The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 18

VII

[Two significant letters follow, one of which is the young girl's answer.]

MADEMOISELLE,--Having opened a few days ago one of the finest books written in this age, I read these charming words: "To be with those we love is enough. To dream, talk, keep silence, think of them, think of more indifferent things, but to be _near them_, is all one."

I could not see those words, Mademoiselle, without thinking of you, and I could not help adding: "What a torment it is to be far from her whom one loves." After thinking of that, I could not help writing.

I do not know whether you will take this for sterling truth; I mean to say, whether you will believe what I say. I am persuaded that you will not be in the least tempted to doubt my sincerity; but I do not know whether you will make much account of it. Here you are accused, you Dutch people, of loving only bills of exchange. As for me, I know a man who would value more highly than gold, however bright it may be, a compliment from you that would be as sincere as the one I have just paid you. I am, etc.--COSTE.

OATES, _6th February 1699_, O.S.

Pay the bearer 99,000,000,000 and a few millions, within six days, on sight.

Mademoiselle Suson Brun, the Her-Gracht, Amsterdam.

VIII

THE ANSWER TO THE ABOVE

MONSIEUR,--I am in receipt of yours of the 6th inst., and seeing you have drawn on me a bill of 99,000,000,000, I shall not fail to meet it when due; if there is anything in this city that I can do for you, I am yours to command. That is, Monsieur, the extent of the business gibberish I have acquired in five years' time. If you ask me only to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, you are now satisfied; but I should not be if I did not speak a language less barbarous and more intelligible than that one to persons like you and me. So I shall tell you, Monsieur, that of all the letters that I have received from you, none pleased me more than the last.

You ever love me, you say, and if you read some sweet thing, you remember me; I own I did not dare expect that from you; not but that I know you to be a sincere and true friend, but I was afraid of the distance, the fine ladies you would find in England and the persons of merit[297] you see every day; but above all I was afraid of human nature, unfit, it is said, for constancy; I beg your pardon, Monsieur, if I have confounded you with so many people from whom you deserve to be distinguished, as much on this score as on others already known to me ere I was convinced of the last.

If the esteem I have for you was not of the highest, it would no doubt increase on discovering in you so rare a virtue, for I terribly love kind friends, and though of a s.e.x to whose lot levity falls, nothing would pain me more than to cease loving one I had loved: what pleasure therefore it is for me who have loved, love, and will love you all my life, to have a friend such as I should wish to have! Ever love me, dear Monsieur, and believe that the brightness of gold, though I am in Holland, will never cause me such pleasure as the mere thought of having a friend tried by time. But I know not of what I am thinking. You ask only for a compliment and I am returning professions of love and lengthily too; no matter, compliments are only compliments, that is to say speeches generally devoid of meaning and that are far from expressing the true feelings of the heart, consequently they would be unfit to express the sincerity of the friendship I entertain for you; for

Of loyal friends if the fashion is lost, _I_ still love as women loved of old.

I write down those lines with a trembling hand, not knowing very well how that sort of thing must be put, but the lines express so fully my meaning that I thought you might overstep the rules, if the rhythm is not right; however that may be, you must be persuaded that such are the feelings of your kind friend.

(From Amsterdam, _3rd March 1699_.)

IX

[A gap in the correspondence. Two years later Coste writes the following letters.]

TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON

... Last century, you were infatuated with wit, you say, and you thought yourself bound to write in a sublime style. Don't tell me that, Mademoiselle. I know you too well to believe that of you. I know that last century your mind had depth and strength and you were strong-minded; you wrote well, knowing what tone to a.s.sume and never departing from it. If that be a fault, you are not rid of it at the beginning of this century....

As for me, I fancy that a charming shepherdess who, after talking to her shepherd about rain and fair weather, suddenly said without regard to connection in subjects: "Oh, dear Tirtis, how I love thee!" would persuade him far better than a more witty shepherdess who, coming more skilfully to the point, said: "See the lamb yonder, how pretty it is, how charmingly it frisks about the gra.s.s, it is my pet, I love it much, but, dear Tirtis, less than thee!" That is more witty but not so moving, if I am to believe those skilled in the matter....

"Yes, in my heart your portrait is engraved So deeply that, had I no eyes, Yet I should never lose the idea Of the charming features that Heaven bestowed on thee."

X

TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON BRUN

[The last letter has caused him much disquiet. Suson has fallen ill of "languor and melancholy".]

A peace-loving creature has brought you back to health; and you think yourself thereby protected against all the malicious reflections of our friend. a.s.ses' milk may cool the blood, enliven the complexion and restore the healthful look that you had lost,

"But its effect reaches not unto the heart."

If the sickness should be in that part, you must needs be wary; you might still remain ill a long time, in spite of your a.s.ses. There are remedies against love, but none are infallible. Such is a great master's decision.

See whether it would be becoming for an a.s.s to gainsay it.... Proud as you should be and delicate to the utmost, I do not think you in great danger in the country where you are. So I deem you quite cured. You may proclaim your victory, and, since you wish it, I shall proclaim it with you.... As for me, if I was to discover that you had allowed yourself to be touched by the merit of a gentleman who would feel some true tenderness for you, I should not esteem you the less, provided that love did not deprive me of your friendship. And, between you and me, I have some doubts on that score....--COSTE.

XI

[There were grounds to the feelings of jealousy shown in the last letter.

No explicit record is left of what happened. But ten years later Coste, now married to Marie de Laussac, the eldest daughter of M. de Laussac, an army chaplain in England, writes to his once dear Suson, since become the wife of one La Coste, a refugee living in Amsterdam.]

TO MADEMOISELLE LA COSTE, IN AMSTERDAM

MADEMOISELLE,--Then it is true that you complain of my not writing. Never was a complaint more agreeable. I should have accounted it a great favour at such a moment for you to think of me sometimes and to ask Mr. De La Motte news of me when you meet him. That is all I had hoped from you till Mlle. Isabeau's condition changes. But I did not yet know the extent of your generosity. I hear that, in spite of your ordinary and extraordinary business, you find time to read my letters and answer them. I own frankly that I should doubt it, had not Mr. De La Motte taken the trouble to a.s.sure me it was so; and though I dare not suspect him of wishing to make sport of me in so serious a matter, nothing can rea.s.sure me but the sight of one of your letters.

Then another motive of fear just comes to my mind: in spite of your good intentions, you might not keep your promise, under pretence that my letters need no answer....

Much love and many thanks to all your family. I mean thereby the three houses, nay, the fourth also soon to be founded. I should like to see little Marion again before setting out for Germany. I kiss her with all my heart and am, with a most particular esteem, Mademoiselle, your humble and obedient servant.--COSTE. 20th June 1712. From Utrecht.

These quaint letters call for little comment: is it not better to let the curtain drop on their mysteries and leave the story its charmingly indistinct outline? One or two remarks must suffice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIERRE BAYLE

After Chereau]

Pierre Coste seems very anxious to clothe his thoughts in appropriate literary dress, and his anxiety is shared by Suson. At times the tone strikes one as so conventional that Coste might be suspected of insincerity if one did not bear in mind that even the language of true love must follow the fashion. At any rate Suson is sincere, and nothing is more touching than her very awkwardness when she tries her hand at the "sublime style."

It is hardly possible to improve upon this very obvious statement without venturing upon unsafe ground. These old-fashioned lovers' emotions are tantalisingly unintelligible. Mark that they write to each other quite openly without even hinting at marriage. No doubt a wealthy merchant's daughter could not wed a penniless tutor, but then the Bruns, Durands, and Rouvieres are respectable members of the French congregation in Amsterdam over whom watches a Consistory as strict on questions of morality as a Scottish Kirk. So we must fall back upon the hypothesis of a platonic friendship paralleled in England by no less eminent contemporaries than Locke[298] and Bishop Burnet.[299] Perhaps these letters of Coste shed some light on Swift's _Journal to Stella_.

Yet another observation may be added: though the tragic element is absent, there is pathos, if it be pathetic for exiles to sigh after their native land. Pierre Bayle called Paris the earthly paradise of the scholars, Barbeyrac said that Amsterdam was fit only for merchants to live in. Coste could not brook the Dutch, and Suson laughed at them in unison, instinctively regretting Languedoc and Provence. Such was the way in which the refugees, though devoid of poetic sentiment, "hanged their harps upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon."

FOOTNOTES:

[283] _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 770.

[284] Reprinted in Locke's _Works_, x. pp. 161 ff.

[285] See our _Influence politique de Locke_, p. 346.

[286] Locke, _Works_, x. p. 162. The most amusing detail in this literary quarrel is that fifteen years before Desmaizeaux had actually offered Bernard, the editor of the _Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_, a paper vehemently criticizing Locke. But La Motte interfered, and the offer was declined. However, La Motte kept Desmaizeaux' letter and threatened to publish it. _Add. MSS._, 4281, fol. 144, and 4286, fol. 242.