and who remained tenderly attached to her to the last hour of her life. However, even if Adrienne yielded in favour of a dramatic author to the customs of her profession, or, as Lemontey expresses it, was "bound to Voltaire by the ties of glory and of love which in the preceding century had united Racine and the Champmeslé," it is improbable that either of the other persons mentioned were anything more than admirers. The actress's early experiences of the tender passion had, as we have seen, been singularly bitter; the selfishness of man had inflicted upon her the most cruel of humiliations for a loving and sensitive woman, that of being cast aside like a broken toy when she had surrendered herself in the most absolute confidence, and she had come to Paris firmly resolved to remain henceforth mistress of her heart and her actions. The letters published by M. Monval show that, during the first three years of her residence in the capital, she replied to several declarations of love by offers of friendship, explaining her ideas on the subject with singular frankness. * * * * * "If I am unable to render you more happy," she writes to one of her _soupirants_, "I am more grieved than you yourself. I reproach myself. I tell myself, without doubt, more than you can tell me; but I could not deceive you. Caprices do not agree with reason, and love is nothing else but a folly which I detest, and to which I shall strive hard not to surrender myself so long as I live. You will understand it yet, and the severity with which I have treated you will serve then only to render you more happy. Permit me to approach the matter with you, and to offer you my counsels. Be my friend; I am worthy of that, but choose for mistress one who possesses a heart quite untampered with; who has not yet repented of that trust which renders everything so beautiful; who has been neither betrayed nor deserted; who believes you such as you are, and all men such as you. Let her be young and rather strong; she will be the less sensitive. Finally, see that she gives to you as much constancy as I should have given, if I had never loved any one save you." * * * * *