But, my dear friend, the consideration, which is the most interesting, the most affecting, the most alarming, is the immediate danger of your health and life, from the violent situation into which fortune has now thrown you. You continued long to live, with tolerable tranquillity, though exposed to many vexations, in a state little befitting your worth and merit; and you still comforted yourself by reflecting that you could not change it, without withdrawing from a friendship dearer to you than life itself. You still could flatter yourself, that the person, for whose sake you made this sacrifice, if he had it in his power, would, at any price, repair your honour, and fortify his connexions with you. The unexpected death of M. de Boufflers has put an end to these illusions. It has at once brought you within reach of honour and felicity: and has thrown a poison on your former state, by rendering it still less honourable than before. You cannot say, madam, that I do not feel, and with the most pungent sensation, the cruelty of your situation. I am sensible too, that time will scarcely bring any remedy to this evil. The loss of a friend, of a dignity, of fortune, admits of consolation, if not from reason, at least from oblivion; and these sorrows are not eternal. But while you maintain your present connexions, your hopes, still kept alive, will still enliven your natural desire of that state to which you aspire, and your disgust towards that state in which you will find yourself. I foresee that your lively passions, continually agitated, will tear in pieces your tender frame: melancholy and a broken constitution may then prove your lot, and the remedy which could now preserve your health and peace of mind, may come too late to restore them.