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Eugenie De Franval

by Donatien Alfonse Francois, Marquis De Sade

 To instruct man and correct his morals: such is the sole goal we
set for ourselves in this story.  In reading it, may the reader be
steeped in the knowledge of the dangers which forever dog the steps
of those who, to satisfy their desires, will stop at nothing!  May
they be persuaded that the best education, wealth, talent, and the
gifts of Nature are likely to lead one astray unless they are
buttressed and brought to the fore by self- restraint, good conduct,
wisdom, and modesty. Such are the truths we intend to relate.  May
the reader show himself indulgent for the monstrous details of the
hideous crime we are obliged to describe; but is it possible to make
others detest such aberrations unless one has the courage to lay
them bare, without the slightest embellishment?

 It is rare that everything conspires in one person to lead him to
prosperity; does Nature shower her gifts upon him?  Then Fortune
refuses him her gifts.  Does Fortune lavish her favours upon him?
Then Nature proves niggardly.  It would appear that the hand of
Heaven has wished to show us that, in each individual as in the most
sublime operations, the laws of equilibrium are the prime laws of
the Universe, those which at the same time govern everything that
happens, everything that vegetates, and everything that breathes.

 Franval lived in Paris, the city of his birth, and possessed, among
a variety of other talents, an income of four hundred thousand
livres, a handsome figure, and a face to match.  But beneath this
seductive exterior was concealed a plethora of vices, and
unfortunately among them those which, when adopted and practised,
quickly lead to crime.  Franval's initial shortcoming was an
imagination the disorderliness of which defies description; that is,
a shortcoming that one cannot correct; its effects only worsen with
age.  The less one can do, the more one undertakes; the less one
acts, the more one invents; each period of one's life brings new
ideas to the fore, and satiety, far from dampening one's ardour,
paves the way for even more baleful refinements.

 As we have said, Franval was generously endowed with all the charm
of youth and all the talents which embellish it; but so great was
his contempt of both moral and religious duties that it had become
impossible for his tutors to inculcate any of them in him.

 In an age when the most dangerous, the most insidious books are
available to children, as well as to their fathers and their tutors,
when rashness of thought passes for philosophy, when incredulity
passes for strength, and libertinage is mistaken for imagination,
Franval's wit provoked approving laughter.  He may have been scolded
immediately afterward, but later he was praised for it.  Franval's
father, an ardent advocate of fashionable sophisms, was the first to
encourage his son to think soundly on all these matters.  He even
went so far as to personally lend his son the works most liable to
corrupt him all the more quickly. In the light of which, what
teacher would have dared to inculcate principles different from
those of the household wherein the young Franval was obliged to
please?

 Be that as it may, Franval lost his parents while he was still very
young, and when he was nineteen an elderly uncle, who also died
shortly thereafter, bequeathed him, upon the occasion of his
marriage, the full wealth due him from his inheritance.

 With such a fortune, Monsieur de Franval should have had not the
slightest difficulty in finding a wife.  An infinite number of
possible matches were proposed, but since Franval had begged his
uncle to arrange a match for him with a girl younger than he, and
with as few relatives as possible, the old man directed his
attentions to a Mademoiselle de Farneille, the daughter of a
financier, who had lost her father and whose only family was her
widowed mother.  The girl was actually quite young, only fifteen,
but she had sixty thousand very real livres annual income and one of
the most charming and delightful faces in all Paris... one of those
virgin-like faces in which the qualities of candour and charm vie
with each other beneath the delicate features of love and feminine
grace.  Her long blond hair cascaded down below her waist and her
large blue eyes bespoke both tenderness and modesty; she had a
slender, lithe, and graceful figure, skin that was lily-white, and
the freshness of roses about her.  She was blessed with many
talents, was possessed of a lively but slightly melancholy
imagination - that gentle melancholy which predisposes one to a love
of books and a taste for solitude, attributes which Nature seems to
accord to those whom she has fated for misfortune, as though to make
it less bitter for them by the sombre and touching pleasure it
brings them, a pleasure which makes them prefer tears to the
frivolous joy of happiness, which is a much less active and less
pervasive force.

 Madame de Farneille, who was thirty-two at the time of her
daughter's marriage, was also a witty and winning woman, but perhaps
a trifle too reserved and severe.  Desirous to see her only child
happy, she had consulted all of Paris about this marriage.  And
since she no longer had any family, she was obliged to rely for
advice on a few of those cold friends who care not a whit about
anything.  They succeeded in convincing her that the young man who
was being proposed for her daughter was, beyond any shadow of a
doubt, the best match she could make in Paris, and that she would be
utterly and unpardonably foolish if she were to turn it down.  And
so the marriage took place, and the young couple, wealthy enough to
take their own house, moved into it within a few days.

 Young Franval's heart did not contain any of those vices of levity,
disorder, or irresponsibility which prevent a man from maturing
before the age of thirty.  Possessed of a fair share of
self-confidence, and being an orderly man who was at his best in
managing the affairs of a household, Franval had all the qualities
necessary for this aspect of a happy life.  His vices, of a
different order altogether, were rather the failings of maturity
than the indiscretions of youth: he was artful, scheming, cruel,
base, self-centred, given to manoeuvring, deceitful, and cunning -
all of this he concealed not only by the grace and talent we have
previously mentioned but also by his eloquence, his uncommon wit,
and his most pleasing appearance. Such was the man we shall be
dealing with.

 Mademoiselle de Farneille, who in accordance with the custom had
only known her husband at most a month prior to their marriage, was
taken in by this sparkling exterior, and she had become his dupe.
She idolized him, and the days were not long enough for her to feast
her adoring eyes upon him; so great was her adoration in fact, that
had any obstacles intervened to trouble the sweetness of a marriage
in which, she said, she had found her only happiness in life, her
health, and even her life, might have been endangered.

 As for Franval, a philosopher when it came to women as he was with
regard to everything else in life, coolness and impassivity marked
his attitude toward this charming young woman.

 "The woman who belongs to us," he would say, "is a sort of
individual whom custom has given us in bondage.  She must be gentle,
submissive... utterly faithful and obedient; not that I especially
share the common prejudice concerning the dishonour a wife can
impose upon us when she imitates our debaucheries.  'Tis merely that
a man does not enjoy seeing another usurp his rights. Everything
else is a matter of complete indifference, and adds not a jot to
happiness."

 With such sentiments in a husband, it is easy to predict that a
life of roses is not what lies in store for the poor girl who is
married to him.  Honest, sensible, well-bred, lovingly anticipating
the every desire of the only man in the world she cared about,
Madame de Franval bore her chains during the early years without
ever suspecting her enslavement.  It was easy for her to see that
she was merely gleaning meagre scraps in the fields of Hymen, but,
still too happy with what little he left her, she devoted her every
attention and applied herself scrupulously to make certain that
during those brief moments when Franval acknowledged her tenderness
he would at least find everything that she believed her beloved
husband required to make him happy.

 And yet the best proof that Franval had not been completely remiss
in his duties was the fact that, during the first year of their
marriage, his wife, then aged sixteen and a half, gave birth to a
daughter even more beautiful than her mother, a child whom her
father straightway named Eugenie - Eugenie, both the horror and the
wonder of Nature.

 Monsieur de Franval, who doubtless had formed the most odious
designs upon the child the moment she was born, immediately
separated her from her mother.  Until she was seven, Eugenie was
entrusted to the care of some women on whom Franval could rely, and
they confined themselves to inculcating in her a good disposition
and to teaching her to read.  They scrupulously avoided imparting to
her the slightest knowledge of any religious or moral principles of
the sort that a girl of that age normally receives.

 Madame de Farneille and her daughter, who were grieved and shocked
by such conduct, reproached Monsieur de Franval for it. He replied
imperturbably that his plan was to make his daughter happy, and he
had no intention of filling her mind with chimeras designed solely
to frighten men without ever proving of the least worth to them.  He
also said that a girl who needed nothing more than to learn how to
make herself pleasing and attractive would be well advised to remain
ignorant of such nonsense, for such fantasies would only disturb the
serenity of her life without adding a grain of truth to her moral
character or a grain of beauty to her body.  Such remarks were
sorely displeasing to Madame de Farneille, who was increasingly
attracted to celestial ideas the more she withdrew from worldly
pleasures.  Piety is a failing inherent in periods of advancing age
or declining health. In the tumult of the passions, we generally
feel but slight concern over a future we gauge to be extremely
remote, but when passions' language becomes, less compelling, when
we advance on the final stages of life, when in a word everything
leaves us, then we cast ourselves back into the arms of the God we
have heard about when we were children.  And if, according to
philosophy, these latter illusions are fully as fantastic as the
others, they are at least not as dangerous.

 Franval's mother-in-law had no close relatives, she herself had
little or no influence, and at the very most a few casual friends
who proved less than that when put to the test.  Having to do battle
against an amiable, young, well-situated son-in-law, she very wisely
decided that it would be simpler to limit herself to remonstrating
than to undertake more vigorous measures with a man who could ruin
the mother and cause the daughter to be confined if they should dare
to pit themselves against him.  In consideration of which a few
remonstrances were all she ventured, and as soon as she saw that
they were to no avail, she fell silent.

 Franval, certain of his superiority and perceiving that they were
afraid of him, soon threw all restraint to the winds and, only
thinly disguising his activities simply for the sake of appearances,
he advanced straight toward his terrible goal.

 When Eugenie was seven years old, Franval took her to his wife; and
that loving mother, who had not seen her child since the day she had
brought her into the world, could not get her fill of fondling and
caressing her.  For two hours she hugged the child to her breast,
smothering her with kisses and bathing her with her tears.  She
wanted to learn all her little talents and accomplishments; but
Eugenie had none except the ability to read fluently, to be blessed
with perfect health, and to be as pretty as an angel.  Madame de
Franval was once again plunged into despair when she realized that
it was only too true that her daughter was quite ignorant of the
most basic principles of religion.

 "What are you doing, Sir," she said to her husband. "Do you mean to
say you are bringing her up only for this world?  Deign to reflect
that she, like all of us, is destined to dwell but a second here,
afterward to plunge into an eternity, which will be disastrous if
you deprive her of the wherewithal to find happiness at the feet of
Him from whom all life cometh."

 "If Eugenie knows nothing, Madame," Franval replied, "if these
maxims are carefully concealed from her, there is no way she could
be made unhappy; for if they are true, the Supreme Being is too just
to punish her for her ignorance, and if they are false, what need is
there to speak to her about them?  As for the rest of her education,
please have confidence in me.  Starting today I shall be her tutor,
and I promise you that in a few years your daughter will surpass all
the children her own age."

 Madame de Franval wished to pursue the matter further; calling the
heart's eloquence to the aid of reason, a few tears expressed
themselves for her.  But Franval, who was not in the least moved by
the tears, did not seem even to notice them.  He had Eugenie taken
away, and informed his wife that if she tried to interfere in any
way with the education he planned to give his daughter, or if she
attempted to inculcate in the girl principles different from those
with which he intended to nourish her, she would by so doing deprive
herself of the pleasure of seeing her daughter, whom he would send
to one of those chateaux from which she would not re-emerge.  Madame
de Franval, accustomed to submission, heard his words in silence.
She begged her husband not to separate her from such a cherished
possession and, weeping, promised not to interfere in any way with
the education that was being prepared for her.

 From that moment on, Mademoiselle de Franval was installed in a
very lovely apartment adjacent to that of her father, with a highly
intelligent governess, an assistant governess, a chambermaid, and
two girl companions her own age, solely intended for Eugenie's
amusement.  She was given teachers of writing, drawing, poetry,
natural history, elocution, geography, astronomy, Greek, English,
German, Italian, fencing, dancing, riding and music.  Eugenie arose
at seven every day, in summer as well as winter.  For breakfast she
had a large piece of rye bread, which she took with her out into the
garden.  She ran and played there till eight, when she came back
inside and spent a few moments with her father in his apartment,
while he acquainted her with the little tricks and games that
society indulges in. Till nine she worked on her lessons; at nine
her first tutor arrived.  Between then and two she was visited by no
less than five teachers.  She ate lunch with her two little friends
and her head governess. The dinner was composed of vegetables, fish,
pastries, and fruit; never any meat, soup, wine, liqueurs, or
coffee.  From three to four, Eugenie went back out again to play
with her companions.  There they exercised together, playing tennis,
ball, skittles, battledore and shuttlecock, or seeing how far they
could run and jump.  They dressed according to the seasons; they
wore nothing that constricted their waists, never any of those
ridiculous corsets equally dangerous for the stomach and chest
which, impairing the breathing of a young person, perforce attack
the lungs.  From four to six, Mademoiselle de Franval received other
tutors; and as all had not been able to appear the same day, the
others came the following day.  Three times a week, Eugenie went to
the theatre with her father, in the little grilled boxes that were
rented for her by the year.  At nine o'clock she returned home and
dined.  All she then had to eat were vegetables and fruit.  Four
times a week, from ten to eleven, she played with her two
governesses and her maid, read from one or more novels, and then
went to bed. The three other days, those when Franval did not dine
out, she spent alone in her father's apartment, and Franval devoted
this period to what he termed his conferences.  During these
sessions he inculcated in his daughter his maxims on morality and
religion, presenting to her on the one hand what some men thought on
these matters, and then on the other expounding his own views.

 Possessed of considerable intelligence, a vast range of knowledge,
a keen mind, and passions that were already awakening, it is easy to
judge the progress that these views made in Eugenie's soul.  But
since the shameful Franval's intention was not only to strengthen
her mind, these lectures rarely concluded without inflaming her
heart as well; and this horrible man succeeded so well in finding
the means to please his daughter, he corrupted her so cleverly, he
made himself so useful both to her education and her pleasures, he
so ardently anticipated her every desire that Eugenie, even in the
most brilliant circles, found no one as attractive as her father.
And even before he made his intentions explicit, the innocent and
pliant creature had filled her young heart with all the sentiments
of friendship, gratitude, and tenderness which must inevitably lead
to the most ardent love.  She had eyes only for Franval; she paid no
attention to anyone but him, and rebelled at any idea that might
separate her from him.  She would gladly have lavished upon him not
her honour, not her charms - all these sacrifices would have seemed
far too meagre for the object of her idolatry - but her blood, her
very life, if this tender friend of her heart had demanded it.

 Mademoiselle de Franval's feelings for her mother, her respectable
and wretched mother, were not quite the same.  Her father, by
skillfully conveying to his daughter that Madame de Franval, being
his wife, demanded certain ministrations from him which often
prevented him from doing for his dear Eugenie everything his heart
dictated, had discovered the secret of implanting in the heart of
this young person much more hate and jealousy than the sort of
respectable and tender sentiments that she ought to have felt for
such a mother.

 "My friend, my brother," Eugenie sometimes used to say to Franval,
who did not want his daughter to employ other expressions with him,
"this woman you call your wife, this creature who, you tell me,
brought me into this world, is indeed most demanding, since in
wishing to have you always by her side, she deprives me of the
happiness of spending my life with you.... It is quite obvious to me
that you prefer her to your Eugenie. As for me, I shall never love
anything that steals your heart away from me."

 "You are wrong, my dear friend," Franval replied. "No one in this
world will ever acquire over me rights as strong as yours. The ties
which bind this woman and your best friend - the fruit of usage and
social convention, which I view philosophically- will never equal
the ties between us.... You will always be my favourite, Eugenie;
you will be the angel and the light of my life, the hearth of my
heart, the moving force of my existence."

 "Oh! how sweet these words are!"  Eugenie replied. "Repeat them to
me often, my friend.... If only you knew how happy these expressions
of your tenderness make me !"

 And taking Franval's hand and clasping it to her heart, she went
on:

 "Here, feel, I can feel them all there...."

 "Your tender caresses assure me it's true," Franval answered,
pressing her in his arms.... And thus, without a trace of remorse,
the perfidious wretch concluded his plans for the seduction of this
poor girl.

 Eugenie's fourteenth year was the time Franval had set for the
consummation of his crime.  Let us shudder !... He did it.

 The very day that she reached that age, or rather the day she
completed her fourteenth year, they were both in the country,
without the encumbering presence of family or other intrusions. The
Count, having that day attired his daughter in the manner that
vestal virgins had been clothed in ancient times upon the occasion
of their consecration to the goddess Venus, brought her upon the
stroke of eleven o'clock into a voluptuous drawing room wherein the
daylight was softened by muslin curtains and the furniture was
bedecked with flowers.  In the middle of the room was a throne of
roses;  Franval led his laughter over to it.

 "Eugenie," he said to her, helping her to sit down upon it, "today
be the queen of my heart and allow me, on bended knee, to worship
and adore thee."

 "You adore me, my brother, when it is to you that I owe everything,
you who are the author of my days, who has formed me.... ah! let me
rather fall down at your feet; that is the only place I belong, and
the only place I aspire to with you."

 "Oh my dear, my tender Eugenie," said the Count, seating himself
beside her on the flower-strewn chairs which were to serve as the
scene of his triumph, "if indeed it is true that you owe me
something, if your feelings toward me are as sincere as you say they
are, do you know by what means you can persuade me of your
sincerity?"

 "What are they, my brother? Tell them to me quickly, so that I may
be quick to seize them."

 "All these many charms, Eugenie, that Nature has lavished upon you,
all these physical charms with which She has embellished you - these
you must sacrifice to me without a moment's delay."

 "But what is it you ask of me? are you not already the master of
everything? Does not what you have wrought belong to you? Can
another delight in your handiwork?"

 "But you are not unaware of people's prejudices...."

 "You have never concealed them from me."

 "I do not wish to flout them without your consent."

 "Do you not despise them as much as I?"

 "Surely, but I do not want to be your tyrant, and even less your
seducer. The services I am soliciting, nay the rewards I request, I
wish to be won through love, and through love alone. You are
familiar with the world and with its ways; I have never Concealed
any of its lures from you. My habit of keeping other men from your
eyes, so that I alone will be the constant object of your vision,
has become a hoax, a piece of trickery unworthy of me. If in the
world there exists a being whom you prefer to me, name him without
delay, I shall go to the ends of the earth to find him and
straightway lead him back here into your arms. In a word, it is your
happiness I seek, my angel, yours much more than mine. These gentle
pleasures you can give me will be nothing to me, if they are not the
concrete proof of your love. Therefore, Eugenie, make up your mind.
The time has come for you to be immolated, and immolated you must
be. But you yourself must name the priest who shall perform the
sacrifice; I renounce the pleasures which this title assures me if
it is not your heart and soul which offer them to me. And, s1ill
worthy of your heart, if 'tis not I whom you most prefer, still I
shall, by bringing you him whom you can love and cherish, at least
have merited your tender affection though I may not have won the
citalel of your heart. And, failing to become Eugenie's lover, I
shall still be her friend."

 "You will be everything, my brother, you will be everything,"
Eugenie said, burning with love and desire. "To whom do you wish me
to sacrifice myself if it is not to him whom I solely adore! What
creature in the entire universe can be more worthy than you of these
meagre charms that you desire... and over which your burning hands
are already roaming with great ardour! Can't you see by the fire
which inflames me that I am just as eager as you to know these
pleasures of which you have spoken? Ah! do, do what you will, my
dear brother, my best friend, make Eugenie your victim; immolated by
your beloved hands, she will always be triumphant."

 The fervent Franval who, considering the character we know him to
possess, had draped himself in so much delicacy only in order to
seduce his daughter all the more subtly, soon abused her credulity
and, with all the obstacles eliminated or overcome both by the
principles with which he had nourished that open and impressionable
heart and by the cunning with which he had ensnared her at this
final moment, he concluded his perfidious conquest and himself
became with impunity the ravisher of that virginity of which Nature
and the bonds of blood had made him the trusted defender.

 Several days passed in mutual intoxication. Eugenie, old enough to
experience the pleasures of love, her appetite whetted by his
doctrines, yielded herself to its transports. Franval taught her all
its mysteries; he traced for her all its paths and byways. The more
he paid obeisance, the more complete became his conquest. She would
have wished to receive him in a thousand temples simultaneously; she
accused her friend's imagination of being too timid, of not throwing
all caution to the winds. and she had the feeling that he was hiding
something from her. She complained of her age, and of a kind of
ingenuousness which perhaps kept her from being seductive enough.
And if she wished to further her amorous education, it was to insure
that no means of inflaming her lover remained unknown to her.
 They returned to Paris, but the criminal pleasures which this
perverse man had reveled in had too delightfully flattered his moral
and physical faculties for that trait of character, inconstancy,
which generally caused him to break off his other affairs, to have
the least effect in breaking the bonds of this one. He had fallen
hopelessly in love, and from this dangerous passion there inevitably
ensued the cruelest abandonment of his wife.... Alas! what a victim.
Madame de Franval, who was then thirty-one, was in the full flower
of her beauty. An impression of sadness, the sort which inevitably
follows upon the sorrows which consumed her, made her even more
attractive. Bathed in her own tears, a constant prey to melancholy,
her beautiful hair carelessly scattered over an alabaster throat,
her lips lovingly pressed against the portraits of her faithless
daughter and tyrant-husband, she resembled one of those beautiful
virgins whom Michelangelo was wont to portray in the throes of
sorrow. As yet she was still unaware of that which was destined to
crown her affliction. The manner in which Eugenie was being
educated, the essential things to which Madame de Franval was not
privy or those she was told only to make her hate them; the
certainty that these duties, despised by Franval, would never be
permitted to her daughter; the little time she was allowed to spend
with the young person; the fear that the peculiar education that
Eugenie was being given might sooner or later lead her into the
paths of crime; and, finally, Franval's wild conduct, his daily
harshness toward her - she whose only concern in life was to
anticipate his every wish, who knew no other charms than those
resulting from her having interested or pleased him: these alone,
for the moment, were the only causes of her distress. But imagine
with what sorrow and pain this tender soul would be afflicted when
she learned the full truth!

 Meanwhile, Eugenie's education continued. She herself had expressed
a desire to follow her masters until she was sixteen, and her
talents, the broad scope of her knowledge, the graces which daily
developed in her - all these further tightened Franval's fetters. It
was easy to see that he had never loved anyone the way he loved
Eugenie.

 On the surface, nothing in Eugenie's daily routine had been changed
save the time of the lectures. These private discussions with her
father occurred much more frequently and lasted far into the night.
Eugenie's governess was the only person privy to the affair, and
they trusted her sufficiently not to be worried about her
indiscretion. There were also a few changes in Eugenie's meal
schedule: now she ate with her parents. In a house like Franval's,
this circumstance soon placed Eugenie in a position to meet people
and to be courted with a view toward marriage. Several men did ask
for her hand. Franval, certain of his daughter's heart and feeling
he had nothing to fear from these requests, had nonetheless failed
to realize that this virtual flood of proposals might end by
revealing everything.

 In one conversation with her daughter - a favour so devoutly
desired by Madame de Franval and so rarely obtained - this tender
mother informed Eugenie that Monsieur de Colunce had asked for her
hand.

 "You know the gentleman," Madame de Franval said. "He loves you; he
is young, agreeable, and one day he will be rich. He awaits your
consent... naught but your consent. What will my answer be?"

 Taken aback, Eugenie reddened and replied that as yet she did not
feel inclined toward marriage, but suggested the matter be referred
to her father; his wish would be her command.

 Seeing in this reply nothing but candour pure and simple, Madame de
Franval waited patiently for a few days until at last she found an
occasion to speak to her husband about it. She communicated to him
the intentions of the Colunce family, and those of young Colunce
himself, and told him what his daughter's reply had been.

 As one can imagine, Franval already knew everything; but he made
little effort to disguise his feelings.

 "Madame," he said dryly to his wife, "I must ask you to refrain
from interfering in matters pertaining to Eugenie. I should have
imagined that you would have surmised, from the care you saw me take
to keep her away from you, how deeply I desired to make certain that
anything relating to her should in no wise concern you. I reiterate
my orders on this subject. I trust you will not forget them again."

 "But what, Sir, shall I reply," she answered, "since the request
has been made through me?"

 "You will say that I appreciate the honour, and that my daughter
has certain cohgenital defects which make marriage impossible for
her."

 "But, Monsieur, these defects are not real. Why should I then
falsely saddle her with them, and why deprive your daughter of the
happiness she may find in marriage?"

 "Has marriage then made you so profoundly happy, Madame ?"

 "Doubtless all other wives have not failed so signally to win their
husband's devotion, or" (and this was accompanied by a sigh) "all
husbands are not like you."

 "Wives... wives are faithless, jealous, imperious, coquettish, or
pious.... Husbands are treacherous, inconstant, cruel, or despotic.
There, Madame, you have the summary of everyone on earth. Do not
expect to find a paragon."

 "Still, everyone gets married."

 "True, the fools and ne'er-do-wells. In the words of one
philosopher, 'People get married only when they do not know what
they are doing, or when they no longer know what to do.' "

 "Then you think the human race should be allowed to die out ?"

 "And why not? A planet whose only product is poison cannot be
rooted out too quickly."

 "Eugenie will not be grateful to you for your excessive sternness
toward her."

 "Has she evinced any desire to marry this young man?"

 "She said that your wishes were her commands."

 "In that case, Madame, my commands are that you pursue this matter
no further."

 And Monsieur de Franval left the room after reiterating most
vigorously to his wife that she never speak to him on the subject
again.

 Madame de Franval did not fail to inform her mother of the
conversation that she had just had with her husband, and Madame de
Farneille, a more subtle soul and one more versed in the effects of
the passions than was her attractive daughter, immediately suspected
something unnatural was involved.

 Eugenie saw her grandmother very seldom, no more than an hour, on
festive or important occasions, and always in the presence of her
father; Desirous of clarifying the matter, Madame de Farneille sent
word to her son-in-law asking him to accord her the presence of her
granddaughter one day, and requesting that he might allow her to
stay one entire afternoon, in order to distract her, she said, from
a migraine headache from which she was suffering. Franval sent back
an irritable reply saying that there was nothing Eugenie feared more
than the vapours, but that he would nonetheless bring her personally
to her grandmother whenever the latter desired. He added, however,
that Eugenie would not be able to remain for very long, since she
was obliged to go from her grandmother's to a physics course which
she was assiduously following.

 When they arrived at Madame de Farneille's, she did not hide from
her son-in-law her astonishment at his refusal of the proposed
marriage.

 "I imagine that you safely can allow your daughter to persuade me
herself," Madame de Farneille went on, "of this defect which,
according to you, must deprive her of marriage."

 "Whether this defect is real or not, Madame," said Franval, who was
slightly surprised by his mother-in-law's resolution, "the fact is
that it would cost me a small fortune to marry my daughter, and I am
still too young to consent to such sacrifices. When she is
twenty-five, she may do as she wishes. Until then, she cannot count
on me or my support."

 "And do you feel the same way, Eugenie?" said Madame de Farneille.

 "With this one difference," Eugenie said with considerable
firmness. "My father has given me permission to marry when I am
twenty-five. But to you both here present, Madame, I swear that I
shall never in my life take advantage of this permission, which with
my way of thinking would only lead to unhappiness."

 "At your age one does not have `a way of thinking,' said Madame de
Farneille, "and there is something quite out of the ordinary in all
this, which I intend to ferret out."

 "I urge you to try, Madame," Franval said, leading his daughter
away. "In fact, you would be well advised to seek the services of
your clergy to help you in solving the enigma. And when all your
powers have scraped and delved and you are at last enlightened in
the matter, please let me know whether or not I was right in
opposing Eugenie's marriage."

 Franval's sarcasm concerning his mother-in-law's ecclesiastical
advisers was aimed at a respectable personage whom it will be
appropriate to introduce at this point, since the sequence of events
will soon show him in action.

 He was the confessor both of Madame de Farneille and her daughter,
one of the most virtuous men in all France: honest, benevolent, a
paragon of candour and wisdom, Monsieur de Clervil, far from having
all the vices of men of the cloth, was possessed only of gentle and
useful qualities. The rod and the staff of the poor, the sincere
friend of the wealthy, the consoler of the wretched and downtrodden,
this worthy man combined all the gifts which make a person
agreeable, all the virtues which make one sensitive.

 When consulted, Clervil replied as a man of good common sense that
before taking a stand in the matter they would have to unravel the
reasons why Monsieur de Franval was opposed to his daughter's
marriage; and although Madame de Farneille offered a few remarks
suggesting the possibility of an affair - one which in fact existed
all too concretely - the prudent confessor rejected these ideas. And
finding them too outrageously insulting both for Madame de Franval
and for her husband, he indignantly refused even to consider the
possibility.

 "Crime is such a distressing thing, Madame," this honest man was
sometimes wont to say, "it is so highly unlikely that a decent
person should voluntarily exceed all the bounds of modesty and
virtue, that it is never with anything but the most extreme
repugnance that I make up my mind to ascribe such wrongs to someone.
Be wary in suspecting the presence of vice. Our suspicions are often
the handiwork of our pride and vanity, and almost always the fruit
of a secret comparison that takes place in the depths of our soul:
we hasten to assign evil, for this gives us the right to feel
superior. If we reflect seriously upon the matter, would it not be
better to leave a secret sin forever hidden rather than to dream up
imaginary ones because of our unforgivable haste, and thus, for no
reason, to sully in our eyes people who have never committed any
wrongs save those which our pride has ascribed to them? And would
our world not be a better place if this principle were always
followed? Is it not infinitely less necessary to punish a crime than
it is essential to prevent it from spreading? By leaving it in the
darkness it seeks, have we not as it were annihilated it? Scandal
noised abroad is certain scandal, and the recital of it awakens the
passions of those who are inclined toward the same kind of crime.
Crime being inevitably blind, the guilty party of the as yet
undiscovered crime flatters him self that he will be luckier than
the criminal whose crime has been found out. 'Tis not a lesson he
has been given, but a counsel, and he gives himself over to excesses
that he might never have dared to indulge in without the rash
revelations... falsely mistaken for justice, but which, in reality,
are nothing more than ill-conceived severity, or vanity in
disguise."

 This initial conference therefore led to no other resolution than
the decision to investigate carefully the reasons for Franval's
aversion to the marriage of his daughter, and the reasons why
Eugenie shared his opinions. It was decided not to undertake
anything until these motives were discovered.

 "Well, Eugenie," Franval said to his daughter 'that evening, "now
can you see for yourself that they want to separate us? And do you
think they'll succeed, my child?... Will they succeed in breaking
the sweetest bonds in my life?"

 "Never... never! Don't be afraid, my dearest friend! These bonds in
which you delight are as precious to me as they are to you. You did
not deceive me when you formed them; you clearly warned me how they
would shock the morality of our society. But I was hardly frightened
at the idea of breaking a custom which, varying from clime to clime,
cannot therefore be sacred. I wanted these bonds; I wove them
without remorse. Therefore you need have no fear that I shall break
them."

 "Alas, who knows?... Colunce is younger than I... He has everything
a man needs to win you. Eugenie, leave off listening to a vestige of
madness which doubtless blinds you. Age and the torch of reason will
soon dispel the aura and lead to regrets, you'll confide them to me,
and I shall never forgive myself for having been the cause of them.'

 "No," Eugenie said firmly, "no, I have made up my mind to love no
one but you. I should deem myself the most miserable of women if I
were obliged to marry... Can you imagine," she went on heatedly,
"me, me married to a stranger who, unlike you, would not have double
reason to love me and whose feelings therefore would at best be no
stronger than his desire... Abandoned and despised by him, what
would become of me thereafter? A prude, a sanctimonious person, or a
whore? No, no, I prefer being your mistress, my friend. Yes, I love
you a hundred times better than being reduced to playing one or the
other of these infamous roles in society... But what is the cause of
all this commotion?" Eugenie went on bitterly. "Do you know what it
is, my friend? Who is the cause of it?... Your wife?... She and she
alone. Her implacable jealousy... You may be sure of it: these are
the only reasons behind the disasters that threaten us.... Oh, I
don't blame her: everything is simple... everything conceivable...
one can resort to anything when it is a question of keeping you.
What would I not do if I were in her place, and someone were trying
to steal your affections from me ?"

 Deeply moved, Franval showered his daughter with a thousand kisses.
And Eugenie, finding the encouragement in these criminal caresses to
plumb more forcefully the depths of her appalling soul, chanced to
mention to her father, with an unforgivable impudence, that the only
way for either one of them to escape her mother's surveillance would
be to give her a lover. The idea amused Franval. But being a much
more evil person than his daughter, and wishing to prepare
imperceptibly this young heart for all the impressions of hatred for
his wife that he desired to implant therein, he answered that he
found this vengeance far too mild, adding that there were plenty of
other means of making a woman miserable when she put her husband
into a bad humour.

 Several weeks passed, during which Franval and his daughter finally
decided to put into effect the first plan conceived for the despair
of this monster's virtuous wife, rightly believing that before going
on to more drastic and shameful acts, they should at least try to
give her a lover. For not only would this furnish material for all
the other acts, but, if it succeeded, it would necessarily oblige
Madame de Franval to cease concerning herself with the faults of
others, since she would have her own to worry about. For the
execution of this project, Franval cast a careful eye upon all the
young men he knew and, after considerable reflection, came to the
conclusion that only Valmont could serve as his man.

 Valmont was thirty years old, had a charming face, considerable
intelligence and a vivid imagination, and no principles whatever. He
was, consequently, ideally suited to play the role they were going
to offer him. One day Franval invited him to dinner and, as they
were leaving the table, he took him aside:

 "My friend," he said to him, "I have always believed you worthy of
me. The time has come to prove that I have not erred in my judgment.
I demand a proof of your sentiments... a most extraordinary proof."

 "What kind of proof, my dear fellow? Explain yourself, and never
for a moment doubt of my eagerness to be of service to you! "

 "What do you think of my wife ?"

 "A delightful creature. And if you weren't her husband, I would
long since have made her my mistress."

 "This consideration is most delicate and discerning, Valmont, but
it does not touch me."

 "What do you mean?"

 "I am going to astound you... 'tis precisely because you are fond
of me, and because I am Madame de Franval's husband, that I demand
that you become her lover."

 "Are you mad?"

 "No, but given to whimsy... capricious. You've been aware of these
qualities in me for a long time. I want to bring about the downfall
of virtue, and I maintain that you are the one to snare it."

 "What nonsense!"

 "Not in the least, 'tis a masterpiece of reason."

 "What I You mean you really want me to make you a...?"

 "Yes, I want it, I demand it, and I shall cease to consider you my
friend if you refuse me this favour.... I shall help you.... I'll
arrange it so that you can be alone with her... more and more often,
if need be... and you will take advantage of these occasions. And
the moment I am quite certain of my destiny, I shall, if you like,
throw myself at your feet to thank you for your obliging kindness."

 "Franval, don't take me for an utter fool. There's something most
strange about all this.... I refuse to lift a finger until you tell
me the whole truth."

 "All right . . . but I suspect you're a trifle squeamish... I doubt
you have sufficient strength of mind to hear all the details of this
matter.... You're still a prey to prejudice ... still gallant, I
venture to say, eh?... If I tell you everything you'll tremble like
a child and refuse to do anything further."

 "Me, tremble?... In all honesty I must say I'm overwhelmed by the
way you judge me. Listen, my friend, I want you to know that there
is no aberration in the world, not a single vice, however strange or
abnormal, that is capable of alarming my heart for even a moment."

 "Valmont, have you ever taken the trouble to cast a careful eye on
Eugenie from time to time?"

 "Your daughter?"

 "Or, if you prefer, my mistress."

 "Ah, you scoundrel! Now I understand."

 "This is the first time in my life I find you perceptive."

 "What? On your word of honour, you're in love with your daughter ?"

 "Yes, my friend, exactly as Lot! I have always held the Holy
Scriptures in highest esteem, as I have always been persuaded that
one accedes to Heaven by emulating its heroes!... Ah! my friend,
Pygmalion's madness no longer amazes me.... Is the world not full of
such weaknesses? Was it not necessary to resort to such methods to
populate the world? And what was then not a sin, can it now have
become one?  What nonsense!  You mean to say that a lovely girl
cannot tempt me because I am guilty of having sired her? That what
ought to bind me more intimately to her should become the very
reason for my removal from her? 'Tis because she resembles me,
because she is flesh of my flesh, that is to say that she is the
embodiment of all the motives upon which to base the most ardent
love, that I should regard her with an icy eye? . . . Ah, what
sophistry!... How totally absurd!  Let fools abide by such
ridiculous inhibitions, they arc not made for hearts such as ours.
The dominion of beauty, the holy rights of love are oblivious to
futile human conventions. In their ascendancy they annihilate these
conventions as the rays of the rising sun purge the earth of the
shrouds which cloak it by night. Let us trample underfoot these
abominable prejudices, which are always the enemies of happiness. If
at times they beguile the reason, it has always been at the expense
of the most exquisite pleasures.... May we forever despise them!"

 "I'm convinced," Valmont responded, "and I am willing to admit that
your Eugenie must be a delightful mistress. A beauty more lively
than her mother's, even though she does not possess, as does your
wife, that languor which seizes the soul with such voluptuousness.
But Eugenie has that piquant quality which breaks and subdues us,
which, as it were, seems to subjugate anything which would like to
offer resistance. While one seems to yield, the other demands; what
one allows, the other offers. Of the two, I much prefer the latter."

 "But it's not Eugenie I'm giving you, but her mother."

 "And what reasons do you have for resorting to such methods ?"

 "My wife is jealous, an albatross on my neck. She's forever spying
on me. She wants Eugenie to marry. I must saddle my wife with sins
in order to conceal my own. Therefore you must have her... amuse
yourself with her for a time... and then you'll betray her. Let me
surprise you in her arms... and then I shall punish her or, using
this discovery as a weapon, I shall barter it in return for an
armistice on both our parts. But no love, Valmont; with ice in your
veins, capture and win her, but do not let her gain mastery over
you. If you let sentiments become involved, my plans are as good as
finished."

 "Have no fear: she would be the first woman who had aroused my
heart."

 Thus our two villains came to a mutual agreement, and it was
resolved that in a very few days Valmont would undertake to seduce
Madame de Franval, with full permission to employ anything he wished
in order to succeed... even the avowal of Franval's love, as the
most powerful means of inducing this virtuous woman to seek
vengeance.

 Eugenie, to whom the plan was revealed, thought it monstrously
amusing. The infamous creature even dared declare that if Valmont
should succeed, to make her happiness as complete as possible she
would like to verify with her own eyes her mother's disgrace, she
absolutely had to witness that paragon of virtue incontestably
yielding to the charms of a pleasure that she so rigorously
condemned in others.

 At last the day arrived when the most virtuous, the best, and most
wretched of women was not only going to receive the most painful
blow that anyone can be dealt but also when her hideous husband was
destined to outrage her, abandoning her - handing her over himself -
to him by whom he had agreed to be dishonoured.... What madness!...
What utter disdain of all principles. With what view in mind does
Nature create hearts as depraved as these ?...

 A few preliminary conversations had set the stage for the present
scene. Furthermore, Valmont was on close enough terms with Franval
so that his wife had not the slightest compunction about remaining
alone with him, as indeed she had done on more than one occasion in
the past. The three of them were sitting in the drawing room.
Franval rose and said:

 "I must leave. An important matter requires my presence.... 'Tis to
leave you in the care of your governess," he said, laughing,
"leaving you with Valmont. The man's a pillar of virtue. But if he
should forget himself, please be kind enough to inform me. I still
do not love him enough to yield him my rights...."

 And the insolent fellow departed.

 After exchanging a few banalities, the aftereffects of Franval's
little joke, Valmont said that he had found his friend changed
during the past six months.

 "I haven't dared broach the subject, to ask him the reasons,"
Valmont said, "but he seems to be upset and distressed."

 "One thing which is certain," Madame de Franval replied, "is that
he is upsetting and distressing those around him."

 "Good heavens! What are you saying?... that my friend has been
treating you badly?"

 "If it were still only that!"

 "Be so good as to inform me, you know how devoted I am... my
inviolable attachment."

 "A series of frightful disorders... moral corruption, in short
every kind of wrong... would you believe it? We received a most
advantageous offer to marry our daughter ... and he refused...."

 And here the artful Valmont averted his eyes, the expression of a
man who has understood... who sighs to himself... and is afraid to
explain.

 "What is the matter, Monsieur," Madame de Franval resumed, "what I
have told you does not surprise you? Your silence is most singular."

 "Ah, Madame, is it not better to remain silent than to say things
which will bring despair to someone one loves?"

 "And what, may I ask, is that enigma? Explain yourself, I beg of
you."

 "How can you expect me not to shudder if I should be the one who
causes the scales to fall from your eyes," Valmont said, warmly
seizing one of her hands.

 "Oh, Monsieur," Madame de Franval went on, with great animation,
"either explain yourself or say not another word, I beseech you. The
situation you leave me in is terrible."

 "Perhaps less terrible than the state to which you yourself reduce
me," said Valmont, casting a look of love at the woman he was intent
on seducing.

 "But what does all that mean, Sir? You begin by alarming me, you
make me desire an explanation, then daring to insinuate certain
things that I neither can nor should endure, you deprive me of the
means of learning from you what upsets me so cruelly. Speak, Sir,
speak or you shall reduce me to utter despair."

 "Very well, Madame, since you demand it I shall be less obscure,
even though it costs me dearly to break your heart.... Learn, if you
must, the cruel reason behind your husband's refusal to Monsieur
Colunce's request... Eugenie..."

 "Yes ?"

 "Well, the fact is, Madame, that Franval adores her. Today less her
father than her lover, he would rather give up his own life than
give up Eugenie."

 Madame de Franval had not heard this fatal revelation without
reacting, and she fell down in a faint. Valmont hastened to her
assistance, and as soon as she had come to her senses he pursued:

 "You see, Madame, the cost of the disclosure you demanded.... I
would have given anything in the world to..."

 "Leave me, Monsieur, leave me," said Madame de Franval, who was in
a state difficult to describe. "After a shock such as this I need to
be alone for a while."

 "And you expect me to leave you in this situation? Ah, your grief
is too fully felt in my own heart for me not to ask you the
privilege of sharing it with you. I have inflicted the wound. Let me
bind it up."

 "Franval, in love with his daughter! Just Heaven! This creature
whom I have borne in my womb, 'tis now she who breaks my heart so
grievously!... So horrible, so shocking a crime!... Ah, Monsieur, is
it possible?... Are you quite certain?"

 "Madame, had I the slightest doubt I should have remained silent. I
would a hundred times rather have preferred not to tell you anything
than to alarm you in vain. 'Tis from your own husband I have the
certitude of this infamy, which he confided to me. In any event, try
and be calm, I beg of you. Rather let us concentrate now on the
means of breaking off this affair than on those of bringing it to
light. And you alone hold the key to this rapture...."

 "Ah, tell me this minute what it is. This crime horrifies me."

 "Madame, a husband of Franval's character is not brought back by
virtue. He is little disposed to believe in the virtue of women.
Virtue, he maintains, is the fruit of their pride or their
temperament, and what they do to remain faithful to us is done more
to satisfy themselves than either to please or enchain us.... You
will excuse me, Madame, if I say that on this point I must admit
that I tend to share his opinion. Never in my experience has a wife
succeeded in destroying her husband's vices by means of virtue. What
would prick him, what would stimulate him much more would be a
conduct approximating his own, and by this would you bring him more
quickly back to you. Jealousy would be the inevitable result; how
many hearts have been restored to love by this infallible means.
Your husband, then seeing that this virtue to which he is
accustomed, and which he has been so insolent as to despise is
rather the work of reflection than of the organs' insouciance, will
really learn to esteem it in you, at the very moment when he
believes you capable of discarding it. He imagines... he dares to
say that if you have never had any lovers, it is because you have
never been assaulted. Prove to him that this is a decision which
lies solely in your own hands... to revenge yourself for his
wrongdoings and his contempt.  Perhaps, according to your strict
principles, you will have committed a minor sin. But think of all
the sins you will have prevented! Think of the husband you will have
steered back to you! And for no more than the most minor outrage to
the goddess you revere, what a disciple you will have brought back
into her temple. Ah, Madame, I appeal only to your reason. By the
conduct I dare to prescribe to you, you will bring Franval back
forever, you will captivate him eternally. The reverse conduct - the
one you have been following - sends him flying away from you. He
will escape you, never to return. Yes, Madame, I dare to affirm that
either you do not love your husband or you should cease this
hesitation."

 Madame de Franval, very much taken aback by this declaration,
remained silent for some time. Then, remembering Valmont's earlier
looks, and his initial remarks, she managed to reply adroitly:

 "Monsieur, let us presume that I follow the advice you give me;
upon whom do you think I should cast my eye to upset my husband
further?"

 "Ah, my dear, my divine friend," Valmont cried, oblivious to the
trap she had set for him, "upon the one man in the world who loves
you most, upon him who has adored you since first he set eyes upon
you and who swears at your feet to die beneath your sway....

 "Leave, Monsieur," Madame de Franval said imperiously, "leave and
never let me see you again. Your ruse has been discovered. You
accuse my husband of wrongs of which he can only be innocent merely
to advance your own treacherous schemes of seduction. And let me
tell you that even were he guilty, the means you offer me are too
repugnant to my heart for me to entertain them for a moment. Never
do the failings of a husband justify or exonerate those of a wife.
For her they must become the reasons for even greater virtue, so
that the Just and Righteous man, whom the Almighty will come upon in
the afflicted cities on the verge of suffering the effects of his
wrath, may divert the flames which are about to consume them."

 Upon these words Madame de Franval left the room and, calling for
Valmont's servants, obliged him to withdraw, much ashamed of his
initial efforts.

 Although this attractive woman had seen through Valmont's ruses,
what he had said coincided so well with her own and her mother's
fears that she resolved to do everything within her power to
ascertain these cruel facts. She paid a visit to Madame de
Farneille, recounted to her everything that had happened and
returned, her mind made up as to the steps that we are going to see
her undertake.

 It has long been said, and rightfully so, that we have no greater
enemies than our own servants; forever jealous, always envious, they
seem to seek to lighten the burden of their own yoke by discovering
wrongs in us which, then placing us in a position inferior to
themselves, allow them for the space of a few moments at least to
gratify their vanity by assuming a superiority over us which fate
has denied them.

 Madame de Franval bribed one of Eugenie's servants: the promise of
a fixed pension, a pleasant future, the appearance of doing a good
deed - all swayed this creature and she promised to arrange it the
following night so that Madame de Franval could dispel all doubts as
to her unhappiness.

 The moment arrived. The wretched mother was admitted to a room
adjoining the room wherein, each night, her perfidious husband
outraged both his nuptial bonds and the bonds of Heaven. Eugenie was
with her father; several candles remained lighted on a corner
cupboard; they were going to illuminate this crime.... The altar was
prepared, the victim took her place upon it, he who performs the
sacrifice followed her....

 Madame de Franval was no longer sustained by anything save her
despair, her outraged love, and her courage.... She burst open the
doors restraining her, she hurled herself into the room, and there,
her face bathed in tears, she fell on her knees at the feet of the
incestuous Franval:

 "Oh, you," she cried, addressing herself to Franval, "you who fill
my life with misery and sorrow, I have not deserved such
treatment... However you have insulted and wronged me, I still
worship you. See my tears, and do not dismiss my appeal: I ask you
to have mercy on this poor wretched child who, deceived by her own
weakness and your seduction, thinks she can find happiness in
shamelessness and crime.... Eugenie, Eugenie, do you want to thrust
a sword into the heart of her who brought you into the world? No
longer consent to be the accomplice of this heinous crime whose full
horror has been concealed from you! Come... let me fold you in my
waiting arms. Look at your wretched mother on her knees before you,
begging you not to outrage both your honour and Nature.... But if
you both refuse," the distraught woman went on, bearing a dagger to
her heart, "this is the means I shall employ to escape the dishonour
with which you are trying to cover me. I shall make my blood flow
and stain you here, and you will have to consummate your crimes upon
my sad body."

 That Franval's hardened heart was able to resist this spectacle,
those who are beginning to know this scoundrel will have no trouble
believing; but that Eugenie remained unmoved by it is quite
inconceivable.

 "Madame," said this corrupted girl with the cruelest show of
impassivity, "I must admit I find it hard to believe you in full
possession of your reason, after the scene you have just made in
your husband's room. Is he not the master of his own actions ? And
when he approves of mine, what right have you to blame them? Do we
worry our heads or pry into your indiscretions with Monsieur
Valmont? Do we disturb you in the exercise of your pleasures?
Therefore deign to respect ours, or do not be surprised if I urge
your husband to take whatever steps are required to oblige you to do
so ...."

 At this point Madame de Franval could no longer control her
patience, and the full force of her anger was turned against the
unworthy creature who could so forget herself as to speak to her in
such terms. Struggling to her feet, Madame de Franval threw herself
furiously upon her daughter, but the odious and cruel Franval,
seizing his wife by the hair, dragged her in a rage away from her
daughter out of the room. He threw her violently down the stairs of
the house, and she fell, bloody and unconscious, at the door of one
of the chambermaids' rooms. Awakened by this terrible noise, the
maid quickly saved her mistress from the wrath of her tyrant, who
was already on his way downstairs to finish off his hapless
victim....

 They took her to her room, locked her in, and began to administer
to her, while the monster who had just treated her with such utter
fury flew back to his detestable companion to spend the night as
peacefully as though he had not debased himself lower than the most
ferocious beasts by assaults so execrable, so designed to degrade
and humiliate her... so horrible, in a word, that we blush at the
necessity of having to reveal them.

 Poor Madame de Franval no longer had any illusions left, and there
was no other for her to espouse. It was all too clear that her
husband's heart, that is, the most beloved possession of her life,
had been taken from her. And by whom? By the very person who owed
her the most respect, and who had just spoken to her with utter
insolence. She also began to suspect strongly that the whole
adventure with Valmont had been nothing more than a detestable trap
set to ensnare her in a web of guilt, if 'twere possible or, failing
that, to ascribe the guilt to her in any event, in order to
counterbalance, and hence justify, the thousand times more serious
wrongs which they dared to heap upon her.

 Nothing could have been more certain. Franval, informed of
Valmont's failure, had prevailed upon him to replace the truth by
imposture and indiscretion, and to noise it abroad that he was
Madame de Franval's lover. And they had decided that they would
forge abominable letters which would document, in the most
unequivocal manner, the existence of the illicit commerce in which,
however, poor Madame de Franval had actually refused to involve
herself.

 Meanwhile, in deep despair, Madame de Franval, whose body was
covered with numerous wounds, fell seriously ill. Her barbarous
husband, refusing to see her and not even bothering to inform
himself of her condition, left with Eugenie for the country, on the
pretense that since there was fever in the house he did not care to
expose his daughter to it.

 During her illness, Valmont several times came to call at her door,
but was each time refused admission. Locked in her room with her
mother and Monsieur de Clervil, Madame de Franval absolutely refused
to see anyone else. Consoled by such dear friends as these, who were
so fully worthy of being able to influence her, and nourished back
to health by their loving care, forty days later Madame de Franval
was in a condition to see people again. At which time Franval
brought his daughter back to Paris and, with Valmont, mapped out a
campaign intended to counter the one it appeared that Madame de
Franval and her friends were preparing to direct against him.

 Our scoundrel paid his wife a visit as soon as he judged she was
well enough to receive him.

 "Madame," he said coldly, "you must be aware of my concern for your
condition. I cannot conceal from you the fact that your condition is
the sole factor restraining Eugenie. She was determined to bring a
complaint against you for the way you have treated her. However she
may be persuaded of the basic respect due a mother by her daughter,
still she cannot ignore the fact that this same mother threw herself
on her daughter with a drawn dagger. Such a violent and unseemly
act, Madame, could well open the eyes of the government to your
conduct and, inevitably, pose a serious threat to both your honour
and your liberty."

 "I was not expecting such recriminations, Monsieur," Madame de
Franval replied. "And when my daughter, seduced by you, becomes at
the same time guilty of incest, adultery, libertinage, and
ingratitude - of the most odious sort - toward her who brought her
into the world,... yes, I must confess, I did not imagine that after
this complexity of horrors that I would be the one against whom a
complaint would be brought. It takes all your cunning, all your
wickedness, Monsieur, to accuse innocence the while excusing crime
with such audacity."

 "I am not unaware, Madame, that the pretense for your scene was the
odious suspicion you dared to formulate regarding me. But chimeras
do not justify crimes. What you have imagined is false. But,
unfortunately, what you have done is only too real. You evinced
astonishment at the reproaches my daughter directed at you at the
time of your affair with Valmont. But, Madame, she has only
discovered the irregularities of your conduct since they have been
the talk of all Paris. This affair is so well known, and the proofs
of it unfortunately so solid, that those who speak to you about it
are at the very most guilty of indiscretion, but not of calumny."

 "I, Sir," said this respectable woman, rising to her feet,
indignantly, "I have an affair with Valmont! Just Heaven! 'Tis you
who have said it! " ( Breaking into tears :)

 "Ungrateful wretch! This is how you repay my tenderness.... This is
my recompense for having loved you so. It is not enough for you to
outrage me so cruelly. It is not enough that you seduce my daughter.
You have to go even further and, by ascribing crimes which for me
would be more terrible than death, dare to justify your own...."
(Regaining her composure:) "You say, Monsieur, that you have the
proofs of this affair. All right, show them. I demand that they be
made public, and I shall force you to show them to everyone if you
refuse to show them to me."

 "No, Madame, I shall not show them to the whole world; it is not
generally the husband who openly displays this sort of thing; he
bemoans it, and conceals it as best he can. But if you demand it,
Madame, I shall certainly not refuse you...." (And then taking a
letter case from his pocket:) "Sit down," he said, "this must be
verified calmly. Ill-humour and loss of temper would be harmful but
would not convince me. Therefore, I beg you to keep control of
yourself, and let us discuss this with composure."

 Madame de Franval, thoroughly convinced of her innocence, did not
know what to make of these preparatory remarks. And her surprise,
mingled with fright, kept her in a state of extreme agitation.

 "First of all, Madame," said Franval, emptying one side of the
letter case, "here is all your correspondence with Valmont over the
past six months. Do not accuse this worthy gentleman either of
imprudence or indiscretion. He is doubtless too honourable a man to
have dared fail you so badly. But one of his servants, more adroit
than Valmont is attentive, discovered the secret way to procure for
me this precious monument to your extreme fidelity and your eminent
virtue." (Then, leafing through the letters which he spread out on
the table :) "Please allow me," he went on, "to choose one from
among many of these ordinary displays of chitchat by an overheated
woman... overheated, I might add, by a most attractive man; one, I
say, which seemed to me more lascivious and decisive than the
others. Here it is, Madame:

     My boring husband is dining tonight in his maisonette
     on the outskirts of Paris with that horrible
     creature... a creature it is impossible I brought
     into the world. Come, my love, come and comfort me
     for all the sorrows which these two monsters give
     me.... What am I saying? Is this not the greatest
     service they could be doing me at present, and will
     that affair not prevent my husband from discovering
     ours? Let him then tighten the bonds as much as he
     likes; but at least let him not bethink himself to
     desire breaking those which attach me to the only man
     whom I have ever adored in this world.

 "Well, Madame?"

 "Well, Monsieur, I must say I admire you," Madame de Franval
replied. "Each day adds to the incredible esteem you so richly
deserve. And however many fine qualities I have recognized in you
hitherto, I confess I was yet unaware you were also a forger and a
slanderer."

 "Ah, so you deny the evidence ?"

 "Not in the least. All I ask is to be persuaded. We shall have
judges appointed... experts. And, if you agree, we shall ask that
the most severe penalty be exacted against whichever of the two
parties is found guilty."

 "That is what I call effrontery! Well, the truth is I prefer it to
sorrow.... Now, where were we? Ah, yes; that you have a lover,
Madame," said Franval, shaking out the other side of the letter
case, "a lover with a handsome face, and a boring husband, is most
assuredly nothing so extraordinary. But that at your age you are
supporting this lover - at my expense - I trust you will allow me
not to find this quite so simple.... And yet here are 100,000 ecus
in notes, either paid by you or made out in your hand in favour of
Valmont. Please run through them, I beg of you," this monster added,
showing them to her without allowing her to touch them....

    To Zaide, jeweller
    By the present note I hereby agree to pay the sum of twenty-two
    thousand livres on the account of Monsieur de Valmont, by
    arrangement with him.
    FARNEILLE DE FRANVAL

 "Here's another made out to Jamet, the horse merchant, for six
thousand livres. This is for the team of dark bay horses which today
are both Valmont's delight and the admiration of all Paris. . . .
Yes, Madame, the whole package comes to three hundred thousand, two
hundred and eighty-three 1ivres, and ten sous, a third of which
total you still owe, and the balance of which you have most loyally
paid.... Well, Madame ?"

 "Ah, Monsieur, this fraud is too crude and vulgar to cause me the
least concern. To confound those who have invented it against me, I
demand but one thing: that the people in whose names I have, so it
is alleged, made out these documents, appear personally and swear
under oath that I have had dealings with them."

 "They will, Madame, of that you may be sure. Do you think they
themselves would have warned me of your conduct if they were not
determined to back up their claims? Indeed, without my intervention,
one of them would have signed a writ against you today...."

 At this point poor Madame de Franval's beautiful eyes filled with
bitter tears. Her courage failed to sustain her any longer, and she
fell into a fit of despair with the most frightful symptoms: she
began to strike her head against the marble objects around her,
bruising her face horribly.

 "Monsieur," she cried out, throwing herself at her husband's feet,
"please do away with me, I beseech you, by means less slow and less
torturous. Since my life is an obstacle to your crimes, end it with
a single blow... refrain though from inching me into my grave.... Am
I guilty of having loved you? of having rebelled against what was so
cruelly stealing your heart from me ?... Well then, barbarian,
punish me for these transgressions. Yes, take this metal shaft," she
said, throwing herself on her husband's sword, "and pierce my breast
with it, with no pity. But at least let me die worthy of your
esteem, let me take as my sole consolation to the grave the
certainty that you believe me incapable of the infamies of which you
accuse me ... solely to cover your own...."

 She was on her knees at Franval's feet, her head and bust thrown
back, her hands wounded and bleeding from the naked steel she had
tried to seize and thrust into her breast. This lovely breast was
laid bare, her hair was in disarray, its strands soaked by the tears
that flowed abundantly. Never had sorrow been more pathetic and more
expressive, never had it been seen in a more touching, more noble,
and more attractive garb.

 "No, Madame," Franval said, resisting her movement, "no, 'tis not
your death I desire, but your punishment. I can understand your
repentance, your tears do not surprise me, you are furious at having
been discovered. I approve of this frame of mind, which leads me to
believe you plan to amend your ways, a change that the fate I have
in mind for you, and because of which I must depart in order to give
it my every care, will doubtless precipitate."

 "Stop, Franval," the unhappy woman cried, "do not voice abroad the
news of your dishonour, nor tell the world that you are a perjurer,
a forger, a slanderer, and guilty of incest into the bargain.... You
wish to have done with me, I shall run away, I shall leave in search
of some refuge where your very memory shall disappear from my
mind.... You will be free, you can exercise your criminal desires
with impunity.... Yes, I shall forget you, if I can, oh heartless
man. Or, if your painful image remains graven in my heart, if it
still pursues me in my distant darkness, I shall not obliterate it,
traitor, that effort is beyond my abilities; no, I shall not
obliterate it, but I shall punish my own blindness, and shall bury
in the horror of the grave the guilty altar which committed the
error of holding you too dear...."

 With these words, the final outcry of a soul overwhelmed by a
recent illness, the poor woman fainted and fell unconscious to the
floor. The cold shadows of death spread over the roses of her
beautiful complexion, already withered by the stings of despair. She
appeared little more than a lifeless mass, from which, however,
grace, modesty, and seemliness... all the attributes of virtue, had
refused to flee. The monster left the room and repaired to his own
chambers, there to enjoy, with his guilty daughter, the terrible
triumph which vice, or rather low villainy, dared to win over
innocence and unhappiness.

 Franval's abominable daughter infinitely savoured the details of
this encounter. She only wished she could have seen them. She would
have liked to carry the horror even further and see Valmont vanquish
her mother's resistance, and then have Franval surprise them in the
act. What means, if that were to happen, what means of justification
would their victim then have had left? And was it not important for
them to deprive her of any and all means? Such was Eugenie.

 Meanwhile, Franval's poor wife had only the refuge of her mother's
breast for her tears, and it was not long before she revealed to her
the reasons for her latest sorrow. It was at this juncture that
Madame de Farneille came to the conclusion that Monsieur de
Clervil's age, his calling, and his personal prestige perhaps might
exercise a certain good influence on her son-in-law. Nothing is more
confident than adversity. As best she could, she apprised this
worthy ecclesiastic of the truth about Franval's chaotic conduct;
she convinced him of the truth which he had hitherto been
disinclined to believe, and she beseeched him above all to employ
with such a scoundrel only that persuasive eloquence which appeals
to the heart rather than to the head. And after he had talked with
this traitor, she suggested that Monsieur de Clervil solicit a
meeting with Eugenie, during which he could similarly put to use
whatever he should deem most appropriate toward enlightening the
poor child as to the abyss that had opened beneath her feet and, if
possible, to bring her back to her mother's heart and to the path of
virtue.

 Franval, informed that Clervil intended to request to see both him
and his daughter, had time enough to conspire with Eugenie, and when
they had settled on their plans they sent word to Madame de
Farneille that both were prepared to hear him out. The credulous
Madame de Franval held out the highest hopes for the eloquence of
this spiritual guide. The wretched are wont to seize at straws with
such avidity, in order to procure for themselves a pleasure which
the truth disowns, that they fabricate most cunningly all sorts of
illusions!

 Clervil arrived. It was nine in the morning. Franval received him
in the room where he was accustomed to spending the night with his
daughter. He had embellished it with every imaginable elegance, but
had nonetheless allowed it to retain a certain disorder which bore
witness to his criminal pleasures. In a neighbouring room, Eugenie
could hear everything, the better to prepare herself for the
conversation with her which was due to follow.

 "It is only most reluctantly, and with the greatest fear of
disturbing you, Monsieur," Clervil began, "that I dare to present
myself before you. Persons of our calling are commonly so much a
burden to those who, like yourself, spend their lives tasting the
pleasures of this world, that I reproach myself for having consented
to Madame de Farneille's desires and having requested to converse
with you for a moment or two."

 "Please sit down, Monsieur, and so long as reason and justice hold
sway in your conversation, you need never fear of boring me."

 "Sir, you are beloved of a young wife full of charm and virtue and
whom, it is alleged, you make most miserable. Having as arms naught
but her innocence and her candour, and with only a mother's ear to
hear her complaints, still idolizing you despite your wrongs, you
can easily imagine the frightful position in which she finds
herself!"

 "If you please, Monsieur, I should like us to get down to the
facts. I have the feeling you are skirting the issue; pray tell me,
what is the purpose of your mission ?"

 "To bring you back to happiness, if that is possible."

 "Therefore, if I find myself happy in my present situation, may I
assume that you should have nothing further to say to me?"

 "It is impossible, Monsieur, to find happiness in the exercise of
crime."

 "I agree. But the man who, through profound study and mature
reflection, has been able to bring his mind to the point where he
does not see evil in anything, where he contemplates the whole of
human endeavour with the most supreme indifference and considers
every action of which man is capable as the necessary result of a
power, whatever its nature, which is at times good and at times bad,
but always imperious, inspires us alternately with what men approve
and what they condemn, but never anything that disturbs or troubles
it - that man, I say, and I'm sure you will agree, can be just as
happy living the way I do as you are in your chosen calling.
Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination. It is a
manner of being moved which relies solely upon the way we see
and feel. Except for the satisfaction of needs, there is nothing
which makes all men equally happy. Not a day goes by but that we
see one person made happy by something that supremely displeases
another. Therefore, there is no certain or fixed happiness, and the
only happiness possible for us is the one we form with the help of
our organs and our principles."

 "I know that, Monsieur, but though our mind may deceive us, our
conscience never leads us astray, and here is the book wherein
Nature has inscribed all our duties."

 "And do we not manipulate this factitious conscience at will? Habit
bends it, it is for us like soft wax which our fingers shape as they
choose. If this book were as certain as you pretend, would man not
be endowed with an invariable conscience? From one end of the earth
to the other, would not all of man's actions be the same for him?
And yet is such truly the case ? Does the Hottentot tremble at what
terrifies the Frenchman? And does the Frenchman not do daily what
would be punishable in Japan? No, Monsieur, no, there is nothing
real in the world, nothing deserving of praise or approbation,
nothing worthy of being rewarded or punished, nothing which, unjust
here, is not quite lawful five hundred leagues away. In a word, no
wrong is real, no good is constant."

 - "Do not believe it, Sir. Virtue is not an illusion. It is not a
matter of ascertaining whether something is good here, or bad a few
degrees farther away, in order to assign it a precise determination
of crime or virtue, and to make certain of finding happiness therein
by reason of the choice one has made of it. Man's only happiness
resides in his complete submission to the laws of his land. He has
either to respect them or to be miserable, there is no middle ground
between their infraction and misfortune. 'Tis not, if you prefer to
state it in these terms, these things in themselves which give rise
to the evils which overwhelm us whenever we allow ourselves free
reign to indulge in these forbidden practices, 'tis rather the
conflict between these things - which may be intrinsically either
good or bad - and the social conventions of the society in which we
live. One can surely do no harm by preferring to stroll along the
boulevards than along the Champs Elysees. And yet if a law were
passed forbidding our citizens from frequenting the boulevards,
whosoever should break this law might be setting in motion an
eternal chain of misfortunes for himself, although in breaking it he
had done something quite simple. Moreover, the habit of breaking
ordinary restrictions soon leads to the violation of more serious
ones, and from error to error one soon arrives at crimes of a nature
to be punished in any country under the sun and to inspire fear in
any reasonable creature on earth, no matter in what clime he may
dwell. If man does not have a universal conscience, he at least has
a national conscience, relative to the existence that we have
received from Nature, and in which her hand inscribes our duties in
letters which we cannot efface without danger. For example,
Monsieur, your family accuses you of incest. It makes no difference
what sophistries you employ to justify this crime or lessen the
horror, or what specious arguments you apply to it or what
authorities you call upon by buttressing these arguments with
examples drawn from neighbouring countries, the fact remains that
this crime, which is only a crime in certain countries, is most
assuredly dangerous wherever the law forbids it. It is no less
certain that it can give rise to the most frightful consequences, as
well as other crimes necessitated by this first one... crimes, I
might add, of a sort to be deemed abominable by all men. Had you
married your daughter on the banks of the Ganges, where such
marriages are permitted, perhaps you might have committed only a
minor wrong. But in a country where these unions are forbidden, by
offering this revolting spectacle to the public... and to the eyes
of a woman who adores you and who, by this treacherous act, is being
pushed to the edge of the grave, you are no doubt committing a
frightful act, a crime which tends to break the holiest bonds of
Nature: those which, attaching your daughter to her who gave her
life, ought to make this person the most respected, the most sacred
of all objects to her. You oblige this girl to despise her most
precious duties, you cause her to hate the very person who bore
her in her womb; without realizing it, you are preparing weapons
that she may one day direct against you. In every doctrine you
offer her, in every principle you inculcate in her, your
condemnation is inscribed. And if one day her arm is raised against
you in an attempt against your life, 'tis you who will have
sharpened the dagger."

 "Your way of reasoning, so different from that of most men of the
cloth," Franval replied, "compels me to trust in you, Monsieur. I
could deny your accusations. I hope that the frankness with which I
reveal myself to you will also oblige you to believe the wrongs I
impute to my wife when, to expose them, I employ the same
truthfulness with which I intend to characterize my own confessions.
Yes, Monsieur, I love my daughter, I love her passionately, she is
my mistress, my wife, my daughter, my confidante, my friend, my only
God on earth; in fine, she possesses all the homage that any heart
can ever hope to obtain, and all homage of which my heart is capable
is due her. These sentiments will endure as long as I live. Being
unable to give them up, I doubtless must therefore justify them.

 "A father's first duty toward his daughter is undeniably - I'm sure
you will agree, Monsieur - to procure for her the greatest happiness
possible. If he does not succeed in this task, then he has failed in
his obligations toward her; if he does succeed, then he is
blameless. I have neither seduced nor constrained Eugenie - this is
a noteworthy consideration, which I trust you will not forget. I did
not conceal the world from her. I expounded for her the good and bad
sides of marriage, the roses and the thorns it contains. It was then
I offered myself, and left her free to choose. She had adequate time
to reflect on the matter. She did not hesitate: she claimed that she
could find happiness only with me. Was I wrong to give her, in order
to make her happy, what she appeared in full knowledge to desire
above all else ?"

 "These sophistries justify nothing, Monsieur. You were wrong to
give your daughter the slightest inclination that the person she
could not prefer without crime might become the object of her
happiness. No matter how lovely a fruit might appear, would you
not regret having offered it to someone if you knew that lurking
within its flesh was death? No, Monsieur, no: in this whole wretched
affair you have had only one object in mind, and that object was
you, and you have made your daughter both an accomplice and a
victim. These methods are inexcusable.... And what wrongs, in your
eyes, do you ascribe to that virtuous and sensitive wife whose heart
you twist and break at will? What wrongs, unjust man, except the
wrong of loving you?"

 "This is the point I wish to discuss with you, Sir, and 'tis here I
expect and hope for your confidence. After the full candour to which
I have treated you, in making a full confession of all that is
ascribed to me, I trust I have some right to expect such confidence."

 And then Franval, showing Clervil the forged letters and notes he
had attributed to his wife, swore to him that nothing was more
authentic than these documents, and than the affair between Madame
de Franval and the person who was the subject of the papers.

 Clervil was familiar with the entire matter.

 "Well, Monsieur," he said firmly to Franval, "was I not right to
tell you that an error viewed at first as being without consequence
in itself can, by accustoming us to exceed limits, lead us to the
most extravagant excesses of Crime and wickedness? You have begun
with an act which, in your eyes, you deemed totally inoffensive,
and you see to what infamous lengths you are obliged to go in order
to justify or conceal it? Follow my advice, Monsieur, throw these
unpardonable atrocities into the fire and, I beg of you, let us forget
them, let us forget they ever existed."

 "These documents are authentic, Monsieur."

 "They are false."

 "You can only be in doubt about them. Is that sufficient reason for
you to contradict me ?"

 "Pardon me, Monsieur, but the only reason I have to suppose they
are authentic is your word on the matter, and you have good reason
indeed for buttressing your accusation. As for believing them false,
I have your wife's word for it, and she too would have good reason
to tell me if they were authentic, if they actually were. This, Sir,
is how I judge. Self-interest is the vehicle for all man's actions,
the wellspring of everything he does. Wherever I can discover it,
the torch of truth immediately lights up. This rule has never once
failed me, and I have been applying it for forty years. And
furthermore, will your wife's virtue not annihilate this loathsome
calumny in everyone's eyes? And is it possible that your wife, with
her frankness and her candour, with indeed the love for you which
still burns within her, could ever have committed such abominable
acts as those you charge her with? No, Monsieur, this is not how
crime begins. Since you are so familiar with its effects, you should
manoeuvre more cleverly."

 "That, Sir, is abusive language."

 "You'll forgive me, Monsieur, but injustice, calumny, libertinage
revolt my soul so completely that I sometimes find it hard to
control the agitation which these horrors incite in me. Let us burn
these papers, Monsieur, I most urgently beseech you... burn them for
your honour and your peace of mind."

 "I never suspected, Monsieur," said Franval, getting to his feet,
"that in the exercise of your ministry one could so easily become an
apologist... the protector of misconduct and of adultery. My wife is
dishonouring me, she is ruining me. I have proved it to you. Your
blindness concerning her makes you prefer to accuse me and rather
suppose that 'tis I who am the slanderer than she the treacherous
and debauched woman. All right, Monsieur, the law shall decide.
Every court in France shall resound with my accusations, I shall
come bearing proof, I shall publish my dishonour, and then we shall
see whether you will still be guileless enough, or rather foolish
enough, to protect so shameless a creature against me."

 "I shall leave you now, Monsieur," Clervil said, also getting to
his feet. "I did not realize to what extent the faults of your mind
had so altered the qualities of your heart and that, blinded by an
unjust desire for revenge, you had become capable of coolly
maintaining what could only derive from delirium.... Ah! Monsieur,
how all this has persuaded me all the more that when man oversteps
the bounds of his most sacred duties, he soon allows himself to
annihilate all the others.... If further reflection should bring you
back to your senses, I beg of you to send word to me, Monsieur, and
you will always find, in your family as well as in myself, friends
disposed to receive you. May I be allowed to see Mademoiselle your
daughter for a moment ?"

 "You, Sir, may do as you like. I would only suggest, nay urge you
that when talking with her you either employ more eloquent means or
draw upon sounder resources in presenting these luminous truths to
her, truths in which I was unfortunate enough to perceive naught but
blindness and sophistries."

 Clervil went into Eugenie's room. She awaited him dressed in the
most elegant and most coquettish negligee. This sort of indecency,
the fruit of self-negligence and of crime, reigned unashamedly in
her every gesture and look, and the perfidious girl, insulting the
graces which embellished her in spite of herself, combined both the
qualities susceptible of inflaming vice and those certain to revolt
virtue.

 Since it was not appropriate for a girl to engage in so detailed a
discussion as a philosopher such as Franval had done, Eugenie
confined herself to persiflage. She gradually became openly
provocative, but upon seeing that her seductions were in vain, and
that a man as virtuous as the one with whom she was dealing had not
the slightest intention of allowing himself to be ensnared in her
trap, she adroitly cut the knots holding the veil of her charms and,
before Clervil had the time to realize what she was doing, she had
arranged herself in a state of great disorder.

 "The wretch," she cried at the top of her lungs, "take this monster
away from me!  And, above all, let not my father know of his crime.
Just Heaven! I was expecting pious counsel from him... and the vile
man assaulted my modesty.... Look," she cried to the servants who
had hastened to her room upon hearing her cries, "look at the
condition this shameless creature has put me in. Look at them, look
at these benevolent disciples of a divinity they insult and outrage.
Scandal, debauchery, seduction: there is the trinity of their
morality, while we, dupes of their false virtue, are foolish enough
to go on worshiping them."

 Clervil, although extremely annoyed by such a scene, nonetheless
succeeded in concealing his emotions. And as he left the room he
said, with great self-possession, to the crowd around him:

 "May heaven preserve this unfortunate child.... May it make her
better if it can, and let no one in this house offend her sentiments
of virtue more than I have done... sentiments that I came here less
to defile than to revive in her heart."

 Such were the only fruits which Madame de Farneille and her
daughter culled from a negotiation they had approached so hopefully.
They were far from realizing the degradations that crime works in
the souls of the wicked: what might have some effect on others only
embitters them, and it is in the very lessons of good that they find
encouragement to do evil.

 From then on, everything turned more venomous on both sides.
Franval and Eugenie clearly saw that Madame de Franval would have to
be persuaded of her alleged wrongs, in a way that would no longer
allow her to doubt of the matter. And Madame de Farneille, in
concert with her daughter, concocted serious plans to abduct
Eugenie. They discussed the project with Clervil; this worthy man
refused to have any part of such drastic resolutions. He had, he
said, been too badly treated in this affair to be able to undertake
anything more than imploring forgiveness for the guilty, and this he
urgently did pray for, steadfastly refusing to involve himself in
any other duty or effort of mediation. How sublime were his
sentiments! Why is it that this nobility is so rare among men of the
cloth? Or why had so singular a man chosen so soiled a calling?

 Let us begin with Franval's endeavours.

 Valmont reappeared.

 "You're an imbecile," Eugenie's guilty lover said to him, "you are
unworthy of being my student. And if you do not come off better in a
second meeting with my wife, I shall trumpet your name all over
Paris. You must have her, my friend, and I mean really have her, my
eyes must be persuaded of her defeat... in fine, I must be able to
deprive that loathsome creature of any means of excuse and of
defence."

 "And what if she resists?" Valmont responded.

 "Then employ violence... I shall make certain that there is no one
around.... Frighten her, threaten her, what does it matter?... I
shall consider all the means of your triumph as so many favours I owe
you."

 "Listen," Valmont then said, "I agree to everything you propose, I
give you my word of honour that your wife will yield. But I require
one condition, and if you refuse it then I refuse to play the game.
We agreed that jealousy is to have no part in our arrangements, as
you know. I therefore demand that you accord me half an hour with
Eugenie. You have no idea how I shall act after I have enjoyed the
pleasure of your daughter's company for a short while...."

 "But Valmont..."

 "I can understand your fears. But if you deem me your friend I
shall not forgive you for them. All I aspire to is the charm of
seeing Eugenie alone and talking with her for a few moments."

 "Valmont," said Franval, somewhat astonished, "you place too high a
fee on your services. I am as fully aware as you of the ridiculous
aspects of jealousy, but I idolize the girl you are referring to,
and I should rather give up my entire fortune than yield her
favours."

 "I am not claiming them, so set your mind at rest."

 And Franval, who realized that, among all his friends and
acquaintances, there was none capable of serving his purposes so
well as Valmont, was adamantly opposed to letting him escape:

 "All right," he said, a trifle testily, "but I repeat that your
services come very dear, and by discharging them in this manner you
have relieved me from any obligation toward you, and from any
gratitude."

 "Oh! gratitude is naught but the price paid for honest favours. It
will never be kindled in your heart for the services I am going to
render you. And I shall even go so far as to predict that these
selfsame services will cause us to quarrel before two months are
up. Come, my friend, I know the ways of men... their faults and
failings, and everything they involve. Place the human animal, the
most wicked animal of all, in whatever situation you choose, and I
shall predict every last result that will perforce ensue....
Therefore I wish to be paid in advance, or the game is off."

 "I accept," said Franval.

 "Very well then," Valmont replied. "Now everything depends on you.
I shall act whenever you wish."

 "I need a few days to make my preparations," Franval said. "But
within four days at the most I am with you."

 Monsieur de Franval had raised his daughter in such a way that he
had no misgivings about any excessive modesty on her part which
would cause her to refuse to participate in the plans he was
formulating with his friend. But he was jealous, and this Eugenie
knew. She loved him at least as much as he adored her, and as
soon as she knew what was in the offing she confessed to Franval
that she was terribly afraid this tete-a-tete with Valmont might
have serious repercussions. Franval, who believed he knew Valmont
well enough to be persuaded that all this would only provide certain
nourishments for his head without any danger to his heart, reassured
his daughter as best he could, and went about his preparations.

 It was then that Franval learned, from servants in whom he had
complete confidence and whom he had planted in the service of his
mother-in-law, that Eugenie was in the gravest danger and that
Madame de Farneille was on the verge of obtaining a writ to have
her taken away from him. Franval had no doubt but that the whole
plot was Clervil's work. And momentarily putting aside his plans
involving Valmont, he turned his complete attention to ridding
himself of this poor ecclesiastic whom he wrongly judged to be the
instigator of everything. He sowed his gold; this powerful weapon of
every vice is properly planted in a thousand different hands, and
finally six trustworthy scoundrels are ready and willing to do his
bidding.

 One evening when Clervil, who was wont to dine rather frequently
with Madame de Farneille, was leaving her house alone and on foot,
he was surrounded and seized.... He was told that the arrest was
made upon the orders of the government, and shown a forged document.
Then he was thrown into a post chaise and he was driven in all haste
to the prison of an isolated chateau which Franval owned in the
depths of the Ardennes. There the poor man was turned over to the
concierge of the chateau as a scoundrel who was plotting to kill his
master. And the most careful precautions were taken to make certain
that this unfortunate victim, whose only wrong was to have shown
himself overly indulgent toward those who outraged him so cruelly,
could never again be seen.

 Madame de Farneille was on the brink of despair. She had not the
slightest doubt but that the whole affair was the work of her
son-in-law. Her efforts to ascertain the whereabouts of Clervil
slowed those touching upon Eugenie's abduction. Having at her
disposal only a limited amount of money, and with only a few
friends, it was difficult to pursue two equally important
undertakings at once. And furthermore, Franval's drastic action had
forced them onto the defensive. They directed all their energies,
therefore, toward finding the father confessor. But all their
efforts were in vain; our villain had executed his plan so cleverly
that it became impossible to uncover the slightest trace.

 Madame de Franval, who had not seen her husband since their last
scene, was hesitant to question him. But the intensity of one's
interest in a matter destroys any other considerations, and she
finally found the courage to ask her tyrant if he planned to add to
the already long list of grievances of which he was guilty on her
behalf by depriving her mother of the best friend she had in the
world. The monster protested his innocence. He even carried
hypocrisy so far as to offer to help in the search. And seeing that
he needed to mollify his wife's hardened heart and mind in
preparation for the scene with Valmont, he again promised her that
he would do everything in his power to find Clervil. He even
caressed his credulous wife, and assured her that, no matter how
unfaithful he might be to her, he found it impossible, deep in his
heart, not to adore her. And Madame de Franval, always gentle and
accommodating, always pleased by anything which brought her closer
to a man who was dearer to her than life itself, gave herself over
to all the desires of this perfidious husband; she anticipated them,
served them, shared them all, without daring, as she should have, to
profit from the occasion in order at least to extract a promise from
this barbarian to improve his ways, one which would not precipitate
his poor wife each day into an abyss of torment and sorrow. But even
had she extracted such a promise, would her efforts have been
crowned with success ? Would Franval, so false in every other
aspect of his life, have been any more sincere in the one which,
according to him, was only attractive to the extent one could go
beyond certain set limits. He would doubtless have made all sorts
of promises solely for the pleasure of being able to break them; and
perhaps he might even have made her demand that he swear to them, so
that to his other frightful pleasures he might add that of perjury.

 Franval, absolutely at peace, turned all his attention to troubling
others. Such was his vindictive, turbulent, impetuous nature when he
was disturbed; desiring to regain his tranquillity at any cost
whatever, he would awkwardly obtain it only by those means most
likely to make him lose it again. And if he regained it? Then he
bent all his physical and moral faculties to making certain he lost
it again. Thus, in a state of perpetual agitation, he either had to
forestall the artifices he obliged others to employ against him, or
else he had to use some of his own against them.

 Everything was arranged to Valmont's satisfaction; his tete-a-tete
took place in Eugenie's apartment and lasted for the better part of
an hour.

 There, in the ornate room, Eugenie, on a pedestal, portrayed a
young savage weary of the hunt, leaning on the trunk of a palm tree
whose soaring branches concealed an infinite number of lights
arranged in such a way that their reflections, which shone only on
the beautiful girl's physical charms, accentuated them most
artfully. The sort of miniature theatre wherein this tableau vivant
appeared was surrounded by a six-foot-wide moat which was filled
with water and acted as a barrier which prevented anyone from
approaching her on any side. At the edge of this circumvallation was
placed the throne of a knight, with a silk cord leading from the
base of the pedestal to the chair. By manipulating this string, the
person in the chair could cause the pedestal to turn in such a
manner that the object of his admiration could be viewed from every
angle by him, and the arrangement was such that, no matter which way
he turned her, she was always delightful to behold. The Count,
concealed behind a decorative shrub, was in a position to view both
his mistress and his friend. According to the agreement, Valmont was
free to examine Eugenie for half an hour.... Valmont took his place
in the chair... he is beside himself; never, he maintains, has he
seen so many allurements in one person. He yields to the transports
which inflame him, the constantly moving cord offers him an endless
succession of new angles and beauties. Which should he prefer above
all others, to which shall he sacrifice himself? He cannot make up
his mind: Eugenie is such a wondrous beauty! Meanwhile the fleeting
minutes pass; for time, in such circumstances, passes quickly. The
hour strikes, the knight abandons himself, and the incense flies to
the feet of a god whose sanctuary is forbidden him. A veil descends,
it is time to leave the room.

 "Well, are you content now ?" Franval said, rejoining his friend.

 "She is a delightful creature," Valmont replied. "But Franval, if I
may offer you one piece of advice, never chance such a thing with
any other man. And congratulate yourself for the sentiments I have
for you in my heart, which protect you from all danger."

 "I am counting on them," Franval said rather seriously. "And now,
you must act as soon as you can."

 "I shall prepare your wife tomorrow.... It is your feeling that a
preliminary conversation is required.... Four days later you can be
sure of me."

 They exchanged vows and took leave of each other.

 But after his hour with Eugenie, Valmont had not the slightest
desire to seduce Madame de Franval or further to assure his friend
of a conquest of which he had become only too envious. Eugenie
had made such a profound impression upon him that he was unable to
put her out of his mind, and he was resolved to have her, no matter
what the cost, as his wife. Recollecting upon the matter in
tranquillity, once he was no longer repelled by the idea of Eugenie's
affair with her father, Valmont was quite certain that his fortune
was equal to that of Colunce and that he had just as much right to
demand her hand in marriage. He therefore presumed that were he
to offer himself as her husband, he could not be refused. He also
concluded that by acting zealously to break Eugenie's incestuous
bonds, by promising her family that he could not but succeed in such
an undertaking, he would inevitably obtain the object of his
devotion. There would, of course, be a duel to be fought with
Franval, but Valmont was confident that his courage and skill would
successfully overcome that obstacle.

 Twenty-four hours sufficed for these reflections, and 'twas with
these thoughts crowding through his mind that Valmont set off to
visit Madame de Franval. She had been informed of his impending
call. It will be recalled that in her last conversation with her
husband, she had almost become reconciled with him; or, rather,
having yielded to the insidious cunning of this traitor, she was no
longer in a position to refuse to see Valmont. As an objection to
such a visit, she brought up the remarks and the ideas that Franval
had advanced, and the letters he had shown her; but he, with seeming
unconcern, had more than reassured her that the surest way of
convincing people that there was absolutely nothing to her alleged
affair with Valmont was to see him exactly as before; to refuse to
do so, he assured her, would only lend credence to their suspicions.
The best proof a woman can provide of her chastity, he told her, was
to continue seeing in public the man to whom her name had been
linked. All this was so much sophistry, and Madame de Franval was
perfectly well aware of it. Still, she was hoping for some
explanation from Valmont, and her desire to obtain it, coupled with
her desire not to anger her husband, had blinded her to all the good
reasons that should normally have kept her from seeing Valmont.

 Thus Valmont arrived to pay his call, and Franval quickly left them
alone as he had the previous time: the explanations and
clarifications were sure to be lively and long. Valmont, his head
bursting with the ideas which had filled it during the previous
twenty-four hours, cut short the formalities and came straight to
the point.

 "Oh, Madame! Do not think of me as the same man who, the last time
he saw you, conducted himself so guiltily in your eyes," he hastened
to say. "Then I was the accomplice of your husband's wrongdoings;
today I come to repair those wrongs. Have confidence in me, Madame,
I beseech you to believe my word of honour that I have come here
neither to lie to you nor to deceive you in any way."

 Then he confessed to the forged letters and promissory notes and
apologized profusely for having allowed himself to be implicated in
the affair. He warned Madame of the new horrors they had demanded of
him, and as a proof of his candour, he confessed his feelings for
Eugenie, revealed what had already been done, and pledged his word
to break off everything, to abduct Eugenie from Franval and spirit
her away to one of Madame de Farneille's estates in Picardy, if both
these worthy ladies would grant him the permission to do so, and as
a reward would bestow on him in marriage the girl whom he would thus
have rescued from the edge of the abyss.

 Valmont's declarations and confessions had such a ring of truth
about them that Madame de Franval could not help but be convinced.
Valmont was an excellent match for her daughter. After Eugenie's
wretched conduct, had she even a right to expect as much? Valmont
would assume the responsibility for everything; there was no other
way to put a stop to this frightful crime which was driving her to
distraction. Moreover, could she not flatter herself that, once the
only affair which could really become dangerous both for her and her
husband had been broken off, his sentiments might once again be
directed toward her? This last consideration tipped the scales in
favour of Valmont's plan, and she gave her consent, but only on
condition that Valmont give her his word not to fight a duel with
her husband and that, after he had delivered Eugenie into Madame de
Farneille's hands, he would go abroad and remain there until
Franval's fury had abated sufficiently to console himself for the
loss of his illicit love and finally consent to the marriage.
Valmont agreed to everything; and for her part, Madame de Franval
assured him of her mother's full co-operation and promised that she
would in no wise oppose or obstruct any of the decisions they came
to together. Upon which Valmont left, after again apologizing for
having acted so basely against her by participating in her
unprincipled husband's schemes.

 Madame de Farneille, who was immediately apprised of the affair,
left the following day for Picardy, and Franval, caught up in the
perpetual whirlwind of his pleasures, counting solidly on Valmont
and no longer fearful of Clervil, cast himself into the trap
prepared for him with the same guilelessness which he had so often
desired to see in others when, in his turn, he had been making his
preparations to ensnare them.

 For about six months Eugenie, who was now just shy of turning
seventeen, had been going out alone or in the company of a few of
her female friends. On the eve of the day when Valmont, in
accordance with the arrangements made with her father, was to launch
his assault upon Madame de Franval, Eugenie had gone alone to see a
new play at the Comedie-Francaise. She likewise left the theatre
alone, having arranged to meet her father at a given place from
which they were to drive elsewhere to dine together.... Shortly
after her carriage had left the Faubourg Saint-Germain, ten masked
men stopped the horses, opened the carriage door, seized Eugenie,
and bundled her into a post chaise beside Valmont who, taking every
precaution to keep her from crying out, ordered the post chaise to
set off with all possible speed, and in the twinkling of an eye they
were out of Paris.

 Unfortunately, it had been impossible to get rid of Eugenie's
retainers or her carriage, and as a result Franval was notified very
quickly. Valmont, to make a safe escape, had counted both on
Franval's uncertainty as to the route he would take and the two or
three hour advance that he would necessarily have. If only he could
manage to reach Madame de Farneille's estate, that was all he would
need, for from there two trustworthy women and a stage-coach were
waiting for Eugenie to drive her toward the border, to a sanctuary
with which even he was unfamiliar. Meanwhile, Valmont would go
immediately to Holland, returning only to marry Eugenie when Madame
de Farneille and her daughter informed him there were no further
obstacles. But fate allowed these well-laid plans to come to grief
through the designs of the horrible scoundrel with whom we are
dealing.

 When the news reached him, Franval did not lose a second. He rushed
to the post house and asked for what routes horses had been given
since six o'clock that evening. At seven, a traveling coach had
departed for Lyon; at eight, a post chaise for Picardy. Franval did
not hesitate: the coach for Lyon was certainly of no interest to
him, but a post chaise heading toward a province where Madame de
Farneille had an estate, yes, that was it: to doubt it would have
been madness.

 He therefore promptly had the eight best horses at the post hitched
up to the carriage in which he was riding, ordered saddles for his
servants and, while the horses were being harnessed, purchased and
loaded some pistols. And then he set off like an arrow, drawn by
love, despair, and a thirst for revenge. When he stopped to change
horses at Senlis, he learned that the post chaise he was pursuing
had only just left.... Franval ordered his men to proceed at top
speed. Unfortunately for him, he overtook the post chaise; both he
and his servants, with drawn pistols, stopped Valmont's coach, and
as soon as the impetuous Franval recognized his adversary, he blew
his brains out before Valmont had a chance to defend himself, seized
Eugenie, who was faint with fright, tossed her into his own
carriage, and was back in Paris before ten o'clock the following
morning. Not in the least apprehensive about all that had just
happened, Franval devoted his full attention to Eugenie.... Had the
traitorous Valmont tried to take advantage of the circumstances? Was
Eugenie still faithful, and were his guilty bonds still intact and
unsullied ? Mademoiselle de Franval reassured her father: Valmont
had done no more than reveal his plans to her and, full of hope that
he would soon be hers in marriage, he refrained from profaning the
altar whereon he wished to offer his pure vows.

 Franval was reassured by her solemn oaths.... But what about his
wife?... Was she aware of these machinations? was she involved in
them in any way? Eugenie, who had had ample time to inform herself
on this matter, guaranteed that the entire plot had been the work of
her mother, upon whom she showered the most odious names. She also
declared that that fateful meeting between Valmont and her mother,
wherein the former was, so Franval thought, preparing to serve him
so well, had in fact been the meeting during which Valmont had most
shamelessly betrayed him.

 "Ah!" said Franval, beside himself with anger, "if only he had a
thousand lives... I would wrench them from him one after the
other.... And my wife I Here I was trying to lull her, and she was
the first to deceive me;... that creature people think so soft and
gentle... that angel of virtue!... Ah, traitor, you female traitor,
you will pay dearly for your crime.... My revenge calls for blood,
and, if I must, I shall draw it with my own lips from your
treacherous veins.... Do not be upset, Eugenie," Franval went on
in a state of great agitation, "yes, calm yourself, you need some
rest. Go and take a few hours' rest, and I shall take care of
everything."

 Meanwhile Madame de Farneille, who had stationed spies along the
road, was soon informed of everything that had just happened.
Knowing that her granddaughter had been recaptured and Valmont
killed, she lost not a moment returning to Paris.... Furious, she
immediately called her advisers together; they pointed out to her
that Valmont's murder was going to deliver Franval into her hands,
and that the influence she feared was shortly going to vanish and
she would straightway regain control over both her daughter and
Eugenie. But they counselled her to avoid a public scandal, and, for
fear of a degrading trial, to solicit a writ that would put her
son-in-law out of the way.

 Franval was immediately informed of this counsel and of the
proceedings that were being taken as a result. Having learned both
that his crime was known and that his mother-in-law was, so they
told him, only waiting to take advantage of his disaster, Franval
left with all dispatch for Versailles, where he saw the Minister and
disclosed the whole affair to him. The Minister's reply was to
advise Franval to waste no time leaving for one of his estates in
Alsace, near the Swiss border.

 Franval returned home at once, having made up his mind not to leave
without both his wife and his daughter, for a number of reasons: to
make sure he would not miss out on his plans for revenge and the
punishment he had reserved for his wife's treason, and also to be in
possession of hostages dear enough to Madame de Farneille's heart so
that she would not dare, at least politically, to instigate actions
against him. But would Madame de Franval agree to accompany him to
Valmor, the estate to which the Minister had suggested he retire?
Feeling herself guilty of that kind of treason which had been the
cause of everything which had happened, would she be willing to
leave for such a distant place? Would she dare to entrust herself
without fear to the arms of her outraged husband? Such were the
considerations which worried Franval. To ascertain exactly where he
stood, Franval at once went in to see his wife, who already knew
everything.

 "Madame," he said to her coldly, "you have plunged me into an abyss
of woe by your thoughtless indiscretions. While I condemn the
effects, I nonetheless applaud the cause, which surely stems from
your love both for your daughter and myself. And since the initial
wrongs are mine, I must forget the second. My dear and tender wife,
who art half my life," he went on, falling to his knees, "will you
consent to a reconciliation which nothing can ever again disturb? I
come here to offer you that reconciliation, and to seal it here is
what I place in your hands...."

 So saying he lays at his wife's feet all the forged papers and
false correspondence with Valmont.

 "Burn all these, my dear friend, I beseech you," the traitor went
on, with feigned tears, "and forgive what jealousy drove me to. Let
us banish all this bitterness between us. Great are my wrongs, that
I confess. But who knows whether Valmont, to assure the success of
his plans, has not painted an even darker picture of me than I truly
deserve.... If he dared tell you that I have ever ceased to love
you... that you were other than the most precious object in the
world, and the one most worthy of respect - ah, my dear angel, if he
sullied himself with calumnies such as these, then I say I have done
well to rid the world of such a rogue and imposter!"

 "Oh! Monsieur," Madame de Franval said in tears, "is it possible
even to conceive the atrocities you devised against me? How do you
expect me to have the least confidence in you after such horrors ?"

 "Oh! most tender and loving of women, my fondest desire is that you
love me still! What I desire is that, accusing my head alone for the
multitude of my sins, you convince yourself that this heart, wherein
you reign eternally, has ever been incapable of betraying you....
Yes, I want you to know that there is not one of my errors which has
not brought me closer to you.... The more I withdrew from my dear
wife, and the greater the distance between us became, the more I
came to realize how impossible it was to replace her in any realm
whatsoever. Neither the pleasures nor the sentiments equalled those
that my inconstancy caused me to lose with her, and in the very arms
of her image I regretted reality.... Oh! my dear, my divine friend,
where else could I find a heart such as yours? Where else savour the
pleasures one culls only in your arms? Yes, I forsake all my errors,
my failings... henceforth I wish to live only for you in this
world... to restore in your wounded heart that love which my wrongs
destroyed... wrongs whose very memory I now abjure.

 It was impossible for Madame de Franval to resist such tender
effusions on the part of the man she still adored. Is it possible to
hate what one has loved so dearly? Can a woman of her delicate and
sensitive soul have naught but cold, unfeeling looks for the object
which was once so precious to her, cast down at her feet, weeping
bitter tears of remorse? She broke down and began to sob....

 "I who have never ceased adoring you, you cruel and wicked man,"
she said, pressing her husband's hands to her heart, " 'tis I whom
you have wantonly driven to despair. Ah! Heaven is my witness that
of all the scourges with which you might have afflicted me, the fear
of losing your heart, of being suspected by you, became the most
painful of all to bear.... And what object do you choose to outrage
me with?... My daughter... 'tis with her hands you pierce my
heart... do you wish to oblige me to hate her whom Nature has made
so dear to me ?"

 "Listen to me," Franval said, his tone waxing ever more ardent, "I
want to bring her back to you on her knees, humbled, I want her to
abjure, as I have done, both her shamelessness and her sins; I want
her to obtain, as I have, your pardon. Let us henceforth concern
ourselves, all three of us, with nothing but our mutual happiness. I
am going to return your daughter to you... return my wife to me...
and let us flee."

 "Flee, Great God!"

 "My adventure is stirring up trouble . . . tomorrow may already be
too late.... My friends, the Minister, everyone has advised me to
take a voyage to Valmor.... Please come with me, my love! Is it
possible that at the very moment when I prostrate myself before you
asking for your forgiveness you could break my heart by your
refusal?"

 "You frighten me.... What, this adventure ..."

 "... is being treated not as a duel but as a murder."

 "Dear God! And I am the cause of it!... Give me your orders, do:
dispose of me as you will, my dear husband. I am ready to follow
you, to the ends of the earth, if need be.... Ah! I am the most
wretched woman alive!"

 "Consider yourself rather the most fortunate, since every moment of
my life is henceforth going to be dedicated to changing into flowers
the thorns which in the past I have strewn in your path.... Is a
desert not enough, when two people love each other? Moreover, this
is a situation which cannot last forever. I have friends who have
been apprised... who are going to act."

 "But my mother... I should like to see her...."

 "No, my love, above all not that. I have positive proof that 'tis
she who is stirring up Valmont's family against me, and that, with
them, 'tis she who is working toward my destruction...."

 "She is incapable of such baseness. Stop imagining such perfidious
horrors. Her soul, totally disposed toward love, has never known
deceit.... You never did appreciate her, Franval. If only you had
learned to love her as I do! In her arms we both would have found
true happiness on earth. She was the angel of peace that Heaven
offered to the errors of your life. Your injustice rejected her
proffered heart, which was always open to tenderness, and by
inconsequence or caprice, by ingratitude or libertinage, you
voluntarily turned your back on the best and most loving friend
that Nature ever created for you.... Is it true then, you really
don't want me to see her ?"

 "No. I'm afraid I must insist. Time is too precious! You will write
her, you will describe my repentance to her. Perhaps she will
be moved by my remorse... perhaps I shall one day win back her love
and esteem. The storm will one day abate, and we shall come back to
Paris, and there, in her arms, we shall revel in her forgiveness and
tenderness.... But now, let us be off, dear friend, we must be gone
within the hour at most, the carriage awaits without...."

 Terrified, Madame de Franval did not dare raise any further
objections. She went about her preparations. Were not Franval's
slightest wishes her commands. The traitor flew back to his daughter
and brought her back to her mother. There the false creature throws
herself at her mother's feet with full as much perfidy as had her
father. She weeps, she implores her forgiveness, and she obtains it.
Madame de Franval embraces her; how difficult it is to forget one is
a mother, no matter how one's children have sinned against her. In a
sensitive soul, the voice of Nature is so imperious that the
slightest tear from these sacred objects of a mother's affection is
enough to make her forget twenty years of faults and failings.

 They set off for Valmor. The extreme haste with which this voyage
had been prepared justified in Madame de Franval's eyes, which were
still as blind and credulous as ever, the paucity of servants that
they took along with them. Crime shuns a plethora of eyes, and fears
them all; feeling its security possible only in the darkness of
mystery, it envelops itself in shadow whenever it desires to act.

 When they reached the country estate, nothing was changed, all was
as he had promised: constant attentions, respect, solicitous care,
evidence of tenderness on the one hand... and on the other, the most
ardent love - all this was lavished on poor Madame de Franval, who
easily succumbed to it. At the end of the world, far removed from
her mother, in the depths of a terrible solitude, she was happy
because, as she would say, she had her husband's heart again and
because her daughter, constantly at her knees, was concerned solely
with pleasing her.

 Eugenie's room and that of her father were no longer adjoining.
Franval's room was at the far end of the chateau, Eugenie's was next
to her mother's. At Valmor, the qualities of decency, regularity,
and modesty replaced to the utmost degree all the disorders of the
capital. Night after night Franval repaired to his wife's room and
there, in the bosom of innocence, candour, and love, the scoundrel
shamelessly dared to nourish her hopes with his horrors. Cruel
enough not to be disarmed by those naive and ardent caresses which
the most delicate of women lavished upon him, it was at the torch of
love itself that the villain lighted the torch of vengeance.

 As one can easily imagine, however, Franval's attentions toward
Eugenie had not diminished. In the morning, while her mother was
occupied with her toilet, Eugenie would meet her father at the far
end of the garden, and from him she would receive the necessary
instructions and the favours which she was far from willing to cede
completely to her rival.

 No more than a week after their arrival in this retreat, Franval
learned that Valmont's family was prosecuting him unremittingly, and
that the affair was going to be dealt with in a most serious manner.
It was becoming difficult, so they said, to pass it off as a duel,
for unfortunately there had been too many witnesses. Furthermore, so
Franval was informed, beyond any shadow of a doubt Madame de
Farneille was leading the pack of her son-in-law's enemies, her
clear intention being to complete his ruin by putting him behind
bars or obliging him to leave France, and thus to restore to her as
soon as possible the two beloved creatures from whom she was
presently separated.

 Franval showed these missives to his wife. She at once took out pen
and paper to calm her mother, to urge her to see matters in a
different light, and to depict for her the happiness she had been
enjoying ever since misfortune had succeeded in mollifying the soul
of her poor husband. Furthermore, she assured her mother that
all her efforts to force her back to Paris with her daughter would
be quite in vain, for she had resolved not to leave Valmor until her
husband's difficulties had been settled, and ended by saying that if
ever the malice of his enemies or the absurdity of his judges should
cause a warrant for his arrest to be issued which was degrading to
him, she had fully made up her mind to accompany him into exile.

 Franval thanked his wife. But having not the least desire to sit
and wait for the fate that was being prepared for him, he informed
her that he was going to spend some time in Switzerland. He would
leave Eugenie in her care, and he begged both women, nay made them
promise, not to leave Valmor so long as his fate was still in doubt.
No matter what fate might decide for him, he said, he would still
return to spend twenty-four hours with his dear wife, to consult
with her as to the means for returning to Paris if nothing stood in
the way or, if fortune had turned against him, for leaving to go and
live somewhere in safety.

 Having taken these decisions, Franval, who had not for a moment
forgotten that the sole cause of his misfortunes was his wife's rash
and imprudent plot with Valmont, and who was still consumed with a
desire for revenge, sent word to his daughter that he was waiting
for her in the remote part of the park. He locked himself in an
isolated summer house with her, and after having made her swear
blind obedience to everything he was going to order her to do, he
kissed her and spoke to her in the following manner:

 "You are about to lose me, my daughter, perhaps forever."

 And seeing tears welling up into Eugenie's eyes:

 "Calm yourself, my angel," he said to her, "our future happiness is
in your hands, and in yours alone. Only you can determine whether we
can again find the happiness that once was ours, whether it be in
France or somewhere else. You, Eugenie, I trust are as persuaded as
one can possibly be that your mother is the sole cause of our
misfortunes. You know that I have not lost sight of my plans for
revenge. If I have concealed these plans from my wife, you have been
aware of my reasons and have approved of them; in fact 'twas you who
helped me fashion the blindfold with which it seemed prudent to
cover her eyes. The time has come to act, Eugenie, the end is at
hand. Your future peace of mind and body depends on it, and what you
are going to undertake will assure mine forever as well. You will, I
trust, hear me out, and you are too intelligent a girl to be in the
least alarmed by what I am about to propose. Yes, my child, the time
has come to act, and act we must, without delay and without remorse,
and this must be your work.

 "Your mother has wished to make you miserable, she has defiled the
bonds to which she lays claim, and by so doing she has lost all
rights to them. Henceforth she is not only no longer anything more
than an ordinary woman for you, but she has even become your worst,
your mortal enemy. Now, the law of Nature most deeply graven in our
hearts is that we must above all rid ourselves, if we can, of those
who conspire against us. This sacred law, which constantly moves and
inspires us, does not instill within us the love of our neighbour as
being above the love we owe ourselves. First ourselves, then the
others: this is nature's order of progression. Consequently, we must
show no respect, no quarter for others as soon as they have shown
that our misfortune or our ruin is the object of their desires. To
act differently, my daughter, would be to show preference for others
above ourselves, and that would be absurd. Now, let me come to the
reasons behind the action I shall counsel you to take.

 "I am obliged to leave, and you know the reasons why. If I leave
you with this woman, Eugenie, within the space of a month her mother
will have enticed her back to Paris, and since, after the scandal
that has just occurred, you can no longer marry, you can rest
assured that these two cruel persons will gain ascendancy over you
only to send you to a convent, there to weep over your weakness and
repent of our pleasures. 'Tis your grandmother who hounds and
pursues me, Eugenie, 'tis she who joins hands with my enemies to
complete my destruction. Can such zeal, such methods have any
purpose other than to regain possession of you, and can you doubt
that once she has you she will have you confined? The worse things
go with me, the more those who are persecuting and tormenting us
will grow strong and increasingly influential. Now, it would be
wrong to doubt that, inwardly, your mother is the brains behind this
group, as it would be wrong to doubt that, once I have gone, she
will rejoin them. And yet this faction desires my ruin only in order
to make you the most wretched woman alive. Therefore we must lose no
time in weakening it, and it will be deprived of its most sturdy
pillar if your mother is removed from it. Can we opt for another
course of action? Can I take you with me? Your mother will be most
annoyed, will run back to her mother, and from that day on, Eugenie,
we will never know another moment's peace. We will be persecuted and
pursued from place to place, no country will have the right to offer
us asylum, no refuge on the face of the earth will be held sacred...
inviolable, in the eyes of the monsters whose fury will pursue us.
Do you have any idea how far these odious arms of despotism and
tyranny can stretch when they have the weight of gold behind them
and are directed by malice? But with your mother dead, on the
contrary, Madame de Farneille, who loves her more than she loves you
and who has acted solely for her sake in this whole endeavour, seeing
her faction deprived of the only person to whom she was really
attached in the group, will abandon everything, will stop goading my
enemies and arousing them against me. At this juncture, one of two
things will happen: either the Valmont incident will be settled and
we shall be able to return to Paris in safety, or else the case will
become more serious, in which case we shall be obliged to leave
France and go to another country, but at least we shall be safe from
Madame de Farneille's machinations. But as long as her daughter is
still alive, Madame de Farneille will have but a single purpose in
mind, and that will be our ruin, because, once again, she believes
that her daughter's happiness can be obtained only at the price of
our downfall.

 "No matter from what angle we view our situation, then, you will
see that Madame de Franval is the constant thorn in the side of our
security, and her loathsome presence is the most certain obstacle to
our happiness.

 "Eugenie, Eugenie," Franval continued warmly, taking his daughter's
hands in his, "my dear Eugenie, you do love me? Do you therefore
consent to lose forever the person who adores you, for fear of an
act as essential to our interests? My dear and loving Eugenie, you
must decide: you can keep only one of us. You are obliged to kill
one of your parents, only the choice of which heart you shall choose
as the target of your dagger yet remains. Either your mother must
perish, or else you must give me up.... What am I saying? You will
have to slit my throat.... Alas, could I live without you? Do you
think it would be possible for me to live without my Eugenie? Could
I endure the memory of the pleasures I have tasted in these arms,
these delightful pleasures that I shall have lost forever? Your
crime, Eugenie, your crime is the same in either case: either you
must destroy a mother who loathes you and who lives only to make you
unhappy, or else you must murder a father whose every breath is
drawn only for you. Choose, Eugenie, go ahead and choose, and if
'tis I you condemn, then do not hesitate, ungrateful daughter: show
no pity when you pierce this heart whose only wrong has been to love
you too deeply; strike, and I shall bless the blows you strike, and
with my last breath I shall say again how I adore you.

 Franval fell silent, to hear what his daughter would reply, but she
seemed to be lost in deep thought. Finally she threw herself into
her father's arms.

 "Oh, you, you whom I shall love all my life, can you doubt of the
choice I shall make? Can you suspect my courage? Arm me at once, and
she who, by her terrible deeds and the threat she poses to your
safety, is proscribed will soon fall beneath my blows. Instruct me,
Franval, tell me what to do; leave, since your safety demands it,
and I shall act while you are gone. I shall keep you apprised of
everything. But no matter what turn things may take, once our enemy
has been disposed of, do not leave me alone in this chateau.... Come
back for me, or send for me to come and join you wherever you may
be."

 "My darling daughter," said Franval, kissing this monster who had
shown herself to be an all too apt pupil of his seductions, "I knew
that I would find in you all the sentiments of love and
steadfastness of purpose necessary to our mutual happiness....
Take this box. Death lies within its lid...."

 Eugenie took the fatal box and repeated her promises to her father.
Other decisions were taken: it was decided that Eugenie would await
the outcome of the trial, and that the decision as to whether the
projected crime would take place or not would be dependent upon
whether the decision was for or against her father.... They took
leave of each other, Franval went to pay a call upon his wife, and
there carried audacity and deceit so far as to inundate her with his
tears, the while receiving from this heavenly angel, without once
giving himself away, the touching caresses so full of candour which
she lavished upon him. Then, having been given her solemn promise
that she would most assuredly remain in Alsace with Eugenie no
matter what the outcome of his case, the scoundrel mounted his horse
and rode away, leaving behind him the innocence and virtue which his
crimes had sullied so long.

 Franval proceeded to Basel, and there procured lodgings, for at
Basel he was safe from any legal actions that might be instituted
against him and at the same time was as close to Valmor as one
could possibly be, so that his letters might maintain Eugenie in the
frame of mind he desired to keep her in while he was away.... Basel
and Valmor were about twenty-five leagues apart, and although the
road between them went through the Black Forest, communications were
easy enough, so that he was able to receive news of his daughter
once a week. As a measure of precaution, Franval brought an enormous
sum of money with him, but more in paper than in cash. Let us leave
him then, getting settled in Switzerland, and return to his wife.

 Nothing could have been purer or more sincere than this excellent
woman's intentions. She had promised her husband to remain in the
country until he had given her further orders, and nothing in the
world could have made her change her mind, as she was wont to assure
Eugenie every day.... Unfortunately too far removed from her mother
to place her trust in this worthy woman, still a party to Franval's
injustice - the seeds of which he nourished by his letters sent
regularly once a week - Eugenie did not for a moment entertain the
thought that she could have a worse enemy in the world than her
mother. And yet there was nothing her mother did not do to try and
break down the invincible antipathy that this ungrateful child kept
buried deep in her heart. She showered friendship and caresses on
her, she expressed tender satisfaction with her over her husband's
fortunate change of heart, she even went so far in her
manifestations of gentleness and meekness as to thank Eugenie at
times and give her all the credit for the happy conversion. And then
she would grieve at being the innocent cause of the new calamities
that were threatening Franval; far from accusing Eugenie, she put
the entire onus on herself and, clasping Eugenie to her heart, she
would tearfully ask her whether she could ever forgive her
mother.... Eugenie's heart remained hardened to these angelic
advances, and her perverse soul was deaf to the voice of Nature, for
vice had closed off every avenue by which one might reach her....
Coldly withdrawing from her mother's arms, she would look at her
with eyes that were often wild and would say to herself, by way of
encouragement: How false this woman is... how full of deceit and
treachery. The day she had me abducted she caressed me in exactly
the same way. But these unjust reproaches were naught but the
abominable sophisms with which crime steadies and supports itself
whenever it tries to smother the conscience. Madame de Franval,
whose motives in having Eugenie abducted were her own happiness and
peace of mind, and in the interest of virtue, had, it is true,
concealed her plans. But such pretense is condemned only by the
guilty party who is deceived by it, and in no wise offends probity.
Thus Eugenie resisted all her mother's proffered tenderness because
she wanted to commit an atrocity, and not in the least because of
any wrongs on the part of a mother who had surely committed none
with regard to her.

 Toward the end of the first month of their stay at Valmor, Madame
de Farneille wrote to her daughter that her husband's case was
becoming increasingly serious and that, in view of the fear of an
unfavourable decision by the court, the return of both Madame de
Franval and Eugenie had become a matter of urgent necessity, not
only to make an impression on the public, which was spreading the
worst kind of gossip, but also to join forces with her and together
seek some sort of arrangement that might be able to disarm the
forces of justice, and answer for the culprit without sacrificing
him.

 Madame de Franval, who had resolved not to conceal anything from
her daughter, immediately showed her this letter. Staring coldly at
her mother, Eugenie asked her evenly what she intended to do in view
of this sad news?

 "I don't know," Madame de Franval replied. "But the fact is I
wonder what good we are doing here? Would we not be serving my
husband's interests far better by taking my mother's advice?"

 "'Tis you who are in full charge, Madame," Eugenie replied. "My
role is to obey, and you may rest assured of my obedience."

 But Madame de Franval, clearly seeing from the curt manner of her
daughter's reply that she was dead set against it, told her that she
was going to wait, that she would write again, and that Eugenie
could be quite sure that if ever she were to fail to follow
Franval's intentions, it would only be when she was completely
certain that she could serve him better in Paris than at Valmor.

 Another month passed in this manner, during which Franval continued
to write both to his wife and daughter, and from whom he received
letters that could not help but please him, since he saw in those
from his wife naught but the most perfect acquiescence to his every
desire, and in those from his daughter an unwavering determination
to carry out the projected crime as soon as the turn of events
required it, or whenever Madame de Franval seemed on the verge of
complying with her mother's solicitations.

 For, as Eugenie noted in one of her letters, "If I see in your wife
naught but the qualities of honesty and candour, and if the friends
working on your case in Paris succeed in bringing it to a happy
conclusion, I shall turn over to you the task you have entrusted me
and you can accomplish it yourself when we are together, if you deem
it advisable then. But of course if you should in any case order me
to act, and should find it indispensable that I do so, then I shall
assume the full responsibility for it by myself, of that you may be
sure."

 In his reply, Franval approved of everything she reported to him,
and these were the last two letters he received and sent. The
following mail brought him no more. Franval grew worried. And when
the succeeding mail proved equally unsatisfactory, he grew
desperate, and since his natural restlessness no longer allowed him
to wait for further mails, he immediately decided to pay a personal
visit to Valmor to ascertain the reasons for the delays in the mails
that were upsetting him so cruelly.

 He set off on horseback, followed by a faithful valet. He had
calculated his voyage to arrive the second day, late enough at night
not to be recognized by anyone. At the edge of the woods which
surrounds the Valmor chateau and which, to the east, joins the Black
Forest, six well-armed men stopped Franval and his servant and
demanded their money. These rogues had been well informed; they knew
with whom they were dealing and were fully aware that Franval, being
implicated in an unpleasant affair, never travelled without his
paper money and immense amounts of gold.... The servant resisted,
and was laid out lifeless at the feet of his horse. Franval, drawing
his sword, leapt to the ground and attacked these scurvy creatures.
He wounded three of them, but found himself surrounded by the
others. They stripped him of everything he had, without however
being able to disarm him, and as soon as they had despoiled him the
thieves escaped. Franval followed them, but the brigands had
vanished so swiftly with their booty and horses that it was
impossible to tell in which direction they had gone.

 The weather that night was miserable. The cutting blast of the
north wind was accompanied by a driving hail - all the elements
seemed to be conspiring against this poor wretch. There are perhaps
cases in which Nature, revolted by the crimes of the person she is
pursuing, desires to overwhelm him with all the scourges at Her
command before drawing him back again into her bosom.... Franval,
half-naked but still holding onto his sword, directed his footsteps
as best he could away from this baleful place, and toward Valmor.
But as he was ill-acquainted with this estate, which he had visited
only the one time we have seen him there, he lost his way on the
darkened roads of this forest with which he was totally
unfamiliar.... completely exhausted, and racked by pain and worry,
tormented by the storm, he threw himself to the ground; and there
the first tears he had ever shed in his life flowed abundantly from
his eyes....

 "Ill-fated man," he cried out, "now is everything conspiring to
crush me at last... to make me feel the pangs of remorse. It took
the hand of disaster to pierce my heart. Deceived by the
blandishments of good fortune, I should have always gone on failing
to recognize it. Oh you, whom I have outraged so grievously, you who
at this very moment are perhaps becoming the victim of my fury and
barbarous plans, you my adorable wife... does the world,
vainglorious of your existence, still possess you? Has the hand of
Heaven put a stop to my horrors?... Eugenie! my too credulous
daughter... too basely seduced by my abominable cunning... has
Nature softened your heart?... Has she suspended the cruel effects
of my ascendancy and your weakness? Is there still time? Is there
still time, Just Heaven?..."

 Suddenly the plaintive and majestic sound of several pealing bells,
rising sadly heavenward, came to add to the horror of his fate....
He was deeply affected ... he grew terrified....

 "What is this I hear?" he cried out, getting to his feet.
"Barbarous daughter... is it death?... is it vengeance?... Are the
Furies of hell come then to finish their work? Do these sounds
announce to me...? Where am I? Can I hear them?... Finish, oh
Heaven, finish the task of destroying the culprit...."

 And, prostrating himself:

 "Almighty God, suffer me to join my voice to those who at this
moment are imploring Thee... see my remorse and Thy power, and
pardon me for disowning Thee. I beseech Thee to grant me this
prayer, the first prayer I dare to direct at Thee! Supreme Being,
preserve virtue, protect her who was Thy most beautiful image on
this earth. I pray that these sounds, these mournful sounds, may not
be those I fear and dread."

 And Franval, completely distraught, no longer aware of what he was
doing nor where he was going, his speech but an incoherent mumble,
followed whatever path he chanced across.... He heard someone ... he
regained control of himself and listened.... It was a man on
horseback.

 "Whoever you are," Franval called out, advancing toward this man,
"whoever you may be, take pity on a poor wretch whom pain and sorrow
has rendered distraught. I am ready to take my own life.... Instruct
me, help me, if you are a man, and a man of any compassion... deign
to save me from myself."

 "Good God!" replied a voice too well-known to poor Franval. "What!
You here?... For the sake of all that is holy, leave, go away!"

 And Clervil - for 'twas he, this worthy mortal, who had escaped
from Franval's prison, whom fate had sent toward this miserable
creature in the saddest moment of his life - Clervil jumped down off
his horse and fell into the arms of his enemy.

 "So 'tis you, Monsieur," Franval said, clasping the honourable man
to his breast, "you upon whom I have wrought so many horrible acts
which weigh so heavily on my conscience!"

 "Calm yourself, Monsieur, you must calm yourself. I put away from
me all the misfortunes that have recently surrounded me, nor do I
remember those which you wished to inflict upon me when Heaven
allows me to serve you... and I am going to be of service to you,
Monsieur, doubtless in a manner which will be rather cruel, but
necessary.... Here, let us sit down at the foot of this cypress, for
now its sinister boughs alone shall be a fitting wreath for you. Oh,
my dear Franval, what reverses of fortune I must acquaint you
with!... Weep, my friend, for tears will relieve you, and I must
cause even more bitter tears to flow from your eyes.... Your days of
delight are over... they have vanished as a dream. And all you have
left to you are days of sorrow and grief."

 "Oh, Monsieur, I understand you... those bells..."

 "Those bells are bearing the homage, the prayers of the inhabitants
of Valmor to the feet of Almighty God, for He has allowed them to
know an angel only so that they might pity and mourn her all the
more."

 At which point Franval, placing the tip of his sword at his heart,
was about to cut the frail thread of his days, but Clervil
forestalled this desperate act:

 "No, no, my friend," he cried, " 'tis not death that is needed, but
reparation. Hear what I have to say, I have much to tell you, and to
tell it, an atmosphere of calm is required."

 "Very well, Monsieur, speak. I am listening. Plunge the dagger by
slow degrees into my heart. It is only just that he who has tried to
torment others should in his turn be oppressed."

 "I shall be brief as regards myself, Monsieur," Clervil said.
"After several months of the frightful detention to which you
subjected me, I was fortunate enough to move my guard to pity. I
strongly advised him meticulously to conceal the injustice which you
committed regarding me. He will not reveal it, my dear Franval, he
will never reveal that secret."

 "Oh, Monsieur..."

 "Hear me out. I repeat that I have much to tell you. Upon my return
to Paris I learned of your sorry adventure... your departure.... I
shared Madame de Farneille's tears, which were more sincere than you
ever believed. Together with this worthy lady, I conspired to
persuade Madame de Franval to bring Eugenie back to us, her presence
being more necessary in Paris than in Alsace.... You had forbidden
her to leave Valmor.... she obeyed you. She apprised us of these
orders and of her reluctance to contradict them. She hesitated as
long as she could. You were found guilty, Franval, and the sentence
still stands. You have been sentenced to death as guilty of a
highway murder. Neither Madame de Farneille's entreaties nor the
efforts of your family and friends could alter the decision of
justice: you have been worsted... dishonoured forever... you are
ruined... all your goods and estates have been seized...." (And in
response to a second, violent movement on Franval's part:) "Listen
to me, Monsieur, hear me out, I say, I demand this of you in
expiation of your crimes; I demand it too in the name of Heaven,
which may still be moved to forgiveness by your repentance. At this
time we wrote to Madame de Franval to apprise her of all this: her
mother informed her that, as her presence had become absolutely
indispensable, she was sending me to Valmor to persuade her once and
for all to return to Paris. I set off immediately after the letter
was posted, but unfortunately it reached Valmor before me. When I
arrived, it was already too late; your horrible plot had succeeded
only too well; I found Madame de Franval dying.... Oh, Monsieur,
what base, what foul villainy!... But I am touched by your abject
state, I shall refrain from reproaching you any further for your
crimes. Let me tell you everything. Eugenie was unable to bear the
sight, and when I arrived her repentance was already expressed by a
flood of tears and bitter sobs.... Oh, Monsieur, how can I describe
to you the cruel effect of this varied scene. Your wife, disfigured
by convulsions of pain, was dying.... Eugenie, having been reclaimed
by Nature, was uttering frightful cries, confessing her guilt,
invoking death, wanting to kill herself, in turn falling at the feet
of those whom she was imploring and fastening herself to the breast
of her mother, trying desperately to revive her with her own breath,
to warm her with her tears, to move her by the spectacle of her
remorse; such, Monsieur, was the sinister scene that struck my eyes
when I arrived at Valmor.

 "When I entered the house, Madame de Franval recognized me. She
pressed my hands in hers, wet them with her tears, and uttered a few
words which I had great difficulty hearing, for they could scarcely
escape from her chest which was constricted from the effects of the
poison. She forgave you.... She implored Heaven's forgiveness for
you, and above all she asked for her daughter's forgiveness.... See
then, barbarous man, that the final thoughts, the final prayers of
this woman whose heart you broke and whose virtue you vilified were
yet for your happiness.

 "I gave her every care I could, and revived the flagging spirits of
the servants to do the same, I called upon the most celebrated
practitioners of medicine available... and I employed all my
resources to console your Eugenie. Touched by the terrible state she
was in, I felt I had no right to refuse her my consolations. But
nothing succeeded. Your poor wife gave up the ghost amid such
convulsions and torments as are impossible to describe. At that
fatal moment, Monsieur, I witnessed one of the sudden effects of
remorse which till then had been unknown to me. Eugenie threw
herself on her mother and died at the same moment as she. We all
thought she had merely fainted.... No, all her faculties were
extinguished. The situation had produced such a shock to her vital
organs that they had all ceased simultaneously to function, and she
actually died from the violent impact of remorse, grief, and
despair.... Yes, Monsieur, both are lost to you. And the bells which
you yet hear pealing are celebrating simultaneously two creatures,
both of whom were born to make you happy, whom your hideous crimes
have made the victims of their attachment to you, and whose bloody
images will pursue you to your grave.

 "Oh, my dear Franval, was I wrong then in times past to try and
save you from the abyss into which your passions were plunging you?
Will you still condemn, still cover with ridicule the votaries of
virtue? And are virtue's disciples wrong to burn incense at its
altars when they see crime so surrounded by troubles and scourges ?"

 Clervil fell silent. He glanced at Franval and saw that he was
petrified with sorrow. His eyes were fixed and from them tears were
flowing, but no expression managed to cross his lips. Clervil asked
him why he had found him in this half-naked state. In two words,
Franval related to him what had happened.

 "Ah, Monsieur," cried the generous Clervil, "how happy I am, even
in the midst of all the horrors which surround me, to be able at
least to ease your situation. I was on my way to Basel in search of
you, I was going to acquaint you with all that had happened, I was
going to offer you the little I possess.... Take it, I beg you to.
As you know, I am not rich, but here are a hundred louis, my life's
savings, they are all I own. I demand that you..."

 "Oh noble and generous man," Franval cried, embracing the knees of
that rare and honourable friend, "why me? Do I need anything, after
the losses I have suffered? And from you, you whom I have treated so
miserably, 'tis you who fly to my help."

 "Must we remember past wrongs when misfortune overwhelms him who
has done them to us? When this happens, the only revenge we owe is
to alleviate his suffering. And what point is there in adding to his
grief when his heart is burdened with his own reproaches?...
Monsieur, that is the voice of Nature. You can see that the sacred
cult of a Supreme Being does not run counter to it as you had
supposed, since the counsel offered by the one is naught but the
holy writ of the other."

 "No," said Franval, getting to his feet, "no, Monsieur, I no longer
have need for anything at all. Since Heaven has left me this one
last possession," he went on, displaying his sword, "teach me what
use I must put it to...." (Looking at the sword :) "This, my dear,
my only friend, this is the same sword that my saintly wife seized
one day to plunge into her breast when I was overwhelming her with
horrors and calumnies.... 'Tis the very same.... Perhaps I may even
discover traces of her sacred blood on it... blood which my own must
efface.... Come, let us walk awhile, until we come to some cottages
wherein I may inform you of my last wishes ... and then we shall
take leave of each other forever...."

 They began walking, keeping a look out for a road that would lead
them to some habitation.... Night still enveloped the forest in its
darkest veils. Suddenly the sound of mournful hymns was heard, and
the men saw several torches rending the dark shadows and lending the
scene a tinge of horror that only sensitive souls will understand.
The pealing of bells grew louder, and to these mournful accents,
which were still only scarcely audible, were joined flashes of
lightning, which had hitherto been absent from the sky, and the
ensuing thunder which mingled with the funereal sounds they had
previously heard. The lightning which flashed across the skies,
occasionally eclipsing the sinister flames of the torches, seemed to
be vying with the inhabitants of the earth for the right to conduct
to her grave this woman whom the procession was accompanying.
Everything gave rise to horror, everything betokened desolation, and
it seemed that Nature herself had donned the garb of eternal
mourning.

 "What is this ?" said Franval, who was deeply moved

 "Nothing, nothing," Clervil said, taking his friend's hand and
leading him in another direction.

 "Nothing? No, you're misleading me. I want to see what it is..."

 He dashed forward... and saw a coffin.

 "Merciful Heaven," he cried. "There she is; it is she, it is she.
God has given me one last occasion to see her...."

 At the bidding of Clervil, who saw that it was impossible to calm
the poor man down, the priests departed in silence.... Completely
distraught, Franval threw himself on the coffin, and from it he
seized the sad remains of the woman whom he had so gravely offended.
He took the body in his arms and laid it at the foot of a tree, and
in a state of delirium threw himself upon it, crying in utter
despair:

 "Oh you whose life has been snuffed out by my barbarous cruelty, oh
touching creature whom I still adore, see at your feet your husband
beseeching your pardon and your forgiveness. Do not imagine that I
ask this in order to outlive you. No, no, 'tis in order that the
Almighty, touched by your virtues, might deign to forgive me as you
have done, if such be possible.... You must have blood, my sweet
wife, you must have blood to be avenged... and avenged you shall
be.... Ah! first see my tears and witness my repentance; I intend to
follow you, beloved shade... but who will receive my tortured soul
if you do not intercede for it? Rejected alike from the arms of God
and from your heart, do you wish to see it condemned to the hideous
tortures of Hell when it is so sincerely repentant of its crimes?
Forgive, dear soul, forgive these crimes, and see how I avenge
them."

 With these words Franval, eluding Clervil's gaze, plunged the sword
he was holding twice through his body. His impure blood flowed onto
his victim and seemed to sully her much more than avenge her.

 "Oh my friend," he said to Clervil, "I am dying, but I am dying in
the bosom of remorse.... Apprise those who remain behind both of my
deplorable end and of my crimes, tell them that is the way that a
man who is a miserable slave of his passions must die, a man vile
enough to have stifled in his heart the cry of duty and of Nature.
Do not deny me half of my wretched wife's coffin; without my remorse
I would not have been worthy of sharing it, but now my remorse
renders me full worthy of that favour, and I demand it. Adieu."

 Clervil granted poor Franval's dying wish, and the procession
continued on its way. An eternal refuge soon swallowed up a husband
and wife born to love each other, a couple fashioned for happiness
and who would have savoured it in its purest form if crime and its
frightful disorders had not, beneath the guilty hand of one of the
two, intervened to change their life from a garden of delight into a
viper's nest.

 The worthy ecclesiastic soon carried back to Paris the frightful
details of these different calamities. No one was distressed by the
death of Franval; only his life had been a cause of grief. But his
wife was mourned, bitterly mourned. And indeed what creature is more
precious, more appealing in the eyes of men than the person who has
cherished, respected, and cultivated the virtues of the earth and,
at each step of the way, has found naught but misfortune and grief?