The “Disciple of Venus” says truly, “Love will not brook command.” This heroic young maid, armed with nought but her grace and her virginity, was she not justified in thinking to come off victorious? Charming as she was, and herself charmed by her long dream of love, no wonder if she thought that in the words of Dante, “Love that has no lover pardons love,” and that a young man living as I was an isolated country life, would respond with emotion at the first cooing note. She did not realise that love, being the gift and abandonment of all one’s being, no sooner does the soul feel itself pursued with the object of capture, than it flies off like the bird to whom the charmer calls in vain. So it was that in presence of this chain of flowers, this rose, who unfolded all her sweetness for me, I coiled up with reserve, whereas towards the other, who, in her capacity of devoted friend and confidante, seemed to avoid my approach and my glance, I felt myself irresistibly drawn. For at that age I must confess to having already formed very definite ideas on the subject of love and the beloved. One day, either in the near or the far future, I told myself, I should meet her, my fate, in that same land of Arles, a superb country maiden, wearing the Arlesian costume like a queen, galloping on her steed across the plains of the Crau, a trident in her hand; after a long and ardent wooing, one fine day my song of love would win her, and in triumph I should conduct her to our farm, where, like my mother before her, she should reign over her pastoral subjects. Already as I look back, I see that I dreamt of my “Mireille,” and this ideal of blooming beauty already conceived by me, though only in the silence and secrecy of my heart, told greatly against the chances of poor Mademoiselle Louise, who, according to the standard of my vision, was far too much of a young lady. After this we started a correspondence, or rather an interchange of love on one side and friendship on the other, which lasted over a period of some three years or more--all the time I was at Aix in fact. On my side I endeavoured gallantly to humour her sentiment for myself, so that, little by little if I could, I might change it to a feeling less embarrassing for both of us. But Louise, in spite of this, grew ever more and more fixed in her infatuation, winging to me one missive after another of despairing farewell. The following was the last of these letters: * * * * *