The Sun.
London, England, 1847-09-02 00:00:00

with a. heart like yours, and the life we are leading.
The only happiness ,af your wife consists in your
love and support. Turn not then a deaf ear unto her
entreaties; unto her vows—to her repentance, for
she loves you, and her whole life will be passed in
love and gratitude towards you. You have driven her
-from your bed and from your heart ; could you do
more if she was false ? She spends her days and nights
in tears ; she waits outside your door, but dares not
enter, for fear yon should reproach her for it on the
-morrow. Mon ami, in the name of the many dear
remembrances which you bid me invoke, should I
ever have offended you, hearken to me ; give me
isgain your confidence, and your love, and open your
heart to the woman whose life is devoted to you.
Oh, I will never abuse it. Oh, how have I offended
you, my beloved, unless by my suspicions and my
temper, and when did a kind word fail to soothe me ?
Give not vent to your anger—be not inexorable. My
heart is breaking. Theobald, pity ! pity on her who
loves you! Trust your happiness to my keeping, as
I trust mine to yours . • . Do not break the
heart that is beating only for you. You who once
loved me so much, forgive me. When you confess to
me your sorrows—your head upon my breast, your
bands in mine, my lip upon your forehead—do you
think that they will not be less than if pent up in
your own breast 7 Do not sacrifice our mutial hap-
piness to an empty fear that I will abuse your good-
-Doss ; no, no I will only share and console you in all
your sorrows. But will you be the less a man to have
a loving woman to, share your pleasures and your
sorrows ? Let this union of our hearts be a sweet
mystery of love between us. Oh ! we could be so happy
if you would but try it. You would always be met with
a happy and smiling countenance, ready to follow you
wherever you liked. Perhaps, after all, you are the more
jealous of the two. God knows what suspicion you may
nourish in your breast, for I. am at a loss now to in-
terpret your secret sorrows. If you knew what I
suffer, my beloved! It is still in our power to be so
happy. I cannot think that you wish to abandon me
thus for ever, to deprive us of mutual happiness—life
is so short, my beloved, and we have been separated
already so long ! Soon I shall not dare to make pro-
posals, always rer'used, like my caresses. It is not in
your character to make the first advances, and from
custom your wise will fear you too much to make
further attempts, and life will then pass by, and you
will be unhappy, end your wife will die of grief. Oh,
return, return unto her I"

LETTER, Or THE DUCHESS DB PRASLIN, FOUND IN THE
DESK OF THE DUKE AT PARIS.
- " May 21, 1840.
" Do not be astonished, my dear Theobald, at my
fear of being alone with you. We are separated—
for ever—you said so; a sad recollection will ever be
attached to yesterday. Yeti must have perceived
yesterday that I felt its full weight, when, in the
presence of persons who have caused this separation,
nothing betrayed that it had taken place. You will
never have occasien to complain of me before the
world—my conduct yesterday is proof sufficient. As
long as I nourished hopes of a reconciliation—and
latterly I had many—l was hovering between joy
and fear, and gave way to fits of temper ; but now
that sacrifice is done you need not fear. Before the
children and the world, nothing will lead to the
supposition that you have destroyed my peace.
When I say ' you,' it is not you that my heart ac-
cuses, but to be alone with you would be too much
for me. I must weep in solitude, and endeavour to
gain sufficient strength to hide my misfortune from
the world ; my illusions are still too fresh, my love of
too late a date, to assume at once towards you that
cold reserve which my future position imposes upon
me. My heart would overflow ; it will need time to
calm its movethents. Then, mon ami, instead of
avoiding you, I shall seek your pretence ; but at the
present moment I love you too well. My future life
will be one of maiming ; my feelings will be always
the same, but time will have softened down their form.
Do not he angry with me, then, mon ami, if I avoid
your society ; Ido so not to embitter your life. In
the presence of a third I shall feel more at my
ease, for then I can appear affectionate towards you,
and those will be my only happy moments, and I hope
-that the occasion will often present itself. Surely,
after what passed between us in the morning, yester-
day evening could only be a source of grief to me, and
yet I appeared gay, and I almost was so, for I thought
that if we were rec mciled I should have to act in
such and such a manner, and I acted accordingly ;
but it was only an illusion. Alone with you I must
always be on my guard in presence of the sad reality.
We are separated, and although it is now nearly three
years that we have lived as if we were so, there still
was hope; but that vanished yesterday.
" To act towards you fur the future as I ought I
must endeavour to forget my past hopes. Time and
habit can alone teach me to draw a line between
Theobald and M. de Praslin. If I could but think
that you would be happy at the price of all my suffer- '
ing, present and to come, it would be a consolation to
me. Farewell ! what pain is in that word, pain that
I never dreamt of betore. Farewell! and yet you
loved me! We shall meet in heaven ; refuse not
this last prayer, the only meeting place I may now
designate ; may the thought sometimes cross your
mind, that I still love you."
Tne following are extracts from a diary, with a lock
to it, found in the chamber of the Duchess at the
Chateau de Praslin. On the first leaf the following
words are written :
" For my husband, the Duke de Praslin (for him
alone).
" Jan. 13, 1842 --Twice have the pages of this
book been covered with the outpourings of a broken
spirit. I burned them in a moment of despair, to
efface all marks of my sufferings, and only show you
my happy- though.s at your return Two wears have
passed, and my hopes are destroyed for ever ; but I
feel the want of expressing to you all the tenderness
and love I have felt for you.
" You have taken my children from me. My
children ! 1)0 you think me capable of corrupting
them ? I loved you too well not to love my children,
and you have now taken thein from me, to place them
under the care of a giddy young person, without any
religion, and whom you-onl) -know from an eight
months' acquaintance. Theobald! Theobeld! was it
not sufficient to abandon me, without depriving me
of the affection lnd the esteem of my children ? For
five years nearly my pillow has been wet with my
tears, and my health has suffered fro:n it."
Jan. 24, 1842 —Tne Duehesi again complains bit-
terly of b!ing deprived of her children.
" Each (ley," she says, " adds additional sorrow to
my existence. I have been calumniated, and perhaps
you think me guilty, otherwise you would never have
deprived me of my children, to place them under the
care of a stranger vt ho has usurped my place in your
house, and yet, before God, I swear I never loved
any one but you. Oh, if I was not certain
that your heart is for ever caused to me, I
would mike a last attempt. I would throw myself
at your feet, and intreat you, in the name or your
father, of your old days, of our children, of our first
love, to have pity on her who has never ceased to
love you. What an existence! What a future !
With a husband and children, to be condemned to
live and die alone !"
" April 23.--It is now some time since I have
written, and my positioa is now far worse than it
was. Mdlle. to— is mistress of the house. l hat
an example to the children I A young woman
to be allowed to enter at all hourstheroomof oVf 2
a man
of 37, and to receive him at all hours in her own
apartment! Had she not the impertinence to tell me
that she could not interfere between me and M. de
Praslin, as she thought he must have sufficient rea-
sons to withdraw my children from my superin-
tendence ?
" These reflections which I wrote down yesterday
upon a stray sheet are now singular to copy, and
prove the extent of my unskilfulness. The best
weapon, if I take it in my hand, turns and wounds
myself. To-day, perceiving myself angry at seeing
you come out from a tete-a-ale with Mdile. D., I
thought to act most judiciously in flying without
• saying a word, believing that' should thus avoid any
scene of recrimination, and testify my disapprobation
gently, without risking anything. Good God! How
far was I from anticipating the frightful rage in
which my unlucky gentleness- put you. Certainly,
ne violence could have urged you further than to fol-
low me on the staircase with loud insults and me-
nacing gestures, and afterwards to come to my room
and break my vases, and take from me two presents
which I valued so much, and which you gave me
when 1. believed coo loved
you have given them to another.me
so much. Perhaps
eviiyd.:.een,luieshaoyf-e male me
burn the letter—proot's, and only
You have torn from me my that love.
ave. eon-
without
thanned me to grief for my presentyolitifeh, leaving me a he• ter hope for the future, and now
deprive toe of -he past. . . . . you
'‘ All is finished ! We have quarrelled beyond I
recel. Oh, he is in..r, than harsh, he is cruel towards ;
me, whose love he keows to be so pure, so tender, so I
dev eed ? What infamous influences have been at
work upon hie heart, once so good, so affectionate, so
just ? lie excuses himself, doubtless, by tellinghim-
self that my character has become hateful and in-
tracahle. lie whose is the fault ? Has he not dis-
ordered ail cue seetitn.,nte. all my principles—does he
not seiz-5 every occasion to hurt and wound me ? . . .
The chatnher I live in kills me with its hitter recol-
lections Ile sight of the staircase which I mounted
or, the day
-f marriage, so full of joy, of love, of hopes
so trusting,—all data
part of the chateau which I in-
illlO EllifS" tak. IkltueLlsyou lore me, when you never left rue,
A:\
me I know
since
you w
hiveha t I
come d o Or
into
•4- , ay. treated nt,,,a4
• „al: :Ptsceissw was4ll.-‘e'clumr
emtahgatnifilcent chateau.
.Your first
Z :4 at iikmi'i-3.-llt
ittP.9, , .
.. 4, is true
i; (4
(
, ..,47..... fee.the fire, but how havewas not to think myself
you made me fine promises
you kept them It
Vt-- sf:e'rns%th*/gitice you have been Duke de Pr Jilin,
lin
and -.possessor of the chateau, I am no longer
s
- - worthy of being your wife. Since Soo
gee ou lee %view 1
1* nu awe lucre children you hell believid youseif %