Africa, has swallowed
up many travelers, and you seem to me to be launching on an expedition
which, in the domain of sentiment, corresponds to those where so
many explorers have perished, whether in the sands or at the hands of
natives. Your desert is, happily, only two leagues from Paris, so I can
wish you quite cheerfully, "A safe journey and speedy return."

LI. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. MARIE GASTON 1835.

What has come to you, my dear? After a silence of two years, surely
Renee has a right to feel anxious about Louise. So this is love! It
brushes aside and scatters to the winds a friendship such as ours! You
must admit that, devoted as I am to my children--more even perhaps than
you to your Gaston--a mother's love has something expansive about it
which does not allow it to steal from other affections, or interfere
with the claims of friendship. I miss your letters, I long for a sight
of your dear, sweet face. Oh! Louise, my heart has only conjecture to
feed upon!

As regards ourselves, I will try and tell you everything as briefly as
possible.

On reading your last letter but one, I find some stinging comments on
our political situation. You mocked at us for keeping the post in the
Audit Department, which, as well as the title of Count, Louis owed to
the favor of Charles X. But I should like to know, please, how it would
be possible out of an income of forty thousand livres, thirty thousand
of which go with the entail, to give a suitable start in life to
Athenais and my poor little beggar Rene. Was it not a duty to live on
our salary and prudently allow the income of the estate to accumulate?
In this way we shall, in twenty years, have put together about six
hundred thousand francs, which will provide portions for my daughter and
for Rene, whom I destine for the navy. The poor little chap will have an
income of ten thousand livres, and perhaps we may contrive to leave him
in cash enough to bring his portion up to the amount of his sister's.

When he is Captain, my beggar will be able to make a wealthy marriage,
and take a position in society as good as his elder brother's.

These considerations of prudence determined the acceptance in our family
of the new order of things. The new dynasty, as was natural, raised
Louis to the Peerage and made him a grand officer of the Legion of
Honor. The oath once taken, l'Estorade could not be half-hearted in his
services, and he has since then made himself