ectly happy. I desire one day to regard you as a mother, and to-day
I open my heart to you as my best friend. I authorise my mother to
relate to you my old love affair. My heart has always been a romance
(MON COEUR A TOUJOURS ETE UN ROMAN); and the more I sacrificed prudence
to those whom I loved the happier I was. But I cannot forget the
respect that I owe to my parents and to their wishes. I hope that in a
little while I shall be free. If then I have a favourable reply from
you, and if I can make your daughter happy and my character is
approved, I shall fly to Albi and embrace you a thousand times. I shall
not distinguish you from my mother and my sisters."

He also wrote to Monsieur de Vesian, begging him not to interfere with
the free inclinations of his daughter, and to remember that "in order
to be happy there must be no repugnance to conquer. I have, however,"
he added, "an affair to terminate which does not permit me to dispose
of myself entirely. My mother will tell you the details. I hope to be
free in six weeks or two months. My happiness will then be
inexpressible if I obtain your consent and that of Madame de Vesian,
with the certainty of not having opposed the wishes of Mademoiselle,
your daughter."

"I hope to be free"--did he "hope"? That was his polite way of putting
the matter. Or he may have believed that he had conquered his love for
Eleonore Broudou, and that she, as a French girl who understood his
obligations to his family, would--perhaps after making a few
handkerchiefs damp with her tears--acquiesce.

So the negotiations went on, and at length, in May, 1783, the de Vesian
family accepted Laperouse as the fiance of their daughter. "My project
is to live with my family and yours," he wrote. "I hope that my wife
will love my mother and my sisters, as I feel that I shall love you and
yours. Any other manner of existence is frightful to me, and I have
sufficient knowledge of the world and of myself to know that I can only
be happy in living thus."

But in the very month that he wrote contracting himself--that is
precisely the word--to marry the girl he had never seen, Eleonore, the
girl whom he had seen, whom he had loved, and whom he still loved in
his heart, came to Paris with her parents. Laperouse saw her again. He
told her what had occurred. Of course she wept; what girl would not?
She said, between her sobs, that if it was to be all over between them
she would go into a convent. She could n