spirits. He is not the same
man. With magic touch I have effaced the very memory of his sufferings.
It is a complete metamorphosis. Louis is really very attractive now.
Feeling sure of my affection, he throws off his reserve and displays
unsuspected gifts.

To be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who knows it and adds
gratitude to love, ah! dear one, this is a conviction which fortifies
the soul, even more than the most passionate love can do. The force
thus developed--at once impetuous and enduring, simple and
diversified--brings forth ultimately the family, that noble product of
womanhood, which I realize now in all its animating beauty.

The old father has ceased to be a miser. He gives blindly whatever I
wish for. The servants are content; it seems as though the bliss of
Louis had let a flood of sunshine into the household, where love has
made me queen. Even the old man would not be a blot upon my pretty home,
and has brought himself into line with all my improvements; to please me
he has adopted the dress, and with the dress, the manners of the day.

We have English horses, a coupe, a barouche, and a tilbury. The livery
of our servants is simple but in good taste. Of course we are looked
on as spendthrifts. I apply all my intellect (I am speaking quite
seriously) to managing my household with economy, and obtaining for it
the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of cost.

I have already convinced Louis of the necessity of getting roads made,
in order that he may earn the reputation of a man interested in the
welfare of his district. I insist too on his studying a great deal.
Before long I hope to see him a member of the Council General of the
Department, through the influence of my family and his mother's. I have
told him plainly that I am ambitious, and that I was very well pleased
his father should continue to look after the estate and practise
economies, because I wished him to devote himself exclusively to
politics. If we had children, I should like to see them all prosperous
and with good State appointments. Under penalty, therefore, of
forfeiting my esteem and affection, he must get himself chosen deputy
for the department at the coming elections; my family would support his
candidature, and we should then have the delight of spending all our
winters in Paris. Ah! my love, by the ardor with which he embraced my
plans, I can gauge the depth of his affection.

To conclude here is a letter he wro