Oh! How indignant I am! How angry and mortified are my feelings! Good Heavens! how his shameful conduct makes me hate and despise him!... I will try to be calm--to collect my scattered thoughts and give you a clear account of what has just occurred--tell you how all of my plans are destroyed--how I am once more alone in this cruel world, more sad, more discouraged and more hopeless than I ever was in my darkest days of misery and poverty.... but I cannot be calm--it is impossible for me to control my indignation when I think of the shameful behavior of this man--of his gross impertinence--his insolent duplicity.... Well, I went to the Odeon; M. de Monbert was there, I saw him, he certainly made no attempt to conceal his presence; you know he plumes himself upon being open and frank--never hides anything from the world--wishes people to see him in his true character, &c., precisely what I saw to-night. Yes, Valentine, there he was as tipsy as a coachman--with those little hair-brained de S.'s, the eldest simply tipsy as a lord, the young one, George, was drunk, very drunk. This is not all, the fascinating Prince was escort to two fashionable beauties, two miserable creatures of distressing notoriety, two of those shameless women whom we cannot fail to recognise on account of their scandalous behavior in public; sort of market-women disguised as fashion-plates--half apple-venders, half coquettes, who tap men on the cheek with their scented gloves and intersperse their conversation with dreadful oaths from behind their bouquets and Pompadour fans! ... these creatures talked in shrill tones, laughed out loud enough to be heard by every one around--joined in the chorus of the Choir of Antigone with the old men of Thebes!... People in the gallery said: "they must have dined late," that was a charitable construction to put upon their shameful conduct--I thought to myself, this is their usual behavior--they are always thus. I must tell you, so you can better appreciate my angry mortification, that just as we were stepping into the carriage the servant handed me the letters that I had sent him to bring from the Hotel de Langeac. Among the number was one from M. de Monbert, written several days after I had left Paris; this letter is worthy of being sent to Grenoble; I enclose it. While reading it, my dear Valentine, don't forget that I read it at the theatre, and my reading was constantly interrupted by the vulgar conversation and noisy laughter of M. de Monbert and his choice companions, and that each high-flown sentence of this hypocritical note had at the same time a literal and free translation in the scandalous remarks, bursts of laughter, and stupid puns of the despicable man who had written it. I confess that this flow of wit interfered with my perusal of these touching reproaches; the brilliant improvisations of the orator prevented me from becoming too much affected by the elegiacs of the writer.