Madame,—­I loved you when you were to me but a dream; judge, therefore, of the force my love acquired when I saw you.  The dream was far surpassed by the reality.  It is my grief and my misfortune to have nothing to say to you that you do not know already of your beauty and your charms; and yet, perhaps, they have awakened in no other heart so deep a sentiment as they have in me.

In so many ways you are beautiful; I have studied you so much while thinking of you day and night that I have penetrated the mysteries of your being, the secrets of your heart, and your delicacy, so little appreciated.  Have you ever been loved, understood, adored as you deserve to be?

Let me tell you now that there is not a trait in your nature which my heart does not interpret; your pride is understood by mine; the grandeur of your glance, the grace of your bearing, the distinction of your movements,—­all things about your person are in harmony with the thoughts, the hopes, the desires hidden in the depths of your soul; it is because I have divined them all that I think myself worthy of your notice.  If I had not become, within the last few days, another yourself, I could not speak to you of myself; this letter, indeed, relates far more to you than it does to me.

Beatrix, in order to write to you, I have silenced my youth, I have laid aside myself, I have aged my thoughts,—­or, rather, it is you who have aged them, by this week of dreadful sufferings caused, innocently indeed, by you.

Do not think me one of those common lovers at whom I have heard you laugh so justly.  What merit is there in loving a young and beautiful and wise and noble woman.  Alas!  I have no merit!  What can I be to you?  A child, attracted by effulgence of beauty and by moral grandeur, as the insects are attracted to the light.  You cannot do otherwise than tread upon the flowers of my soul; they are there at your feet, and all my happiness consists in your stepping on them.

Absolute devotion, unbounded faith, love unquenchable,—­all these treasures of a true and tender heart are nothing, nothing! they serve only to love with, they cannot win the love we crave.  Sometimes I do not understand why a worship so ardent does not warm its idol; and when I meet your eye, so cold, so stern, I turn to ice within me.  Your disdain, that is the acting force between us, not my worship.  Why?  You cannot hate me as much as I love you; why, then, does the weaker feeling rule the stronger?  I loved Felicite with all the powers of my heart; yet I forgot her in a day, in a moment, when I saw you.  She was my error; you are my truth.

You have, unknowingly, destroyed my happiness, and yet you owe me nothing in return.  I loved Camille without hope, and I have no hope from you; nothing is changed but my divinity.  I was a pagan; I am now a Christian, that is all—­