Hélène, who was in love for the first time in her life, gave herself up completely to the feelings which influenced her. Without admitting it to herself, she felt keenly the Count’s coldness of manner towards her, and endeavoured to find out its cause; she thought he disapproved of her worldly pursuits, and she hoped to please him by giving them up: the pleasure parties, the brilliant cavalcades, were all abandoned. She courted solitude, and in her letters to her friends betrayed, unawares, her secret thoughts: here is an answer from the Princesse Henri Lubomirska, then living in Paris, which shows that her passion was no longer a secret:-- PARIS, _15th October 1789_. “At last, pussie, I have received a letter from you, dated the 24th of September. It is a thousand and a hundred thousand years since I had heard from you, and I even felt a little cross, I must confess. But, after seeing in your letter such big phrases as _actual situation_, _settled for ever_, etc., I have cooled down, for, like Germain in _La Feinte par Amour_,[83] ‘What I am not told I know nevertheless.’ Really I am sorry that I cannot see you in _this new situation, which makes solitude_ so precious. You must be very funny, not that I think the sentimental style altogether unbecoming to you; there are privileged beings whom every phase suits, and this can be said of you more than of anybody; but I cannot suppress a certain curiosity,--forgive me for it, my pet. Your happiness is my most ardent wish, and I am more interested than ever in desiring it, since the longer it lasts the longer you will remain with us. Tell me what terms you are on with Madame de Mniseck;[84] I have good reasons for asking, and you will understand them; but do not mention my question to anybody, and when you see the Lord Chamberlain, present him with my compliments. “Is it true that he is irrevocably settled at Warsaw, and has given up Niemirow? “By the bye, why were you astonished that in a letter dated from Paris I should have sent you the Comte Auguste’s[85] compliments? It was not on the high-road, but here, where he is deputy at the States-General, that I saw him. I will not mention my health; it is too tiresome a subject. Neither will I write about what goes on here, as political matters do not interest you much; and, moreover, you see everything in the newspapers. So good-bye, my puss; write often; you know that your letters are always a great pleasure to me. Are you still fond of riding and going to the theatre? I am afraid you have given up all these amusements. Forgive my surmises; at a distance of five hundred leagues one may sometimes make a mistake, and see things in a wrong light; but at least believe that no distance can diminish the tender interest I feel for you.”