was
overwhelmed led me to believe that my heart must ever remain a stranger
to any sentiment resembling love. The sanguinary scenes of which I had
been a witness and a victim constantly haunted my thoughts. I therefore
apprehended no danger to myself from the frequent enjoyment of your
society. Still less did I imagine that I could for a single moment fix
your choice.

"I, like every one else, admired your talents and acquirements. And
better than any one else I foresaw your future glory. But still I loved
you only for the services you rendered to my country. Why did you seek
to convert admiration into a more tender sentiment, by availing yourself
of all those powers of pleasing with which you are so eminently gifted,
since, so shortly after having united your destiny with mine, you
regret the felicity you have conferred upon me?

"Do you think I can ever forget the love with which you once cherished
me? Can I ever become indifferent to the man who has blest me with the
most enthusiastic and ardent passion? Can I ever efface from my memory
your paternal affection for Hortense, the advice and example you have
given Eugene? If all this appears impossible, how can you, for a moment,
suspect me of bestowing a thought upon any but yourself?

"Instead of listening to traducers, who, for reasons which I can not
explain, seek to disturb our happiness, why do you not silence them by
enumerating the benefits you have bestowed on a woman whose heart could
never be reached with ingratitude? The knowledge of what you have done
for my children would check the malignity of these calumniators; for
they would then see that the strongest link of my attachment for you
depends on my character as a mother. Your subsequent conduct, which has
claimed the admiration of all Europe, could have no other effect than to
make me adore the husband who gave me his hand when I was poor and
unfortunate. Every step you take adds to the glory of the name I bear.
Yet this is the moment which has been selected for persuading you that I
no longer love you! Surely nothing can be more wicked and absurd than
the conduct of those who are about you, and are jealous of your marked
superiority.

"Yes, I still love you, and no less tenderly than ever. Those who allege
the contrary know that they speak falsely. To those very persons I have
frequently written to inquire about you, and to recommend them to
console you, by their friendship, for the absence of her w