In my globe-trotting adventures I got as far as Confignon, in Savoy country some six miles from Geneva. The priest there was M. de Pontverre, a name famous in the history of the Republic, which greatly impressed me. I was curious to see what a descendant of the Gentlemen of the Spoon* looked like, and so went to see him. He received me kindly, talked to me of the Genevan heresy with all the authority of Mother Church, and entertained me to dinner. I could find little to say in answer to arguments which ended on that note, and decided that priests who dined one so well were at least the equal of our ministers. I had certainly more learning than M. de Pontverre, nobleman though he was; but I was too good a guest to dispute his theology; and his Frangi wine, which I thought excellent, argued so triumphantly on his side that I should have blushed to contradict so good a host. So I gave in, or rather declined the contest. To judge from my tactics, indeed, a casual observer would have thought me a dissembler. But he would have been wrong. I was no more than grateful, of that I am certain. Flattery, or rather conciliation, is not always a vice. It is more often a virtue, especially in young people. Kind treatment from a man endears him to us. We do not give in for the purpose of deceiving him, but so as not to upset him, not to return evil for good. What interest could M. de Pontverre have in receiving me, and entertaining me so well, and trying to convince me? None except my own good, my young heart told me. I was moved by gratitude and respect for that good priest. I felt my own superiority and, as a reward for his hospitality, I did not wish to overwhelm him with it.
There was no motive of hypocrisy behind my conduct; I never thought for a moment of changing my faith. So far was I, in fact, from speedily reconciling myself to the idea that I could not envisage it without horror. That horror, indeed, as events proved, kept the whole business at a distance for a long time. All I wanted was not to upset people who were being kind to me with that end in view. I wanted to cultivate their benevolence, and leave them some hopes of success, by appearing to be less well armed than I really was. My crime, in that respect, was like an honest woman’s coquetry. For sometimes, to gain her ends she will, without permitting any liberties or making any promises, raise more hopes than she intends to fulfil.
Common sense, pity, and decency surely demanded that instead of encouraging my follies, they should have saved me from the ruin I was courting and have sent me back to my family. That is what any man of real virtue should have done, or tried to do. But though M. de Pontverre was a kind man he certainly was not a good man. On the contrary, he was a fanatic who knew no other virtue than the worship of his images and the telling of his beads; a kind of missionary who could imagine no better way of serving his faith than libelling the ministers of Geneva. Far from thinking of sending me home, he took such advantage of my desire to run away as to make it impossible for me to go back even if I had wanted to. There was every probability that he was sending me to perish of hunger or to become a vagabond. He did not care about that. What he saw was a soul to be plucked from heresy and reconciled to the Church. Honest man or vagabond, what did that matter so long as I went to Mass? It must not be supposed, however, that this way of thinking is confined to Catholics. It is common to every dogmatic religion which makes faith the essential, not deeds.
‘God is calling you,’ said M. de Pontverre. ‘Go to Annecy. There you will find a good and charitable lady, whom the King, of his bounty, has empowered to save other souls from the error under which she once laboured herself.’ He was speaking of Mme de Warens, a recent convert, who was more or less compelled by the priests to share a pension of two thousand francs allowed her by the King of Sardinia, with any riff-raff that came to trade their religion for money. I felt greatly humiliated at standing in need of a good and charitable woman. What I wanted was to be given my bare necessities, but not to receive alms, and the idea of a pious lady did not much attract me. But urged on by M. de Pontverre, hard pressed by hunger, and glad too to be setting out on a journey with an end in view, I made up my mind, though with some difficulty, and departed for Annecy. I could easily have got there in one day, but I did not hurry; I took three.
I did not see a castle on the left or the right without setting off to seek the adventure which I was sure awaited me there. I neither dared to enter nor yet to knock, for I was exceedingly timid. But I sang under what looked the likeliest window, and was very surprised after singing my loudest for a considerable time to see no ladies or maidens appear, attracted by the beauty of my voice or by the wit of my songs. For I knew some good songs, which I had learnt from my comrades and which I sang extremely well.
Finally I arrived and saw Mme de Warens. This stage in my life has been decisive in the formation of my character, and I cannot make up my mind to pass lightly over it. I was halfway through my sixteenth year and, without being what is called a handsome youth, I was well-made for my modest size, had a pretty foot, a fine leg, an independent air, lively features, a small mouth, black eyebrows and hair, and small, rather sunken eyes which sparkled with the fire that burnt in my veins. Unfortunately I knew nothing of all this. For all my life I have never thought of my appearance until the moment has passed for turning it to account. So the timidity natural to my years was heightened by my very affectionate nature, which was always troubled by the fear of displeasing. Moreover, whilst I had a fairly cultivated mind, never having seen the world, I was quite innocent of good manners; and my education, far from remedying this defect, merely increased my nervousness by making me conscious of my shortcomings.
Fearing therefore that my appearance did not speak in my favour, I sought my advantage in other ways. I wrote a fine letter in a rhetorical style, mingling phrases from books with the language of an apprentice, thus endeavouring with all my eloquence to win Mme de Warens’s favour. With this letter I enclosed M. de Pontverre’s and set out to make the dreaded call. I did not find Mme de Warens in, but was told that she had just left to go to church. It was Palm Sunday in the year 1728. I ran after her, saw her, caught her up, and spoke to her. Indeed I ought to remember the place, for often since I have bathed it with my tears and smothered it with kisses. I should like to surround that happy spot with railings of gold, and make it an object of universal veneration. Whoever delights to honour the memorials of man’s salvation should approach it only on his knees.
It was a passage behind her house, with a stream on the right dividing it from her garden, and a yard wall on the left. It led by a private door into the Franciscan church. As she was about to enter that door I called. Mme de Warens turned back. How the sight of her affected me! I had expected M. de Pontverre’s ‘good lady’ to be a disagreeable and pious old woman; to my mind, she could not be otherwise. But what I saw was a face full of charm, large and lovely blue eyes beaming with kindness, a dazzling complexion and the outline of an enchanting neck. Nothing escaped the rapid glance of the young proselyte. For in a moment I was hers, and certain that a faith preached by such missionaries would not fail to lead to paradise. She smiled as she took the letter that I held out to her with a trembling hand. She opened it, glanced over M. de Pontverre’s enclosure, came to mine, and read it all through. Indeed she would have read it through again if her footman had not warned that it was time to go into church. ‘Well, my child,’ she said to me in a voice that made me start, ‘you’re very young to go wandering about the country. It’s a shame, really it is.’ Then without waiting for my reply, she added, ‘Go to my house and wait for me there. Tell them to give you some breakfast. After mass I’ll come and talk to you.’
Louise Éléonore de Warens was of the noble and ancient family of La Tour de Pil, of Vévai in the Pays de Vaud. When very young, she had married M. de Warens of the house of Loys, the eldest son of M. de Villardin of Lausanne. This marriage had been childless and not too happy. There had been domestic troubles, and Mme de Warens had taken the opportunity of King Victor-Amadeus’s visit to Evian to cross the lake and throw herself at his feet, thus abandoning her husband, her family, and her country with an im
petuosity similar to mine, and which she too had plenty of leisure to regret. The King, who loved to display his zeal for Catholicism, took her under his protection, gave her a pension of fifteen hundred Piedmontese livres, which was a great deal for a prince who was no spendthrift and, seeing that his liberality made people suppose him to be in love with her, sent her to Annecy, under the escort of a detachment of his guards. There, under the direction of Michel-Gabriel de Bernex, titular bishop of Geneva, she forswore her faith at the convent of the Visitation.
She had been at Annecy six years* when I arrived, and she was then twenty-eight, having been born with the century. Her beauty was of a kind that endures, lying more in the expression than in the features; and so it was still at its height. Her manner was tender and caressing, her gaze was very mild, her smile angelic, her mouth small like mine, her hair, which was ash blond and extraordinarily plentiful, she wore with an affected negligence that increased her attraction. She was small in stature, almost short, and rather stout, though not in an ungainly way; but a lovelier head, a lovelier throat, lovelier hands, and lovelier arms it would have been impossible to find.
Her education had been extremely mixed. Like me, she had lost her mother at birth, and had seized indiscriminately on any instruction that was offered her. She had learnt a little from her governess, a little from her father, a little from her masters and a great deal from her lovers, particularly from M. de Tavel who, having both knowledge and taste, bestowed some of each on the women he loved. But such varieties of instruction acted against one another, and her failure to put them in order prevented her various studies from broadening her natural intelligence. So, though she knew some elements of philosophy and physics, she did not fail to pick up her father’s taste for experimental medicine and alchemy; she manufactured elixirs, tinctures, balsams, and magic potions; she pretended to have secret knowledge. Charlatans took advantage of her weakness to pester her, impose on her, and ruin her. With their crucibles and their drugs they destroyed her intellect, her talents, and her charms, with which she could have delighted the finest society.
But though these sordid wretches took advantage of her ill-directed education to obscure the lights of her reason, her excellent heart withstood these trials and remained unchanged. Her mild and affectionate nature, her sympathy with the unfortunate, her inexhaustible kindness, her free and frank gaiety, never varied; and even when old age drew near and she was a victim to poverty, illness, and various calamities, that serene and lovely soul maintained till the end of her life all the gay humours of her prime.
Her errors arose from an inexhaustible fund of activity, which perpetually demanded employment. A woman’s intrigues did not satisfy her; what she required were enterprises to carry out and direct. She was born for affairs of state. In her place Mme de Longueville would have been a mere intriguer; in Mme de Longueville’s place, she would have ruled France. Her talents were misplaced. What might have won her glory in a more exalted station worked her ruin in the position in which she lived. When dealing with affairs within her scope she always planned on a large and theoretical scale, viewing her object as greater than its true size. The result was that she employed means in proportion to her dreams rather than to her strength, and failed through the fault of others. Then, when her project came to grief she was ruined, where anyone else in her place would hardly have lost anything. Her taste for business, which did her so much harm, did her at least one good service, when she was in her monastic retreat. It prevented her from staying there for the rest of her days, as she was tempted to do. The simple and uniform life of the nuns, with its parlour gossip, could never satisfy a mind which was always working, which formed new projects each day and needed freedom to devote herself to them. The good Bishop of Bernex was less intelligent than François de Sales, but resembled him in many ways; and Mme de Warens, whom he called his daughter, and who resembled Mme de Chantal in many ways also, might have imitated her in her retreat if her tastes had not tempted her away from the idleness of a nunnery. It was not because she lacked zeal that this charming woman did not give herself up to every minor detail of devotion which seemed proper in a fresh convert, living under a priest’s direction. Whatever the motives of her change in religion, she was sincere in the faith that she had embraced. She may have regretted having made a mistake, but she had no desire to repair it. She not only died a good Catholic, but genuinely lived as one; and I can testify – for I think I understood her to the bottom of her soul – that it was only out of dislike for religious hypocrites that she never displayed her piety in public. Her faith was too well-founded for her to play the devotee. But this is not the place for me to enlarge on her principles; I shall have other occasions to speak of them. Let those who deny the affinity of souls explain, if they can, how from our first meeting, our first word, our first glance, Mme de Warens inspired me not only with the strongest affection, but with a perfect confidence, which has never proved misplaced. Supposing that what I felt for her was really love – which will appear at least doubtful to anyone who follows the story of our relationship – how could that passion have been accompanied from its birth with the kind of feelings most foreign to love, with peace of heart, calmness, serenity, security, confidence? How, on meeting a charming woman for the first time, a polished and attractive woman superior to myself in rank, a woman unlike any I had ever spoken to before, a woman on whom my fate to some extent hung – for I was dependent on the amount of interest she might feel in me – how was it then, taking all this into account, that I felt as carefree and as much at my ease as if I were perfectly certain to please her? Why did I not have a moment’s embarrassment, timidity, or concern? I was bashful by nature, easily put out of countenance, and had never seen the world. How was it then that from the first day, the first instant, I assumed the easy manner, the affectionate language and familiar tone of ten years later, of a time when the greater intimacy had made it natural? Is there such a thing as love, not without desire – for desire I had – but without disquietude and jealousy? Does one not wish at least to learn from the woman one loves whether one is loved in return? That is a question that it has no more occurred to me, even once in my life, to ask her, than to ask myself whether I loved her; and never did she express any greater curiosity in regard to me. There was certainly something peculiar about my feelings for this charming woman, and the reader will find, as he reads on, that strange and unexpected developments attended them.
The question was what was to become of me, and in order to discuss it at greater leisure she kept me to dinner. That was the first meal in my life at which my appetite failed me. Her maid, who served us, remarked indeed that she had never before seen a traveller of my age and appearance who was not hungry. This observation did not harm me in my mistress’s eyes, but it struck home on a great oaf who was dining with us, and who consumed unaided what would have been a square meal for six. I was in a state of rapture myself, which would not permit me to eat. My heart was feasting upon a new feeling which filled my whole being, leaving me no thought for any other activities.
Mme de Warens asked for all the details of my little tale, and I recovered, as I told it, all the fire I had lost at my master’s. The more I interested that kind soul on my behalf, the more she deplored the fate I was about to expose myself to. Her air, her looks, her gestures, all expressed a strong compassion. She dared not exhort me to return to Geneva; in her position that would have been treason against the Catholic faith, and she was not unaware that she was under close surveillance, that her every speech was weighed. But she spoke to me so feelingly of my father’s distress that it was quite clear she would have approved of my going back to console him. She did not know how strongly, though unwittingly, she was pleading against herself. Not only was my mind made up – as I think I have already said – but the more eloquent and persuasive I found her, the more touched I was by her speeches, the less could I bear to tear myself away from her. I knew that to return to Geneva was to place an almost ins
urmountable barrier between her and myself; unless, indeed, I were to repeat the action I had just taken. It would be best, therefore, to adhere to my purpose, and to it I adhered. Seeing that her endeavours were in vain, Mme de Warens did not push them so far as to commit herself. She merely said to me with a look of pity: ‘My poor child, you must go where God calls you. But when you grow up you will remember me.’ I do not think she imagined for a moment that her prophecy would be so cruelly fulfilled.
The difficulty remained quite unsolved. How could I earn my living at my age away from my home? I was only half way through my apprenticeship and was a long way from fully skilled. But even if I had known my trade I could not have lived by it in Savoy, which was too poor a country to support craftsmanship. The oafish fellow who was eating for us, having to make a pause to rest his jaws, began to offer advice which he said was of heavenly inspiration, but which, to judge by its consequences, more likely emanated from the opposite place. He suggested that I. should go to Turin, where I would receive spiritual and temporal sustenance in a hostel established for the instruction of converts. Then, when I had entered the bosom of the Church I should find, through the charity of worthy souls, some place that would suit me. ‘As for the cost of his journey,’ the fellow continued, ‘if Madame proposes this holy work to his Highness Monseigneur the Bishop, he will most certainly find it in his heart to contribute to it. And Madame la Baronne, who is so charitable,’ he added, bending over his plate, ‘will of course be eager to make a contribution as well.’