Be happy, then, Fernand: my abdication comes with no misgivings, none of the regrets felt by Charles V, no urge to leap back into the fray like Napoleon. It has been five nights and five days since I wrote my testament; my thoughts have moved on by five centuries. For me, it is as if those grandezas, those titles, that property never existed.

Now that the respectful barrier that separated us has fallen, I can allow you to read into my heart, dear child. Clad by my gravity in impregnable armor, that heart is brimming with untapped tenderness and devotion, but no woman has ever seen it, not even she who, from my cradle, was destined to be mine. That is the secret behind my passion for matters of state. Lacking a mistress, I adored Spain. And Spain too has escaped me! Now that I am nothing, I can contemplate my ruined I, wonder why life came to me and when it will leave me; why the most chivalrous race there ever was should instill in its last offspring its prime virtues, its African ardor, its fiery poetry; whether the seed must forever be sealed away in its coarse envelope, never to send out a shoot, never to release its Oriental perfumes from a radiant flower. What crime did I commit in some previous existence that I have never inspired love in a woman? Was I born a mere piece of wreckage, destined to wash up on an arid shore? In my soul I find the deserts of my fathers, condemned to sterility by a blazing sun. The proud remnant of a fallen race, my strength useless, my love lost, an old young man, I will thus wait here, better than anywhere else, for the final favor that will be my death. Alas! beneath these gray skies, no spark will revive the flame amid all these ashes. And so, as my last words, I might well say, like Jesus Christ, My God, you have abandoned me! Fearsome words that no one has yet dared to examine.

Consider, Fernand, how happy I am for the chance to live anew through you and Maria! I will contemplate you with the pride of a creator pleased at his handiwork. Love each other well and forever, cause me no sorrows: one tempest between you would hurt me more than it would you. Our mother foresaw that events would one day fulfill her hopes. Perhaps a mother’s wish is a compact between her and God. Was she not one of those mysterious beings who can communicate with heaven and bring back a vision of the future? How often I read in the wrinkles of her brow that she wished Felipe’s properties and honors on Fernand! I used to tell her just that, and she answered with two tears, showing me the wounds of a heart owed to us both, but which an invincible love gave to you alone. Her joyful shade will hover over your heads when you kneel at the altar. Will you finally come and caress your Felipe, Dona Clara? As you see, he has abandoned to your beloved even the girl you reluctantly placed on his knees. What I do here is pleasing to women, to the dead, to the king; it was God’s will, so do not resist it, Fernand: only obey, and hold your tongue.

P.S. Tell Urraca she must never call me by any name other than Monsieur Hénarez. Say nothing of me to Maria. You must be the only living creature who knows the secrets of the last Christianized Moor, in whose veins the blood of a great desert-born family will die, and who will live out his days alone. Farewell.

7

FROM LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENÉE DE MAUCOMBE

January 1824

Soon married? Can it be? But does one hire even a servant like that? You promise yourself to a man after only a month, knowing nothing of him, never having made his acquaintance! That man might be deaf—there are so many ways!—or feeble, or dull, or intolerable. Renée, do you not see what they want to make of you? They need you to perpetuate the glorious house of l’Estorade, nothing more. You will become a provincial. Is that what we promised each other? In your place, I would sooner make for the Hyères Islands in a skiff, waiting for some Algerian corsair to kidnap me and sell me to the grand vizier; I would become a sultana, and then one day a valide sultan[20]; young and old alike, I would sow havoc in the seraglio. You’re simply leaving one convent for another! I know you, you’re weak, you will enter into married life with the submissiveness of a lamb. Let me advise you, you’ll come up to Paris, we’ll drive all the men mad, we will be queens! Within three years, my beautiful doe, your husband could be a député.[21] I now know what a député is, I’ll explain everything; you will master this machine beautifully, you can live in Paris and become what my mother calls a woman of fashion. Oh! one thing is certain, I will not leave you there in your bastide.

Monday

For two weeks now, my dear, I have been living the life of high society: one evening at the Théâtre des Italiens, another at the Grand Opéra, and from there, always, to the ball. Ah! this world is a magical place. The music at the Italiens thrills me, and as my soul swoons in divine rapture I am ogled and admired from all sides—but with a single glance I can make the boldest young man lower his eyes.