useless efforts to oblige you to be faithful. This you will never be. Can I ever hope that my letters and reproaches will have an effect on your ingratitude that my love for you and your desertion of me have not had? I know my sad fate too well: your injustice leaves me not the slightest reason to doubt of it, and I am bound to fear the worst, since you have cast me off. Have you a charm only for me, and do not other eyes find you pleasing? I should not be annoyed, I think, were the feelings of others in some sort to justify mine, and I would wish all the women in France to find you agreeable, but none to love you, none please you. This idea is ridiculous and impossible I well know. I have already, however, found by experience that you are incapable of a great affection, and that you could easily forget me without any help, and without a fresh love obliging you to it. I would, perhaps, wish you to have some reasonable pretext for your desertion of me. It is true that I should then be more unhappy, but you would not be so guilty. You mean to stay in France, I perceive, without great enjoyments, may be, but in the possession of full liberty. The fatigue of a long voyage, some punctilios of good manners, and the fear of not being able to correspond to my ardent passion, keep you there. Oh do not be afraid of me; I will be content with seeing you from time to time, and knowing only that we are in the same country; but perhaps I flatter myself, and may be you will be more touched by the rigour and hardness of another woman than you have been by all my favours. Can it be that cruelty will inflame you more?