e? A passionate love may not be necessary in marriage, but, at
least, you will admit that there should be no repugnance. Our position
will not be without its dangers; in a country life, such as ours will
be, ought we not to bear in mind the evanescent nature of passion? Is it
not simple prudence to make provision beforehand against the calamities
incident to change of feeling?"

He was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable and so apt at
reasoning; but he made me a solemn promise, after which I took his hand
and pressed it affectionately.

We were married at the end of the week. Secure of my freedom, I was able
to throw myself gaily into the petty details which always accompany a
ceremony of the kind, and to be my natural self. Perhaps I may have been
taken for an old bird, as they say at Blois. A young girl, delighted
with the novel and hopeful situation she had contrived to make for
herself, and may have passed for a strong-minded female.

Dear, the difficulties which would beset my life had appeared to
me clearly as in a vision, and I was sincerely anxious to make the
happiness of the man I married. Now, in the solitude of a life like
ours, marriage soon becomes intolerable unless the woman is the
presiding spirit. A woman in such a case needs the charm of a mistress,
combined with the solid qualities of a wife. To introduce an element
of uncertainty into pleasure is to prolong illusion, and render lasting
those selfish satisfactions which all creatures hold, and should shroud
a woman in expectancy, crown her sovereign, and invest her with an
exhaustless power, a redundancy of life, that makes everything blossom
around her. The more she is mistress of herself, the more certainly will
the love and happiness she creates be fit to weather the storms of life.

But, above all, I have insisted on the greatest secrecy in regard to
our domestic arrangements. A husband who submits to his wife's yoke
is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be
entirely concealed. The charm of all we do lies in its unobtrusiveness.
If I have made it my task to raise a drooping courage and restore their
natural brightness to gifts which I have dimly descried, it must all
seem to spring from Louis himself.

Such is the mission to which I dedicate myself, a mission surely not
ignoble, and which might well satisfy a woman's ambition. Why, I could
glory in this secret which shall fill my life with interest,