The rooms are sparsely furnished. Nonetheless, the house of l’Estorade went all out for the occasion. They emptied their cupboards and enlisted every last one of their serfs for this dinner, which was served to us on tarnished, dented silver.

The exile, my beloved darling, is like the gate, very frail! He is pale, he has suffered, he says little. At thirty-seven, he might pass for fifty. The ebony of his ex-beautiful hair is streaked with white, like the wing of a lark. His fine blue eyes are sunken, he is slightly deaf, and all told he seems a little like the Knight of the Sad Countenance; nonetheless, I have graciously consented to become Madame de l’Estorade, to allow myself to be endowed with two hundred and fifty thousand livres, but only on the condition that I be given authority to oversee the furnishing and decoration of the bastide and to create a park on the grounds. I formally demanded that my father grant me a small supply of water, which will flow here from Maucombe. In a month I shall be Madame de l’Estorade, for I proved to his liking, my dear. After the snows of Siberia, a man may well find merit in these black eyes of mine, which, as you used to say, ripened any fruit that I gazed upon. Louis de l’Estorade seems exceedingly happy to be marrying the beautiful Renée de Maucombe, for such is your friend’s glorious cognomen. While you are preparing to reap the joys of the grandest existence, that of a young de Chaulieu lady in Paris, which you will have kneeling at your feet, your poor doe Renée, that girl of the desert, has fallen from the Empyrean realm into which we once launched ourselves and landed in the everyday realities of a life as humble as a daisy’s. Yes, I have sworn to console that young man who never had a youth, who went from his mother’s arms to the war’s, from the joys of his bastide to the snows and privations of Siberia. The sameness of my days will be varied by the modest pleasures of the countryside. I will bring the oasis that is the valley of Gémenos to my very house, which will be majestically shaded by beautiful trees. I will have perpetually green lawns in Provence; my park will climb to the very top of the hill, where I will place some pretty belvedere from which I might perhaps gaze on the shining Mediterranean. Orange trees, lemon trees, all of botany’s most sumptuous creations will beautify my retreat, and there I will be mother to a family. A natural, indestructible poetry will surround us. So long as I remain true to my duties, there is no sadness to fear. My father-in-law and the Chevalier de l’Estorade share my Christian sentiments. Ah! my darling, I see my life to come as one of those great highways of France, flat and smooth, shaded by age-old trees. There will not be two Bonapartes in this century; should I have children, I will be allowed to keep them, to raise them, to make men of them, and through them I will enjoy the pleasures of life. Assuming you do not fail your destiny, you who will be the wife of some great and important man, your Renée’s children will have a tireless protector.

Adieu, then, for me at least, to the novels and dramas of which we once made ourselves the heroines. I already know my life’s story line. It will be marked by such momentous events as the young de l’Estorade masters’ teething, by their feeding, by the ravages they will wreak on my flower beds and my person; embroidering their bonnets, being loved and admired by a poor sickly young man at the entry to the valley of Gémenos, those will be my enchantments. Perhaps one day that countrywoman will take to spending her winters in Marseille, but even then she would only be appearing on the narrow stage of the provinces, where there is little peril lurking in the wings. I will have nothing to fear, not even one of those admirations in which we women take such pride. We will have an abiding interest in silkworms, for which we will have mulberry leaves to sell. We will know the strange vicissitudes of Provençal life and the storms of a household where no quarrel is possible: Monsieur de l’Estorade has announced his definitive intention to let his wife lead him where she will. And since I will do nothing to ensure that he keeps to this wise course, he will very likely never stray from it. You, my dear Louise, will be the glamorous part of my existence, so tell me all your adventures, paint me pictures of the parties you go to, the balls, carefully describe your dress, the flowers crowning your beautiful blond hair, the words and ways of the menfolk.