RAYMOND DE VILLIERS _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE BE BRAIMES,
Hotel of the Prefecture, Grenoble (Isere).

ROUEN, July 12th 18--

MADAME:--If you should find in these hastily written lines expressions
of severity that might wound you in one of your tenderest affections, I
beg you to ascribe them to the serious interest with which you have
inspired me for a person whom I do do not know. Madame, the case is
serious, and the comedy, performed for the gratification of childish
vanity, might, if prolonged, end in a tragedy. Let Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun know immediately that her peace of mind, her whole future is
at stake. You have not a day, not an hour, not an instant to lose in
exerting your influence. I answer for nothing; haste, O haste! Your
position, your high intelligence, your good sense give you, necessarily,
the authority of an elder sister or a mother over Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun; exercise it if you would save that reckless girl. If she
acts from caprice, nothing can justify it; if she is playing a game it
is a cruel one, with ruin in the end; if she is subjecting M. de Monbert
to a trial, it has lasted long enough.

I accompanied M. de Monbert to Rouen; I lived in daily, hourly
intercourse with him, and had ample opportunities for studying his
character; he is a wounded lion. Never having had the honor of meeting
Mademoiselle de Chateaudun, I cannot tell whether the Prince is the man
to suit her; Mademoiselle de Chateaudun alone can decide so delicate a
question. But I do assert that M. de Monbert is not the man to be
trifled with, and whatever decision Mademoiselle de Chateaudun may come
to, it is her duty and due to her dignity to put an end to his suspense.

If she must strike, let her strike quickly, and not show herself more
pitiless than the executioner, who, at least, puts a speedy end to his
victim's misery. M. de Monbert, a gentleman in the highest acceptation
of the word, would not be what he now is, if he had been treated with
the consideration that his sincere distress so worthy of pity, his true
love so worthy of respect, commanded. Let her not deceive herself; she
has awakened, not one of those idle loves born in a Parisian atmosphere,
which die as they have lived, without a struggle or a heart-break, but a
strong and deep passion that if trifled with may destroy her. I
acknowledge that there is something absurd in a prince on the eve of
marrying a young and beautiful heiress finding himself deser