.
The Knight of Navarre, descendant of former sovereigns of this royal line, was also then young, handsome, proud and spirited; but fortune had given him no wealth other than birth. He cast his eyes on the Princess of Neufchâtel, whose character he knew, as in one capable of a passionate attachment and suitable to make the fortune of a man such as himself. With this in mind, he attached himself to her without being in love and attracted her inclination: he was well-tolerated, but he found himself still far from the success he desired.
His design was unknown to everybody; only one of his friends was in his confidence, and this friend was also an intimate friend of the Count of Tende. He made the Knight of Navarre agree to allow him to confide his secret to the Count, with the idea that it would oblige him to serve his interest with the Princess of Neufchâtel.
The Count of Tende already thought highly of the Knight of Navarre; he spoke of him to his wife, for whom he was gaining more respect and, in effect, obliged her to do what was desired. The Princess of Neufchâtel had already confided her love for the Chevalier to the Countess, who fortified it.
The Knight went to see the Countess, to seize the chance of winning her alliance; but, upon seeing her, he was seized by a violent passion for her. He didn't abandon himself there at first; he saw the obstacles that these mixed feelings between his love and his ambition would bring to his design; he resisted; but, to resist he had to not often see the Countess of Tende, and he saw her every day while looking for the Princess of Neufchâtel; then he became hopelessly in love with the Countess.
He couldn't entirely hide his passion from her; she perceived it; her vanity was flattered by it and she felt a violent passion for him.
One day, as she was speaking to him of his good fortune in marrying the Princess of Neufchâtel, he said while looking at her with an air in which his passion was entirely declared: "And do you believe, Madame, that there isn't any other fortune I would prefer to that of marrying the Princess?"
The Countess was struck by the Chevalier's looks and words; she regarded him with the same eyes as he regarded her, and there was then an uneasy silence between them stronger than any spoken words.
From that time on, the Countess was in a state of agitation, which gave her no peace; toward her friend she felt remorse to have stolen the heart of a man whom she was going to marry solely in order to be loved, whom she was marrying in the face of everybody's disapproval, and at the cost of her elevated station in life.
This betrayal filled her with horror. The shame and the unhappiness of libertinism presented itself to her spirit; she saw the abyss, where she was hurling herself and she resolved to avoid it.
She held badly to her resolutions. The Princess was almost determined to marry the Knight of Navarre; nevertheless she wasn't content with the passion that he had for her and, despite the passion she had for him and of the care he took to deceive her, she detected the lukewarmness of his sentiments. She complained of it to the Countess; who reassured her; but the complaints of Mademoiselle de Neufchâtel greatly troubled the Countess; she was made to see the extent of her betrayal, which would perhaps cost her lover his fortune.
The Countess warned him of the Princess's distrust. He expressed indifference for everything except being loved by her; nevertheless he obeyed her orders to restrain himself and so well reassured the Princess of Neufchâtel that she made it clear to the Countess of Tende she was entirely satisfied with the Knight of Navarre.
Jealousy made itself known to the Countess. She feared that her lover really did love the Princess; she saw all the reasons he had to love her; their marriage, that she had wished for, gave her horror; and yet, she didn't want him to break it off and she found herself in a cruel incertitude.
She allowed the Knight to see all her remorse about the Princess of Neufchâtel; she resolved to hide from him only her jealousy and believed in effect that she had succeeded.
The passion of the Princess surmounted at last all of her irresolutions; she decided on her marriage and resolved to do it secretly and only to announce it after it was done. The Countess of Tende was ready to die of anguish.
On the very day set aside for the marriage, there was a public ceremony at which her husband was taking part. She sent there all her ladies-in-waiting; she made it known that no one should see her and shut herself in her room laid out on a sleeping couch and abandoned to all that remorse, love and jealously can most cruelly make one feel.
While she was in this state, she heard a hidden door of the room open and saw the Knight of Navarre appear, decked out and looking more charming than she'd ever seen him:
"Knight, where are you going?" she cried;
"What are you looking for? Have you lost your reason? What's become of
your marriage, and think of my reputation?" "Don't worry about your
reputation, Madame, he responded; no one can know; it's not a question of my
marriage; it's no longer about my fortune, it's only about your heart, Madame,
and to be loved by you; I renounce all the rest. You have let me see that you
don't hate me, but you wanted me to hide that I am so happy my marriage pains
you. I have come to tell you, Madame, that I renounce all of it, that this marriage
would be to me a torture and that I don't want to live without you.
They are waiting for me now as I speak to you, all is ready, but I'll call off
everything, if, in doing so, I please you and prove my passion.
The Countess fell back on her couch from which she had half risen and, looking at the Knight with eyes full of love and tears she said: "You want me to die? Do you believe that a heart can contain all you have made me feel? To leave because of me the fortune that awaits you! I can not even bear the thought. Go to Mademoiselle, the Princess of Neufchâtel, go to the grandeur you are destined for; you will have my heart at the same time. I will deal with my remorse, my uncertainties, my jealousy, since I must avow it to you, all of my feeble reasoning will council me; but I will never see you again if you don't go immediately to carry out your marriage. Go, don't stay a moment longer, but for the love of me and for the love of yourself, renounce a passion as unreasoned as the one you show to me and that will lead us perhaps to some horrible misfortune."
The Knight was at first transported by the joy of seeing himself so truly loved by the Countess of Tende; but the horror of giving himself to another reappeared before his eyes. He cried, he felt distressed, he promised her all that she wanted on the condition that he would see her again in the same place. She wanted to know before he left, how he had entered there. He told her that he trusted an equerry who had been in her service, and now was in his to let him slip through by the stable courtyard where the little step outside the equerry's room also led to hers.
Meanwhile, the hour of the marriage approached and the Knight, pressed by the Countess of Tende, was at last forced to leave. But he went, as if it were a torture, to the grandest and most agreeable fortune to which a young son without property could ever be elevated.
The Countess of Tende passed the night, as one can imagine, agitated by her inquietude; she called her ladies in waiting in the morning and, a little while after her room was opened, she saw her equerry approach her bed and put a letter on it, without anyone perceiving it.
The sight of this letter troubled her, because she knew it to be from the Knight of Navarre, and because it was so improbable that, during this night which must have been that of his nuptials, he had had the leisure of writing to her; she feared that he must have created or have been unable to overcome some obstacles to his marriage. She opened the letter with much emotion and soon found there approximately these words:
"I think only of you, Madame, I am obsessed by you; and in the first moments of the legitimate possession of the greatest match in France, hardly had dawn broken than I left the bedroom where I had spent the night, in order to tell you that I have already repented a thousand times having obeyed you and not having abandoned all to live only for you."
This letter, and the moments when it was written, deeply moved the Countess of Tende; she went to dine at the home of the Princess of Neufchâtel, who had begged her to come. Her marriage had by now been declared. She found an infinite number of people in the bedroom; but as soon as the Princess saw her, she left everybody and took her past them into her office.
Hardly were they seated, when the face of the Princess was covered with tears. The Countess believed that it was the effect of making known her marriage and that she found it more difficult to endure than she'd imagined but she soon saw that she was mistaken. Ah! Madame, said the Princess to her, what have I done? Out of passion, I have married a man; I have made a marriage unequal, disapproved, which abases me; and the one that I preferred to all loves another!
The Countess of Tende felt like fainting at these words; she believed the Princess couldn't have penetrated her husband's passion without also having discerned the cause; she couldn't respond.
The Princess of Navarre (one called her that since her marriage) did not notice her distress and, continuing she said to her, "The Prince of Navarre, Madame, far from having the impatience that the conclusion of our marriage ought to give him, made me wait yesterday evening. He came without joy, his mind occupied and embarrassed; he left my bedroom at the break of day on I don't know what pretext. But he came from writing; I knew it by his hands. To whom could he write other than to a mistress? Why make me wait and why did he appear embarrassed?"
Someone came at this moment to interrupt the conversation, because the Princess of Condé was arriving; the Princess of Navarre had to go receive her and the Countess of Tende, who was beside herself, remained.
As soon as it was evening, she wrote to the Prince of Navarre to tell him of his wife's suspicions and to oblige him to constrain himself.
Their passion didn't abate because of perils or obstacles; the Countess of Tende had no peace and even sleep did not come to alleviate her chagrin.
One morning after she had called her ladies, her equerry approached her and said in a low voice that the Prince of Navarre was in her room and he was imploring her to see him so he could tell her something it was absolutely necessary she know.
One cedes easily to that which is pleasing; the Countess knew that her husband was away; she said she wanted to sleep and told her ladies to shut her doors and not come back until she called them.
The Prince of Navarre entered her room and threw himself on his knees before her bed. "What have you to tell me?" she said to him. "That I love you, Madame, that I adore you, that I don't know how to live with Madame of Navarre. The desire to see you seized me this morning with such violence that I couldn't resist. I came here at the risk that anything might happen and without hope even of talking with you.
The Countess scolded him at first for compromising her so lightly and then their passion led them into a conversation so long that the Count of Tende came back from the city.
He went to his wife's apartment; he was told that she hadn't awakened. It was late; he didn't hesitate, he entered her bedroom and found the Prince of Navarre on his knees before her bed, as he had put himself at first.
Never was there an astonishment on a par to that of the Count of Tende, and never a trouble equal to that of his wife; only the Prince of Navarre preserved his presence of mind and, without being confused nor rising from his place: said to the Count of Tende, "Come, come, help me obtain a favor that I ask on my knees and that she has refused me."
The tone and the air of the Prince of Navarre dispelled the Count of Tende's astonishment. "I don't know," he responded in the same tone in which the prince had spoken, "if a favor that you ask of my wife on your knees, when you were told she was sleeping and I find you all alone with her, and without knocking at my door, will be one that I would wish she accord you."
The Prince of Navarre, reassured and without the embarrassment of the first moment, got up, seated himself with total ease, and the Countess of Tende, trembling and lost, hid her disturbance in the darkness of the place where she was. The Prince of Navarre began to speak to the Count:
"I am going to surprise you, you are going to disapprove of me, but you must nevertheless help me.
"I am in love and loved by the most amiable person of the court; I stole away yesterday evening from the Princess of Navarre's side and from all my servants to go to a rendez-vous where this person was waiting for me. My wife, who had already surmised I was occupied by something other than her, and who had observed my conduct, knew from my servants that I had left; she is in a state of jealousy and despair which nothing approaches.
"I told her I had passed those hours, which gave her such inquietude, chez the Marchale of Saint André, who is indisposed and who sees almost no one; I told her Madame the Countess of Tende was there and that she could ask her if she hadn't seen me all evening. I took the liberty of coming to confide in Madame the Countess. I went to the home of la Châtre, who is only three steps from here; I left his place without my servants having seen me. Someone told me that Madame was wide awake. I found no one in her antechamber and I rashly entered. She refuses to lie in my favor; she says she doesn't want to betray her friend and gave me some very sage reprimands; I made them to myself too but in vain. I must allay Madame the Princess of Navarre's inquietude and jealousy and extricate myself from the mortal embarrassment of her reproaches."
The Countess of Tende was hardly less surprised by the presence of mind of the Prince than she had been by the coming of her husband; she felt reassured that there remained not the least doubt in the Count's mind.
He joined his wife in getting the Prince to see the chasm of unhappiness into which he was going to plunge and how much he owed the Princess; the Countess promised to tell her all that her husband wished.
As he was preparing to leave, the Count stopped him: "To reward the service we are going to render to you at the expense of truth, tell us at least who is this amiable mistress. This person cannot be very estimable to love you and maintain an affair with you, seeing you embarked with a person as beautiful as Madame the Princess of Navarre, seeing you married to her and seeing what you owe her. This person must have neither spirit, nor courage, nor delicacy and, in truth, she doesn't merit your spoiling as great a good fortune as yours and your being so ungrateful and so culpable.
The prince didn't know how to answer; he feigned a reason to hastily leave. The Count of Tende himself showed him out so that he wasn't seen. The Countess stayed there distraught realizing the risk she'd run, reflecting on her husband's words and reviewing the calamities to which her passion was exposing her; but she hadn't the power to disengage herself.
She continued her affair with the Prince; she saw him several times through the intermediary La Lande, her equerry. She felt herself, and indeed was, one of the most unhappy people in the world. Daily, the Princess of Navarre confided in her about the jealousy of which the Countess was the cause; this jealousy pierced her with remorse and, when the Princess of Navarre was content with her husband, she herself was, in turn, pierced by jealousy.
A new torment was added to those she had already: The Count of Tende became as enamored of her as if she hadn't been his wife; he never left her and wanted to retake all his rights, which he had previously spurned.
The Countess opposed him with a force and an animosity which approached scorn: predisposed toward the Prince of Navarre, she was injured and offended by all other passion than his. The Count of Tende felt her conduct proceed in all its hardness and, pricked to the quick, he assured her that he would not importune her again from her life and, in effect, he left her with much harshness.
The war campaign approached; the Prince of Navarre had to leave for the army. The Countess of Tende began to feel the sadness of his absence and to fear the perils he would be exposed to; she resolved to escape the constraint of constantly hiding her affliction and decided to pass the summer on an estate she had thirty leagues from Paris.
She executed her projected plan; their adieu was so dolorous that both saw in it an evil omen. The Count of Tende remained close to the King, to whom he was attached by his duties.
The court had to draw near the army; Madame of Tende's house wasn't far away; her husband told her he would make a trip there of one night only for some work that he had begun. He didn't want her to have the satisfaction of believing it was to see her; he had against her all the spite that passions give.
In the beginning, Madame of Tende had found the Prince of Navarre so respectful and she sensed such virtue that she didn't distrust either him or herself. But time and events had triumphed over her virtue and respect and, soon after she returned home, she perceived she was pregnant.
One must only reflect on the reputation she had acquired and conserved and on the state of her relationship with her husband, in order to judge her despair.
She felt compelled several times to attempt her life; however she gained some flimsy hope on the visit that her husband was making to be near her, and resolved to await the outcome. In her dejection, she had the added sadness of learning that La Lande, whom she'd left in Paris to receive the letters of her lover and herself, had died a few days ago, and she found herself stripped of all succor, at a time when she had the most need of it.
Meanwhile, the army had undertaken a siege. Her passion for the Prince of Navarre gave her continued fear, even through some mortal horrors which agitated her. Her fears proved only too well founded; she received letters from the army; she learned from them of the end of the siege, but she also learned that the Prince of Navarre had been killed the last day.
She lost her consciousness and her reason; she was several times deprived of one or the other. This excess of misfortune appeared to her in moments a kind of consolation. She cared nothing for her comfort, for her reputation, nor for her life; death alone appeared desirable to her: she was hoping for it from her grief or was resolved to seek it.
A vestige of shame obliged her to say she was suffering excessive pain to give a pretext for her crying and her tears. If a thousand adversities made her return to herself, she saw that she had merited them, and nature and Christianity deterred her from being homicidal toward herself and deferred carrying out what she had resolved.
It wasn't long after she was in this violent depression, when the Count of Tende arrived. She believed she knew all the sentiments that her unhappy state could inspire in him; but the arrival of her husband gave her still a trouble and a confusion which was new to her.
He knew upon arriving that she was ill and, as he had always conserved some reputation for honesty in the eyes of the public and of his servants, he went at first into her bedroom. He found her as a person beside herself, as a person crazed and she could not restrain her tears, that she was attributing always to physical pain which tormented her.
The Count of Tende, touched by the state that he saw her in, grew tender toward her and, thinking he would take her mind off her pains, he spoke to her of the Prince of Navarre's death and of his wife's affliction.
Madame of Tende could not withstand this discourse; her tears redoubled to such a degree that the Count of Tende was surprised by it and almost enlightened; he left her bedroom full of confusion and agitation; it seemed to him that his wife's state wasn't caused by a physical illness. This redoubling of tears, when he had spoken to her of the Prince of Navarre's death, had struck him, and, suddenly, the adventure of having found him on his knees before her bed presented itself to his mind. He remembered her behavior towards him, when he had wished to return to her, and at last he believed he saw the truth; nevertheless there remained in his mind this doubt that vanity leaves always for things which are too painful to believe.
His despair was extreme, and all his thoughts were violent; but as he was prudent, he restrained his first impulses and resolved to leave at day break without seeing his wife, allowing time to give him more certitude and to make some resolutions.
Overcome though Madame of Tende was in her anguish, she couldn't fail to realize how little power she had over herself and to notice the manner in which her husband had left her bedroom; she suspected part of the truth and, having only horror for her own life, she resolved to leave it in a manner that didn't deprive the other of hope.
After having examined that which she was going to do, with some mortal agitations, pierced by her unhappiness and repentance for her life, she determined at last to write these words to her husband:
"This letter is going to cost me my life; but I merit death and I desire it. I am pregnant. The one who is the cause of my misfortune is no longer in the world, neither is the only man who knew of our affair; the public never suspected it. I had resolved to end my life by my hands, but I offer it to God and to you for the expiation of my crime. I haven't wanted to dishonor myself in the eyes of the world, because my reputation reflects on you; conserved there for the love of you. I am going to show the state I am in; hide the shame of it and make me perish when you wish and as you wish."
The day dawned when she had written this letter, the most difficult to write that has perhaps ever been written; she sealed it, sat by the window and, when she saw the Count of Tende in the courtyard, ready to climb into his coach, she sent one of her ladies to carry it to him saying that there was nothing pressing in it and that he could read it at his leisure.
The Count of Tende was surprised by this letter; it gave him a sort of presentiment, no, not at all about what he should find there, but of something connected to what he'd thought about the previous day.
He climbed alone into his coach, full of misgiving and not daring even to open the letter, however impatient he was to read it; he read it at last and learned of his misfortune; but what did he not think after having read it! If he had had witnesses, the violent state he was in would have made them believe he was deprived of reason or ready to lose his life. Well founded jealousy and suspicions usually prepare husbands for their woes; they always have some doubts, but they don't have the certitude confession brings; that is beyond our understanding.
The Count of Tende had always found his wife very amiable, although he hadn't equally loved her; but she had always appeared to him the most estimable woman that he had ever seen; thus, he had no less astonishment than fury and, crossing from one to the other, he still felt, in spite of himself, an anguish in which tenderness was a part.
He stopped at a house, that was on his route; there he passed several days, agitated and afflicted, as one can imagine. At first, he thought all it was natural to think on such an occasion; he dreamed only of making his wife die, but the death of the Prince of Navarre and of La Lande, who he easily recognized as the confidant, made his fury relent a little.
He didn't doubt his wife had told him the truth, that her affair had never been suspected; he judged that the Prince of Navarre's marriage could have fooled everybody, since he himself had been fooled. Even in the face of a conviction as big as that which was presented to his eyes.
The public's total ignorance of his misfortune consoled him;
but the circumstances, that made him see at what point and in what manner he
had been fooled, pierced him to the heart, and he breathed only vengeance.
He thought nevertheless that, if he made his wife die and if her pregnancy was
perceived, one would easily suspect the truth. As he was one of the proudest
men of the world, he took the line which would best accord with his greatest
prestige, and he resolved to let the public see nothing. Keeping this in mind,
he sent a gentleman to the Countess of Tende, with this note:
"The desire to prevent the revelation of my shame is more important to me now than my vengeance; I will see, eventually, that which I will ordain for your unworthy destiny. Conduct yourself as if you had always been that which you ought to be."
The Countess received this note with joy; she believed it her death sentence and, when she saw that her husband consented to letting her pregnancy show, she felt sure that shame was the most violent of all passions. She found in herself a sort of calm to think of herself assured of death and of seeing her reputation safe; she dreamed only of preparing herself for death; and, as she was a person in which all sentiments were lively, she embraced virtue and penitence with the same ardor that she had followed her passion.
Her soul was, moreover dissolved and drowning in affliction; she could set her eyes on nothing of this life that wasn't harder to her than death itself; so that she couldn't see any remedy to her unhappiness other than by ending her miserable life. She passed some time in this state, appearing rather more a person dead than a person living.
At last, toward the sixth month of her pregnancy, her body succumbed, the fever continued to take her and because of the violence of her illness, she delivered prematurely. She had the consolation of seeing her infant alive, to be assured that he would not be able to live and that she would not leave an illegitimate heir to her husband.
She expired a few days later and received death with more joy than anyone has ever shown; she charged her confessor to go, carry to her husband the news of her death, to ask his pardon for her part and to beg him to forget her memory, that could only be odious to him.
The Count of Tende received this letter not without humanity, and even with some sentiments of pity, but nevertheless with joy. Although he was quite young, he never remarried, and he lived until a very advanced age.
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