EUGÉNIE DE FRANVAL
A Tragic Tale

To instruct mankind and correct human manners, here is our only purpose in offering this tale. Let my readers reflect, as they read, on the immensity of the danger involved as they follow the progress of those who are prepared to stop at nothing to satisfy their desires. May they be persuaded that a sound upbringing, wealth, talents, and natural gifts are apt to lead people astray unless backed or turned to good account by self-control, sensible behaviour, a level head, and modesty: these are the truths whose workings we shall demonstrate. May we be forgiven for furnishing the monstrous detail of the appalling crime of which we force ourselves to speak. Could we inspire a loathing of such wrongdoing if we lacked the courage to show its operations raw and unadorned?*

It is rare that everything is perfectly combined in one human being to enable him to prosper. If he has been favoured by nature, fortune refuses to smile on him. If fortune showers him with its benefactions, nature has withheld hers. It would seem that the divine hand, both in its treatment of every human being and in its most grandiose workings, is bent on reminding us that the law of equilibrium* is the fundamental law of the universe, for it rules everything that happens, all the plants that grow, every creature that breathes.

Franval, who lived in Paris where he was born, had, in addition to an income of four hundred thousand livres,* the handsomest physique, the most attractive features, and the most varied talents. But beneath this seductive exterior lay all manner of vices and, regrettably, those which, once adopted and practised habitually, quickly lead to crime. A disorder of the imagination, beyond anything that can be described, was Franval’s major defect: it is a flaw which no man can correct. The fading of a man’s powers reinforces its effects: the less he is able to do, the more he wants to do; the less he acts, the more he invents. Each phase of life brings new ideas, and, far from cooling desire, surfeit has the effect only of stimulating him to even more deadly and sophisticated refinements.

As we have said, Franval possessed all the graces of youth and the talents which enhance it, and possessed them in abundance. But since he showed nothing but contempt for moral and religious obligations, his teachers had found it impossible to persuade him to adopt the least of them.

In an age when the most dangerous books find their way into the hands of children as easily as into the hands of their fathers and tutors, when bold systems of thought masquerade as philosophy, unbelief as strength, and libertinage as imagination, Franval as a boy observed that people laughed at his witticisms, then perhaps moments later that he was scolded for them, and then only the next moment praised again. Franval’s father, a devout supporter of modish ideas, was the first to encourage his son to think solidly* about all these matters. He allowed him to borrow the books which were likely to corrupt his mind most quickly. Given this circumstance, what tutor would have dared try to instil in him principles which were at variance with those accredited in the house in which he was required to give satisfaction?

Be that as it may, Franval was a mere boy when he lost both his parents. When he was nineteen years of age an old uncle, who also died a short while later, undertook to make over to him, when he married, the entire inheritance which was one day to be his.

Now, with such a fortune Monsieur de Franval should have been able to find a wife without difficulty. A great many eligible girls came forward, but since he had begged his uncle to find him one who was younger than he and had the fewest relations, his aged uncle tried to accommodate his nephew. He cast his eye in the direction of a certain Mademoiselle de Farneille, a banker’s daughter, who now had only a mother living but a very real income of sixty thousand livres. She was fifteen and possessed one of the most dazzling physiognomies in Paris: it was one of those virginal faces wherein both innocence and promise are painted in the delicate features of Love and the Graces: shining blonde hair hanging down to her waist, wide blue eyes which spoke of tenderness and modesty, a slender, supple, willowy figure, skin like the lily, the freshness of roses, all the talents, a lively imagination, but also a manner tinged with sadness, a hint of that gentle melancholy which starts a taste for books and solitude. Such attributes nature seems to confer only on individuals for whom she plans disaster, as if to sweeten their bitter fate by allowing them to know sombre, affecting pleasure, which they go on feeling even as they suffer, and makes them prefer tears to the frivolous joys of happiness which are more passive and do not go as deep.*

Madame de Farneille, who was thirty-two when her daughter was married, was also a person of wit, attractive, but perhaps a little too reserved and austere. Eager to secure her daughter’s happiness, she had canvassed the whole of Paris for views about this marriage. And since she had no relations to advise her, and only friends who were of the kind for whom nothing really matters, she was given to understand that the young man who had been mentioned as an eligible prospect for her daughter was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best possible match she could find in the capital, and that moreover she would be committing an unpardonable folly if she failed to conclude the proposed marriage. And so the wedding took place, and the happy couple, rich enough to set up in their own house, moved into it in the days immediately following their nuptials.

There was no trace in Franval’s character of the vices of fickleness, dissoluteness, and recklessness which prevent a man from becoming mature before the age of thirty. He was entirely at ease with himself, liked a settled routine, and was supremely competent in the running of his household: for those matters, indispensable for a life of contentment, Franval had all the necessary qualities. His vices were of a quite different order, and rather the defects of middle age than the failings of youth—cunning, intrigue, malice, cruelty, selfishness, and a large capacity for deviousness and underhand dealing. All this he kept hidden, not only by the charm and talents of which we have already spoken, but by a silver tongue, a ready wit, and the most attractive outward show and manner. Such is the man whose portrait we have to paint.

Mademoiselle de Farneille, in accordance with convention, had known her husband for a month at most before becoming his wife, and was entirely duped by these false appearances. The days were never long enough for her to delight in his presence. She doted on him to such a degree that fears might have been expressed for the young woman’s sanity, had not certain obstacles arisen to interrupt the smooth course of a marriage in which, she said, she found the only happiness she would ever want.

For his part, Franval, as philosophical about women as he was about everything else in life, thought of his delightful spouse with the greatest indifference imaginable.

‘The wife who is ours to hold’, he would say, ‘is a creature who is assigned to us by convention for our use. She must be sweet-natured, obedient, and very docile. Not that I care much for the common notion of the dishonour that can be brought upon us when wives imitate our adulterous conduct. Still, we are never likely to be best pleased when others set out to usurp our rights. But the rest does not matter at all, for it adds nothing to our happiness.’

Given such sentiments in a husband, it is easy to predict that it was not roses which awaited the hapless girl who married him. Honest, considerate, well brought up, and endlessly anticipating the every wish of the only man alive who mattered to her, Madame de Franval wore her chains during the early years of her marriage without ever suspecting that she was a slave. It was plain enough to her that she was merely gathering up crumbs that fell from the table of married bliss. But, still more than happy with the scraps that came her way, her every thought, her sincerest wish, was that in the brief moments when she was allowed to express her love, Franval would at least find everything she believed was necessary to make her darling husband happy.

However, the best evidence to suggest that Franval was not always derelict in his duties is the fact that, in the very first year of their marriage, his wife, then sixteen-and-a-half years of age, was brought to bed of a daughter even more beautiful than her mother, whom the father instantly named Eugénie… Eugénie: simultaneously an abomination and a miracle of nature.

It is likely that Monsieur de Franval formulated the most odious plans for the child the moment she was born, for he removed her at once from her mother’s care… Until she was seven Eugénie was raised by women whom Franval trusted implicitly. He limited their role to giving her a sound constitution and teaching her to read, and they took good care to avoid giving her any inkling of the religious and moral principles which a girl of her age should normally be taught.

Madame de Farneille and her daughter, utterly shocked by such behaviour, spoke reprovingly to Monsieur de Franval. He replied coolly that since his plan was to make his daughter happy, he would not fill her head with foolish delusions which had no other effect than to frighten people and were of no benefit to them whatsoever; that a daughter whose only need was to learn how to please others was best served if she ignored such fairy-tales and living fantasies which, by interfering with her peace of mind, would never add a single truth to her mind nor an extra grace to her body. Such comments were supremely offensive to Madame de Farneille, who grew more attracted to thoughts of Heaven as the distance she put between herself and worldly pleasures grew wider. A belief in God is a failing inseparable from the different ages of our life or the state of our health. When the winds of passion rage, a future which seems very remote from the present rarely causes anxiety. But when they blow more gently… when the end grows nearer… when all our faculties desert us… we return to the bosom of the Lord of which we were told as children. And if this second instalment of illusion is as fantastical as the first, it is also at least as dangerous.*

Franval’s mother-in-law had no living relatives, very little influence of her own, and at the very most, as we have observed, only a few occasional, fleeting friends of the kind who would drift away if we ever put them to the test. Having to face up to a son-in-law who was young and well connected, she understandably assumed that it would be simpler to keep up her protests than to institute action through formal channels against a man who, if she dared cross him, could ruin the mother and lock up the daughter. With this in mind, a handful of reproaches were as far as she dared go, and she said nothing as soon as she saw that her objections would lead nowhere. Soon Franval, certain that he was the stronger, and observing that he was feared, dropped all restraint in whatever he did and, drawing the flimsiest of veils over his actions for the benefit of the public, proceeded directly towards his hideous goal.

On the day Eugénie reached her seventh birthday Franval brought her to his wife. That tender mother, who had not seen her child since the time of her birth, could not embrace and hug her enough. She held her for two hours clasped to her breast, smothering her with kisses and shedding unstoppable tears. She asked to know what toddler’s talents she had acquired. But Eugénie had acquired none, save the ability to read, enjoy rude good health, and look as beautiful as an angel. There was a further shock for Madame de Franval when she discovered that it was only too true that her daughter was ignorant of even the most rudimentary precepts of religion.

‘Surely, sir,’ said she to her husband, ‘you do not propose to bring her up fit to live only in this sublunary world? Pray stop and reflect that that she will dwell here below for a brief span, only to be cast thereafter into everlasting fire if you deny her knowledge which may enable her to meet a better fate at the feet of the God from whom she has received the gift of life.’

‘If Eugénie knows nothing, Madame,’ answered Franval, ‘if every care is taken to hide these precepts of yours from her, she will never be unhappy. For if they are true, the Lord on high is too just to punish her for her ignorance, and if they are false, is there any point in telling her about them? With regard to the other aspects of her education, you must trust me. As of today I shall myself be her tutor, and I guarantee that a few years from now your daughter will outshine any child of her age.’

Madame de Franval tried to be firm, pleading from her heart as a way of reinforcing more rational arguments, and her tears indeed spoke for her. But Franval was unmoved and seemed not even to notice that she wept. He ordered Eugénie to be taken away, warning his wife that if she dared to interfere in any way whatsoever with the education he intended to give his daughter, or if she attempted to instil in her principles at variance with those he intended to teach her, she would forfeit all prospect of seeing her and he would send the girl away to one of his estates, where she would remain and never leave it. Madame de Franval, forced to submit, said no more. She begged her husband not to separate her from her dear treasure, and promised through her tears never to interfere in any way with the education which he had in mind for her.

From that day forth Mademoiselle de Franval was sent to live in a very elegant apartment, next to her father’s, with a very capable governess, a deputy governess, a lady’s-maid, and two little girls of her own age whose role was to keep her amused. She was given a writing-master, a drawing-teacher, tutors for poetry, natural history, elocution, geography, astronomy, anatomy, Greek, English, German, and Italian, plus instructors in fencing, dancing, riding, and music. Eugénie rose each morning at seven, whatever the season, and ran out into the garden, where she ate a thick slice of rye bread for her breakfast. She came indoors at eight, spent a few moments in the apartment of her father, who rollicked and romped with her for a while or taught her childish parlour games. Until nine she did the work she had been set. It was then that her first tutor arrived. She saw five in all by two o’clock, when she ate separately with her two little comrades and her governess. Her dinner consisted of vegetables, fish, pastries, and fruit: she was never given meat, soup, wine, liqueurs, or coffee. Between three and four Eugénie went back into the garden and played for an hour with her two little friends. They played tennis, ball, skittles, battledore and shuttlecock, or practised who could jump certain set distances. They were dressed in comfortable clothes according to the season: nothing cramped their bodies and they were never forced into ridiculous whalebone, which is as dangerous to the stomach as to the chest and, by hampering a young woman’s ability to breathe, has the unavoidable effect of weakening the lungs. From four until six Mademoiselle de Franval was visited by more of her tutors and, since they were too numerous for them all to come on one day, the rest came the next. Three times a week Eugénie went to the theatre with her father, and sat in one of the boxes enclosed by a latticework screen which had been reserved by the year for her use. At nine she returned home and had supper, which consisted only of vegetables and fruit. Four times a week, between ten and eleven, Eugénie played with her little friends, read novels, and then went to bed. The three other evenings, when Franval did not dine out, she spent with her father in his apartment, and this time was devoted to what Franval called his ‘lectures’. There he imparted to his daughter his ideas on morality and religion. On the one hand, he told her what certain men thought of these questions, and then, on the other, set out what he himself believed.*

Since she had a clever mind, a wide knowledge of many matters, a quick understanding, and passions which were already beginning to ignite, it is not hard to imagine the effect of such ideas on Eugénie. But the ignoble Franval’s plan was not simply to form her mind, and his lectures rarely ended without setting her heart ablaze. This abominable man had found so many ways of pleasing his daughter, had manipulated her so skilfully, made himself so necessary to her education and her pleasures, and was so impatient to provide whatever she might find agreeable, that when Eugénie was surrounded by the most brilliant company she found no one as attractive as her father. As a consequence, long before he made his purpose known to her, the innocent, vulnerable girl had filled her young heart with all the feelings of friendship, gratitude, and affection which must of necessity lead to the most passionate love. For her, Franval was the only person in the world. She had eyes for no one but him, and was violently opposed to any circumstance which might separate them. For him, she would have willingly given not her honour nor her beauty, for such sacrifices would have seemed to her far too unworthy of the wonderful man she idolized, but her blood, her life, if her twin soul had asked it.

There was nothing comparable in the sentiments Mademoiselle de Franval had for her worthy, unhappy mother. Her father, artfully informing his daughter that, as his wife, Madame de Franval made demands on him which often prevented him from doing for his dear Eugénie all he would have liked to do, had found a way of filling his daughter’s mind with far more hatred and jealousy than with the kind of deference and respect she should have felt for such a mother.

‘Dear friend and brother,’ Eugénie sometimes said to Franval, who would not have his daughter call him by any other names, ‘the woman you call your wife must be very importunate. By always wanting you to be with her, she robs me of the joy of spending all my time with you. Don’t deny it: you like her better than your Eugénie. Personally, I shall never love anyone who tries to steal your heart from me.’

‘My dear girl,’ replied Franval, ‘no one in the whole universe will ever have a greater claim to it than you. The bonds that exist between that woman and your best friend are the result of custom and social convention, which I respect as a philosopher, but they shall never count for more than the ties that bind us two. You will always be the one I love best, Eugénie. You shall be the angel, the light of my life, the place where my heart is, and my reason for living.’

‘Oh such sweet words!’ replied Eugénie. ‘You must repeat them often, dear friend. If only you knew how happy it makes me to hear you say such tender things!’

And taking Franval’s hand, which she pressed to her heart:

‘There,’ she went on, ‘I can feel them there.’

‘Prove it to me by your tender caresses,’ replied Franval, gathering her into his arms. And thus it was that the perfidious man, without a twinge of remorse, completed the seduction of his own unfortunate daughter.

Eugénie was then approaching her fourteenth birthday, the time Franval had fixed upon to… consummate his crime. The very thought makes us shudder. But consummated it was.

[The day she reached that age,* or rather when her thirteenth year was up, they went into the country unaccompanied by relatives or any other unwelcome persons. For the day, the Count had dressed his daughter in the style of those virgins who in olden times were dedicated to the service of the Temple of Venus. At about eleven in the morning he led her to a voluptuously decorated parlour. The windows, hung with fine gauze curtains, let in a suffused light and the furniture was strewn with flowers. In the middle of the room stood a throne of roses. Franval handed his daughter to it.*

‘Eugénie,’ he said as he sat her down, ‘today you are the queen of my heart. Allow me to kneel and worship you!’

‘Worship me, brother, when it is I who am so in your debt? For it was you who created me, who made me what I am! Oh it is I who should rather kneel down to you.’

‘Oh sweet Eugénie,’ said the Count, as he took his place on the bank of flowers which he had chosen for the site of his triumph, ‘if it is true that you are in any way in my debt, if the sentiments you display towards me are indeed what you say they are, do you know by what means you can convince me of your sincerity?’

‘What means are they, brother? Tell me quickly and I will gladly employ them.’

‘Eugénie, each and every perfection which nature has showered on you, all the charms with which she has made you so beautiful, all this you must sacrifice to me here and now.’

‘But why do you ask this? Are you not my master to command it? Is what you have made not yours? Surely no one else can take pleasure in possessing what you have created?’

‘You know what prejudices people have.’

‘You have never hidden them from me.’

‘That is why I have no intention of riding roughshod over them without your consent.’

‘But do you not despise them as I do?’

‘Very well. But I would not wish to behave like a tyrant or even less as a seducer. I want it to be from love alone that I obtain what I ask and what is yours to give. You know what the world is like. I have hidden none of its attractions from you. To prevent you from setting eyes on other men and allow you see no one but me would have been a cheap tactic, unworthy of me. If there is anywhere another man you like better than me, then give me his name now. I will travel to the ends of the earth to find him and thrust him into your arms. In short, my angel, I want you to be happy, I want your happiness much more than my own. The honeyed pleasures you can give me would mean nothing if they were not the expression of your love. So decide, Eugénie. The moment of sacrifice is nigh: it cannot be avoided. But you yourself shall name the man who shall perform it. I renounce all claim to the bliss which would be mine if that man were me… unless they were given with all your soul. But I shall remain worthy of your love. If I am not the one you choose, then by bringing you the man you love, I shall at least have won your affection, though not your love—if I am not Eugénie’s lover, I shall yet be her friend.’

‘But you shall be all these things, brother, all!’ said Eugénie, now aflame with love and desire. ‘To whom should I sacrifice myself if not to the man I adore above all others? Where in the whole world is the man who is more worthy than you of the modest charms which you desire… and which your fevered hands are now exploring with such ardour? Can you not tell by the passion with which I burn that I am as impatient as you to experience the bliss of which you speak? Take it, take your pleasure, my darling brother and best friend! Eugénie shall be your victim, for sacrificed by your hand she cannot but triumph!’

As may be inferred from what we know of the kind of man he was, the eager Franval had behaved with such delicacy only so that his seduction would proceed the more surely. Soon he completely dominated his credulous daughter, and when the last obstacles fell as a result both of the notions he had put into her head, which was receptive to ideas of all kinds, and of the enticing arts with which he now ensnared her in this ultimate phase, he completed his ignoble conquest. Thus it was that he himself became with impunity the thief of a maidenhead of which nature and his noble name had appointed him the protector.

Several days passed in mutual rapture. Eugénie, now of an age to know the pleasures of love, and emboldened by Franval’s philosophy, took to them with zest. Franval told her all of love’s mysteries, mapped all its paths. The more he multiplied his amorous tributes, the more enslaved his conquest became, until she would have received him with open arms in a thousand temples simultaneously. She accused her lover of deliberately curbing his imagination, for she felt that he was holding back from her. She complained that she was too young and perhaps too innocent to be sufficiently alluring. And if she wished to be more knowledgeable, the reason was simple: so that no means of arousing her lover would remain unknown to her.]

They returned to Paris. But the criminal pleasures which the perverse Franval had found so heady had flattered his senses and his mind to such an extent that an infidelity, which normally ended all his other affairs, was out of the question to terminate this new liaison. He was besotted, and from his dangerous passion was to result his cruel desertion of his wife, who became, alas, his victim.

Madame de Franval was then thirty-one years of age, and at the height of her beauty. Her doleful air, induced by the sorrows which consumed her, merely added to her loveliness. Constantly in tears, prostrated by melancholy, with her beautiful hair carelessly spread over her alabaster breast, her lips lovingly pressed to a cherished portrait of her faithless husband and tyrant, she called to mind the lovely, suffering virgins painted by Michelangelo.* Yet she was far from suspecting what lay in wait to make her torment complete. The way Eugénie was being brought up, the vital matters of which she was kept ignorant or which were broached to her solely to make her detest them, the absolute certainty that her daughter would never be permitted to embrace those duties which Franval despised, the brief interviews she was allowed to have with her child, her fear that the bizarre education given to her would sooner or later drive her to criminal conduct, Franval’s wild behaviour and the callousness with which he treated her daily, although she had no thought but to do his bidding and placed all her felicity in earning his good opinion and pleasing him: such, up to this point, were the sole causes of her affliction. But by what searing anguish would this tender, sensitive soul be overwhelmed once she knew the whole truth!

Meanwhile Eugénie’s education proceeded apace. She herself had asked to continue to be taught by tutors until she was sixteen, and her talents, wide knowledge, and the way she grew in graces with each passing day… all this combined to lock Franval’s fetters tighter. It was patently obvious that he had never loved anyone as he loved Eugénie.

The only part of Mademoiselle de Franval’s routine that changed was the time allotted for ‘lectures’. These private sessions with her father took place more frequently and went on until late at night. Only Eugénie’s governess was privy to what went on, and she was far too reliable for there to be any need to question her discretion. A few alterations were made to the way Eugénie took her meals, and she now dined with her parents. Such a change in a household like Franval’s meant that soon Eugénie was able to meet other company and be thought of as eligible for marriage. Several men asked for her hand. Franval, confident of his daughter’s feelings and believing he had nothing to fear from such advances, had not, however, given sufficient thought to the possibility that the rush of proposals might eventually bring matters into the open.

In a conversation with her daughter, a favour often requested by Madame de Franval but rarely granted, Eugénie’s tender mother informed her that Monsieur de Colunce had asked for her hand in marriage.

‘You know him, daughter,’ said Madame de Franval. ‘He loves you, is young, personable and will be rich. He is only waiting for your answer… the answer that is yours alone to make. What am I to say to him?’

Taken aback, Eugénie blushed and said that she did not yet find the prospect of marriage appealing, but that her father should be consulted. She would respect his views and act accordingly. Believing that this response was entirely straightforward, Madame de Franval waited a few days, and at last finding an opportunity of raising the matter with her husband, conveyed to him the views of young Colunce’s family, the intentions of the young man himself, and added what her daughter had said. Now as may well be imagined, Franval knew everything. But he dissembled, though he was not able to keep total control of himself.

‘Madame,’ he said brusquely to his wife, ‘I must insist that you do not meddle in Eugénie’s affairs. You have seen how careful I have been to keep her away from you, and it must surely have been perfectly clear that I wished matters concerning her future to be none of your business. I repeat my orders to you now and trust that you will never forget them again.’

‘But what answer shall I give, since the request was made to me?’

‘You will say that I am conscious of the honour done to me but that an uncertainty surrounding my daughter’s birth makes it impossible for her to marry.’

‘But sir, there is no such uncertainty. Why would you have me say something which is not true? Why do you wish to deprive your only daughter of the happiness she will find in marriage?’

‘Has marriage made you very happy, Madame?’

‘Perhaps not all women have made as many mistakes as I have in failing to keep your love, or else’ (said she with a sigh) ‘not all husbands are like you.’

‘Wives—unfaithful, jealous, wilful, flirtatious, or sanctimonious—and husbands—false, inconstant, cruel, or tyrannical—there in a nutshell you have all the men and women in the world. You must not hope to hit upon a phoenix.’

‘Yet everyone marries.’

‘Yes, fools and idlers do. A philosopher once said that people only marry “when they do not know what they are doing or when they do not know what else to do”.’

‘So the whole universe must be allowed to come to an end?’

‘You could say that. A plant which produces only poison cannot be uprooted too soon.’

‘Eugénie will not be grateful to you for treating her with such excessive severity.’

‘Does she seem taken with the idea of marrying?’

‘Your wish is her command, she said.’

‘Well, Madame, it is my wish that you should say no more of this marriage.’

And Monsieur de Franval left the room, renewing his most express command that the matter should never be mentioned to him again.

Madame de Franval did not fail to render her mother an exact account of the interview she had had with her husband. Madame de Farneille, shrewder and more familiar with the effects of the passions than her worthy daughter, immediately suspected that there was something most unusual behind all this.

Eugénie saw very little of her grandmother: an hour at most when there were visitors, and always in the presence of Franval. Wishing to find out what was going on, Madame de Farneille wrote to her son-in-law asking him to send her granddaughter to visit her one day soon, and allow her to spend the whole afternoon alone with her, as a distraction, she said, from the migraines which were so troublesome to her. He sent a curt reply, saying that there was nothing Eugénie detested more than the vapours, but that he would bring her as requested, though she would not be able to stay for long since she would be expected to return home to attend a physics lesson, a subject she studied with close application.

They duly called on Madame de Farneille, who did not conceal from her son-in-law the surprise she had felt on learning that the proposal of marriage had been rejected.

‘I do not think you would have anything to fear,’ she went on, ‘if you allowed your daughter to tell me in her own words what exactly this uncertainty is which, so you say, prevents her from marrying.’

‘Whether the uncertainty is real or not, Madame,’ said Franval, somewhat surprised by his mother-in-law’s persistence, ‘the fact is that it would cost me a pretty penny if my daughter were to marry. I am as yet too young to make such a sacrifice. When she is twenty-five and of age, she will act as she thinks fit. But until then, she must not count on me.’

‘And do you share the same sentiments, Eugénie?’ said Madame de Farneille.

‘Not entirely, Madame,’ said Mademoiselle de Franval very firmly. ‘My father has given me leave to marry when I am twenty-five. But I tell you, as I tell him, that I shall never avail myself of his authorization for as long as I live. For, given my outlook on life, it would merely ensure that I was perpetually unhappy.’

‘Girls of your age do not have outlooks on life, Mademoiselle,’ said Madame de Farneille. ‘There is something very odd about all this, and I must find out what it is.’

‘I urge you to do so, Madame,’ said Franval, making ready to leave with his daughter. ‘A good starting point would be to use your circle of church hangers-on to solve the riddle. When their mighty clerical minds have minced the matter exceeding small and you know the answer, perhaps you would be so good as to tell me whether I am right or wrong to say no to Eugénie’s marriage.’

This sarcastic reference to the ecclesiastical counsellors who advised Franval’s mother-in-law in matters spiritual was aimed specifically at one worthy man of the cloth, who must be introduced at this point, since he has a part to play in the events which will soon unfold.

He was spiritual guide to Madame de Farneille and her daughter, one of the most virtuous men in France, upright, charitable, and blessed with honesty and plain good sense. He was Monsieur de Clervil, who had none of the vices of his cloth but only gentle, altruistic virtues. The ever-ready prop of the poor, a true friend to the rich, and the comforter of the distressed, this saintly man combined all the gifts which make a man likeable with all the virtues of the man of feeling.

When asked for his advice, Clervil replied sagely that before any step was taken in the matter, efforts should be made to discover Monsieur de Franval’s reasons for opposing his daughter’s marriage. And although Madame de Farneille dropped several hints likely to start a suspicion of a state of affairs which was only too real, her prudent adviser rejected the idea. Considering it far too damaging to the good name of both Madame de Franval and her husband, he refused indignantly to entertain any such notion.

‘Crime, Madame, is a most distressing thing,’ this good man would say. ‘It is really so implausible to suppose that any person of goodwill would deliberately cross the threshold of decency and throw off the restraints of virtue, that it is always with the greatest reluctance that I am prepared to harbour any such suspicion. We should be sparing with our accusations, for they are often the result of our own pride, the offspring of a secret comparison which is made in the depths of our soul. We rush to find evil in others so that we may be justified in feeling that we are better than they. But when the matter is properly considered, Madame, is it not preferable that a secret fault were never revealed at all, than that we should proceed at an unpardonable gallop and assume the existence of non-existent sins, and in so doing sully—groundlessly, but to our satisfaction—the good name of people who have committed no other crimes than those imputed to them by our pride? And can this same principle not be extended with advantage to everything else? Is it not infinitely less important to punish a crime than to prevent that crime from spreading? If it is allowed to remain in shadow, is it not as good as cancelled?* If it is made public, scandal will surely follow, and talk of it will awaken the passions of others who may be inclined to the same kind of transgression. The blindness inseparable from wrongdoing gives comfort to other guilty persons, who will hope that they will be more fortunate than the sinner who has been found out. It is not a lesson they have been taught, but a practical piece of advice that they have been given, and they proceed to commit excesses they would doubtless never have dared dream of had it not been for the scandal which, unwisely provoked and wrongly construed as justice, is nothing more than misconceived moral strictness or a cloak for our vanity.’

At this first conference he therefore settled for reaching an accurate understanding of the causes of Franval’s opposition to his daughter’s marriage, and of the reasons which led Eugénie to adopt the same way of thinking. It was decided that nothing should be done until these questions were clear.

‘Well, Eugénie,’ said Franval to his daughter that evening, ‘you see? They want to separate us. Will they succeed, child? Will they manage to remove the sweetest chains I ever wore?’

‘Never! You must never fear any such thing, my dear, darling friend! Those same chains which delight your heart are no less precious to me. You have not misled me. As you were busy forging them, you made it perfectly clear how offensive they were to ordinary morals and manners. I was not afraid to defy customs which, since they vary from country to country, cannot be considered sacred, and I welcomed my chains with open arms and added to them without guilt. There is no reason therefore why you should fear that I will ever cast them off.’

‘Alas, who can tell? Colunce is a younger man than I am. He has everything to make a young girl love him. Eugénie, you must not be held back by a lingering, youthful aberration which surely prevents you from thinking clearly. The enchantment will fade as you grow older and wiser, and you will soon have regrets. You will lay the burden of them on my heart, and I shall never forgive myself for having been the cause of them.’

‘No,’ replied Eugénie firmly, ‘I have made up my mind that I shall never love anyone but you. I should count myself the unhappiest of women if I were ever forced to marry. Me, marry?’ she went on heatedly. ‘Yoke myself to a stranger who would not have two kinds of love to offer me as you do, and would cut me down to the size of his feelings or at most of his desires! Neglected and despised by him, what would become of me thereafter? Would I turn into a prude, a bigot, a whore? Never! I would infinitely prefer to be your mistress, my dear. Yes, I would prefer a thousand times to love you than be reduced to playing in public any of those ignoble roles. But what is behind all this present commotion?’ Eugénie went on crossly. ‘Do you know what has caused it? What can it be? Is it your wife? Yes, that’s it, she and her unrelenting jealousy. Make no mistake: there you have the only reason for the calamities which threaten us. Oh, I do not blame her. It is all very straightforward, all perfectly understandable: to keep you, a woman would stop at nothing. What would I not do in her place if someone tried to steal your affections from me?’

Unexpectedly moved, Franval took his daughter in his arms. She, finding encouragement in his criminal caresses and infusing her black soul with new energy, chanced to tell her father with unforgivable shamelessness that the only way of ensuring that they were not spied on was to provide a lover for her mother. This idea delighted Franval but, being more wicked than his daughter and wishing to open her heart gradually to those feelings of hatred for his wife which he hoped to plant there, he replied that such a revenge seemed to him far too mild, adding that there were many other ways of making a wife unhappy when she put her husband out of temper.

Several weeks went by during which Franval and his daughter finally reconciled themselves to implementing their original plan, which was designed to reduce the monster’s virtuous wife to the depths of despair, rightly believing that before they graduated to even viler schemes, they should at least attempt to find her a lover. This tactic would not only provide the basis for all the other stratagems they had in mind but, if successful, would necessarily teach Madame de Franval not to pay quite so much attention to the failings of others, since she would herself be guilty of proven shortcomings of her own.

To set the plan in motion, Franval cast an eye over all the young men of his acquaintance. Having given the matter considerable thought, he found only Valmont* who seemed entirely suitable for his purpose.

Valmont was thirty years of age. He possessed handsome features, wit, a goodly measure of imagination, and no moral scruples whatsoever. He was therefore eminently qualified to play the role which he was about to be offered. One day Franval invited him to dine and, as the company rose from table, he took him to one side.

‘My dear fellow,’ said he, ‘I have always considered you to be as gamesome as I am myself. The moment has come for you to prove that I am not wrong to think so. I shall ask you to prove your sentiments, and prove them in a very unusual way.’

‘What does it involve? Explain yourself. You should never doubt my readiness to serve you in any way I can!’ ‘What do you think of my wife?’

‘Utterly ravishing. If you were not her husband, I should have been her lover long before this.’

‘Tactfully put and very delicate, Valmont, but there is no need for that sort of thing with me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Prepare to be amazed. It is precisely because you are my friend… precisely because I am Madame de Franval’s husband, that I would like you to become her lover.’

‘Are you mad?’

‘No, just capricious, whimsical… you have known me long enough to recognize my moods. I want virtue to take a tumble, and I would like you to be the man to trip it up.’

‘But this is folly!’

‘Not another word. This really is the most rational thing…’

‘You mean you seriously want me to…?’

‘Yes I do, I insist. Indeed, I shall cease to regard you as my friend if you refuse me this favour. I shall arrange opportunities for you… many opportunities… and you will make the most of them. And when I am absolutely certain of how I stand, I shall, if I must, throw myself at your feet and thank you for your co-operation.’

‘Franval, I won’t be your dupe. There is something very strange about all this. I will have no part of it unless I know everything.’

‘Very well… but I suspect that you have a few lingering scruples. I have no guarantee that you have the strength of mind to grasp and understand what is involved. You still have antiquated notions… a few trailing wisps of chivalry, I’d wager?… You would jump like a startled child if told you everything, and then you wouldn’t want to help.’

‘Me, jump? I am mortified you should think such a thing of me. See here, old friend, there is no dissolute behaviour under the sun, no debauched act, however extreme, which could make my heart miss a single beat.’

‘Valmont, have you sometimes let your eye linger on Eugénie?’

‘Your daughter?’

‘My mistress, if you prefer.’

‘Why you old rogue! Now I’ve got it!’

‘This is the first time in my life I have ever observed a glimmer of intelligence in you.’

‘You mean, on your honour, that you’re in love with your own daughter?’

‘Yes, old friend, as once was Lot. I have always had the greatest respect for Holy Writ, and was always told that we may get to heaven if we model ourselves on its great men… Ah, I can now understand what possessed Pygmalion… Are such lapses not universal? Was not mankind obliged to resort to such methods to populate the world?* And if it was not wrong then, how can it be wrong now? It is all so much folly! Does it mean that I should not be attracted by a pretty girl, just because I made the mistake of bringing her into this world? What justifies my staying close to her becomes the reason why I should keep away from her! Is it because she is like me, because she is my flesh and blood… that is, because she embodies everything required to start feelings of the most passionate love… that I must keep my distance?… This is pure sophistry, and utterly absurd! Such curbs on desire should be left to the clods and the fools: they were not meant for people like us. The attraction of beauty and the divine right of love do not recognize these futile human conventions. Their power overcomes them just as the rays of the new day’s sun washes the earth clean of the mists which shrouded it by night. We must ride roughshod over these odious prejudices which are eternally opposed to our happiness. If they have sometimes seemed to make sense to the human mind, they have done so only at the cost of denying us the most gratifying pleasures of the body. We should hold them eternally in the deepest contempt.’

‘You have convinced me,’ replied Valmont, ‘and I freely grant you that Eugénie must be the most delectable mistress. Her style of beauty is more vivacious than her mother’s, and if she does not quite have that languishing look which your wife has, the kind that fills the very soul with sensual thoughts, she has a pertness that enslaves a man and, in short, is likely to bring anyone who resists her to his knees. Whereas the one appears to yield, the other demands surrender; what the first grants, the other offers… and to my mind it is the latter who is the more charming.’

‘Yes, but it is not Eugénie I’m offering you but her mother.’

‘True. But what is your reason for doing this?’

‘My wife is jealous. She is being a nuisance and keeps a close eye on me. She wants to find Eugénie a husband. I must show that she has committed transgressions if I am to cover up my own. So you must have her… take your pleasure with her for a while… then betray her… and I must find you in her arms… and either punish her or use the evidence to buy peace on both sides on the basis of our mutual misconduct… But remember, Valmont, make sure that love stays out of the reckoning. Keep a cool head, sweep her off her feet, and make sure you stay on yours. If feelings get dragged into this, my plans will be shot to pieces.’*

‘Never fear, she would be the first woman to warm up my heart.’

And so the two miscreants agreed on their arrangement, and it was decided that in the days immediately following Valmont would make his approach to Madame de Franval, with full permission to use any method he chose to bring the business to a successful conclusion, even if it meant revealing the nature of Franval’s love, this being thought the most powerful means of persuading his worthy wife to seek her revenge.

Eugénie, who was made privy to the scheme, found it vastly entertaining. The ignoble creature even went so far as to say that if Valmont succeeded, then, if her happiness was to be as complete as could be wished, she would have to be personally assured of her mother’s disgrace by observing the spectacle for herself, so that she could see that heroine of virtue surrender unambiguously to the attractions of a pleasure which she normally damned with such severity.

At last the day dawned when the most righteous and unhappy of wives was not only to receive the most grievous hurt that anyone can receive, but also be profaned by her vile husband by being abandoned by him and delivered into the hands of a man by whom he had volunteered to be cuckolded. It was an aberration! Such contempt for every decent principle! What can nature be thinking of when she creates hearts as depraved as these?

One or two preliminary discussions had set out how the scene was to be played. Valmont was, of course, on sufficiently friendly terms with Franval for his wife to have no reason to think twice about remaining alone with him, for it was a thing that had already happened several times without anything untoward occurring. All three were in the drawing room. Franval got to his feet.

‘I must go,’ said he. ‘I have important business to attend to. I should leave you as well chaperoned by your lady’s companion,’ he added with a laugh, ‘as I do in leaving you alone with Valmont. He is utterly trustworthy. But if he does forget himself, you must tell me. He and I are not such close friends that I should be prepared to relinquish my marital rights to him…’

And the shameless rogue departed.

After a few banal pleasantries which arose out of Franval’s jest, Valmont observed that he found his friend much changed over the last six months. ‘I have not really liked to ask him the reason for it,’ he went on, ‘but he has the look of a man with worries.’

‘One thing is certain,’ answered Madame de Franval, ‘and that is that he makes other people worry a great deal.’

‘Great heavens! What are you saying? Has my friend wronged you in some way?’

‘If only we were still at that stage!’

‘I hope you will enlighten me. You know how devoted I am… how utterly attached…’

‘A succession of the most unspeakable breaches… with morality flouted and wrongs of every kind. You would never believe it: he receives the most flattering proposal of marriage for his daughter… and he will have none of it…’

At this point the cunning Valmont averted his eyes, with the air of a man who sees clearly, who is cut to the quick, who fears to say what he thinks.

‘Come, sir,’ Madame de Franval went on, ‘are you not in the least surprised by what I have just told you? Your silence is very strange.’

‘Oh Madame, is it not better to say nothing than to speak and plunge those we love into the deepest despair?’

‘What riddle is this? Explain what you mean, I beg you.’

‘How can you expect me not to shrink from removing the scales from your eyes?’ said Valmont, impulsively reaching for the excellent woman’s hands.

‘Oh sir,’ Madame de Franval continued animatedly, ‘either you must not pronounce another word or else I insist that you say what you mean. The position you put me in is intolerable.’

‘Perhaps less so than the state to which you have reduced me,’ said Valmont and, turning to the woman he was intent on seducing, he gazed at her with eyes inflamed by desire.

‘What is the meaning of this charade, sir? You start by alarming me, you then induce me to ask for an explanation, and next you dare to suggest that you can tell me things to which I must not and cannot listen, and in so doing you deprive me of the opportunity of hearing from your lips precisely what it is that worries me most cruelly. Speak, sir, speak, otherwise you will reduce me to despair.’

‘I will therefore be less opaque, Madame, since you insist and although it pains me to cause you so deep a hurt. Let me tell you the cruel reason why your husband rejected Monsieur de Colunce’s proposal. Eugénie…’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, Madame, Franval is besotted with her. He is now not so much her father as her lover. He would sooner be forced to end his life than give up Eugénie.’

Madame de Franval had not heard this appalling revelation to the end before being overcome by a malaise which robbed her of her senses. Valmont hastened to her assistance, and when his efforts were rewarded, he went on:

‘You see, Madame, the price you have had to pay for the explanation you insisted on having? I would not for all the world…’

‘Leave me, sir, let me alone,’ said Madame de Franval who, after experiencing such a violent shock, was now in a state difficult to convey. ‘I need to be alone for a while.’

‘And you want me to leave you in this condition? The pain you feel I feel too, in my heart, and too cruelly for me to refrain from asking your permission to share it with you. I caused the wound. Allow me to heal it.’

‘Franval in love with his daughter! My God! The creature I carried in my womb is the same who now tears me to pieces so mercilessly! Such an unspeakable crime! Oh sir, how can this be? Can there be any doubt…?’

‘If I had doubts, Madame, I would have kept silent. I would have much rather told you nothing than alarm you unnecessarily. It was your husband himself who gave me confirmation of his infamous conduct. He took me into his confidence. Whatever this means, I beg you to remain calm. Let us concentrate now on finding a way of ending this situation rather than trying to explain it. And you have the means of doing so…’

‘Oh, then waste no time and tell me what it is! This crime fills me with horror!’

‘A husband with a character like Franval’s, Madame, cannot be reformed by virtue. Yours has little faith in the chastity of women. He claims that everything they do to retain our good regard is determined by their pride or their physiology: it is designed more for their own satisfaction than to please us or snare us in their toils… Forgive me, Madame, but I shall not hide the fact that I think as he does in this matter. I never yet saw a case where it was with her virtues that a woman succeeded in overcoming her husband’s vices. Now if you were to behave more or less as Franval has done, it might prove a more effective goad and be a better way of winning him back. The result would be undoubtedly to make him jealous, and love has been returned to so many hearts by this invariably infallible stratagem! Your husband would then see that the virtue which is his natural mode but which he has the effrontery to despise, is much more the result of his way of thinking than of waywardness or his physical constitution, and he will learn to value it in you once he thinks that you are capable of falling short of it… He imagines… he has even suggested that if you have never had lovers it is because you have never been propositioned. Prove to him that it is your decision whether to be propositioned or not, and your choice to seek revenge for his misdeeds and his contempt. Perhaps, judged by your strict principles, you will have committed a small sin. But what evils will you not have prevented! What a husband you will have converted! And at the cost of a small offence against the goddess you revere, what a rare votary will you not have ushered back to the fold of her temple? Oh Madame, I appeal only to your reason. By the conduct I have ventured to prescribe, you will win back Franval for ever, he will be yours for all eternity. At present he eludes you by behaving badly; he will escape you and never return. Yes, Madame, I guarantee it: either you do not love your husband or you must not hesitate.’

Madame de Franval, extremely taken aback by what she had heard, remained for some moments without replying. Then, resuming her role in the conversation, and recalling the way Valmont had looked at her and the first words he had spoken:

‘Sir,’ she said shrewdly, ‘assuming I were to take the advice you have given me, in which direction do you think I should look so that my husband would be the most deeply mortified?’

‘Ah! Dear, divine lady,’ exclaimed Valmont, not seeing the trap which had been laid for him, ‘why, towards the man who of all others loves you the most, a man who has worshipped you from the moment he first saw you, who now kneels before you and swears that he will be yours until the day he dies!’

‘Go, sir! Get out,’ Madame de Franval said peremptorily, ‘and never appear in my sight again! Your ruse is exposed. You accuse my husband of crimes of which he is incapable merely to make it easier for your own treachery to pass. Know this: even were he guilty, the approach you have outlined would be too offensive to my feelings for me to adopt it for one moment. The failings of a husband can never justify the immorality of a wife, and should be an extra reason for her to behave well, so that the just man, whom Almighty God will find in the grieving cities which prepare to feel the weight of His wrath,* may, if he can, deflect from their heart the fires which are about to consume them.’

And so saying, Madame de Franval left the room, called for Valmont’s servants, and left him no alternative but to go, which he did, heartily ashamed of his first advances.

Although this remarkable woman had seen through the ruse of Franval’s friend, what he had said tallied so well with the fears harboured by both herself and her mother that she resolved to leave no stone unturned in her efforts to establish the truth of such cruel charges. She called upon Madame de Farneille, told her all that had happened, and returned home, determined to take the steps which we shall observe her pursue.

It was said long ago, and with ample reason, that we have no greater enemies than our servants. Ever watchful, invariably envious, it would seem that they seek to lighten their chains by exploiting any failings on our part which put us in their power and allow their vanity to claim, momentarily at least, a superiority over us which fate has denied them.

Madame de Franval managed to suborn one of Eugénie’s maids. A safe haven, a pleasant future, and the semblance of a good deed were enough to make up the creature’s mind. She agreed that the next night she would put Madame de Franval in a position where she would have no further doubts about her predicament.

The moment arrives. The unhappy mother is led into a side room adjoining the apartment where each night her faithless husband violated both his vows and Heaven itself. Eugénie was with her father. Candles still burned on a corner table, and were sufficient to light up the crime. The altar is prepared, the victim takes her place upon it, and the high priest follows… Madame de Franval, sustained only by her despair, her inflamed love, and her courage, breaks down the doors which bar her way and bursts into the apartment where, falling on to her knees and weeping at the feet of her incestuous husband, she cried:

‘Ah, faithless man, you who are the cause of my life’s unhappiness, who have treated me in a manner I did not deserve, whom I still love, despite the wrongs I have suffered at your hand, see my tears and do not cast me aside! I implore you to spare our hapless daughter who, led astray by her own weakness and your blandishments, believes that she will find happiness in lewdness and crime… Eugénie, Eugénie, will you drive a dagger through this body which gave you life? You must cease to be a willing party to a compact whose horror has been hidden from you! Come… come to me… See, my arms are open and ready to receive you! Behold your pitiful mother, who goes down on her knees before you and begs you to defile neither honour nor nature! But if you both reject me,’ the despairing woman continued, holding a dagger to her heart, ‘this is the means by which I shall avoid the punishments which you intend to inflict on me. You will be splashed by the blood I shed, and you will have only my pitiful corpse on which to consummate your crimes.’

That Franval’s flinty soul was able to resist this spectacle will be only too easily believed by those who are beginning to understand what a villain he was. But that Eugénie’s heart should remain unmoved is a thing inconceivable.

‘Madame,’ said this depraved daughter, in the most callous and cruel tone, ‘I must admit that I cannot for the life of me connect your rational mind with this ridiculous scene which you are making here in your husband’s rooms. Is he not the master of his own actions? And since he approves of mine, what right have you to criticize? Shall we speak of your indiscretions with Monsieur de Valmont? Do we interfere with your pleasures? Then be so good as not to meddle in ours, or else you must not be surprised if I am the first to urge your husband to take measures which will force you to…’

At this point, Madame de Franval’s patience snapped. All her rage now turned against the ignoble creature who could forget herself to the point of addressing her in this manner. Rising to her feet in fury, she threw herself at her. But the odious, brutal Franval, seizing his wife by the hair, dragged her angrily away from his daughter, ejected her from the room, pushed her roughly down the stairs, and sent her tumbling, unconscious and bleeding, until she came to rest outside the door of one of her maids who, awakened by the horrible din, hurriedly removed her mistress from the rage of her persecutor, who had followed her down to dispatch his wretched victim. She was taken home, the doors were locked, and her hurts were tended. Meanwhile, the monster who had treated her with such frenzy hastened back to the side of his hateful companion, where he spent as peaceful a night as if he had not sunk below the level of the most ravening beasts by perpetrating such an execrable outrage… by committing actions consciously intended to humiliate… and so horrible, in short, that we are mortified to be forced into the position of having to disclose them.

The hapless Madame de Franval could now have no more illusions, not one to which she might have plausibly clung. It was only too clear that the love of her husband, the most precious thing in her life that she possessed, had been taken from her… and by whom? By the person who owed her the greatest respect… and had just spoken to her with the greatest insolence. She also suspected that the whole Valmont business was nothing other than a despicable trap intended to lure her into actual misconduct if possible or, failing that, to impute sins to her, to blacken her name, in order to provide a counterweight—and thus the justification—for the wrongs, infinitely more serious, which had been so shamelessly done to her.

Such was indeed the case. Franval, informed of Valmont’s failure, had persuaded him to substitute duplicity and an indiscreet tongue for the truth; in short, to tell all and sundry that he was Madame de Franval’s lover. And they had agreed between them that they would forge odious letters which would provide the most unequivocal proof of a liaison to which, in reality, Franval’s hapless wife had refused to be a party. Meanwhile, Madame de Franval, in a state of despair, and suffering from injuries to various parts of her body, fell seriously ill. Her barbarous husband, refusing to see her and not even troubling to enquire after her health, left with Eugénie for the country, giving it as an excuse that since there was a contagious fever in his house he had no wish that his daughter should be exposed to it.

Valmont called several times on Madame de Franval during her illness, but was not admitted once. Closeted with her loving mother and Monsieur de Clervil, she saw no one. Consoled by such affectionate friends, who were so well qualified to take charge of her, and brought back to life by their loving care, she was, forty days later, well enough to receive callers. Franval brought his daughter back to Paris at that time, and arranged with Valmont to assemble weapons capable of neutralizing those which Madame de Franval and her friends seemed determined to direct at them.

Our villain called on his wife as soon as he believed that she was in a fit state to receive him.

‘Madame,’ he said coldly, ‘you should be in no doubt of the interest I have taken in your condition, for I cannot hide from you the fact that it was the state of your health that you must thank for Eugénie’s restraint. She had decided to bring the most acrimonious charges against you for treating her the way you did. However convinced she might be of the respect a daughter should have for her mother, she is sensible that a mother places herself in the worst possible light when she throws herself on her daughter, with a dagger in her hand. Violence of that sort, Madame, by drawing the attention of the authorities to your conduct, might one day lead inescapably to consequences for your freedom and your good name.’

‘I was not expecting these recriminations, sir,’ answered Madame de Franval. ‘And when my daughter, after being seduced by you, makes herself guilty, severally, of incest, adultery, debauchery, and the most odious ingratitude to the mother who brought her into the world… yes, after such a tissue of horrors, I confess I never dreamed I should be the one to fear criminal charges. It needs all the artifice and malice that you possess, sir, to accuse the innocent by excusing the guilty with such bare-faced arrogance!’

‘I am not unaware, Madame, that the pretext for the scene you made was the odious suspicions you dare harbour of me. But idle fancies do not prove that crimes have been committed. What you thought is false. What you did is unfortunately all too real. You were surprised by the reproaches aimed against you by my daughter concerning your liaison with Valmont. But, Madame, she uncovered the irregularity of your conduct only after it was known to all Paris. Your affair is no secret, and the evidence is unfortunately so overwhelming that people who speak to you of this matter are guilty not of slander but at most of an imprudence.’

‘Me, sir?’ cried his worthy wife, rising to her feet in indignation. ‘I am involved in a liaison with Valmont? Merciful heavens! That is what you say.’ (Here shedding copious tears.) ‘Ungrateful man! So this is the reward for all my affection… what I get for having loved you so? Not content with abusing me so cruelly, not satisfied with seducing my daughter, you must also have the audacity to justify your evil deeds by imputing crimes to me which I find more terrible than death itself…’ (Then collecting herself.) ‘You say you have evidence of this liaison, sir. Then produce it, I demand that it be made public. If you refuse to let me see it, I will force you to show it to the whole world.’

‘Absolutely not, Madame. I shall not show it to the whole world. It is not usual for a husband to cause a scandal in matters of this sort. He weeps over it, he hides it as best he can. But if you really insist on seeing the proofs for yourself, Madame, I would certainly not refuse your request.’ (Here he produced a wallet from his pocket.) ‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘this must be looked into calmly: ill-temper and angry outbursts would harm your case and not convince me. So please collect yourself and let us discuss the matter rationally.’

Madame de Franval, knowing of course that she was totally innocent, hardly knew what to make of these preliminaries. Her surprise, which was mingled with apprehension, held her in a state of violent emotion.

‘First, Madame,’ said Franval, emptying one side of the wallet, ‘here are all the letters you have exchanged with Valmont over the last six months. You must not accuse the young fellow of duplicity or a loose tongue, for he is assuredly too honourable to show you so little respect. The fact is, one of his servants, more cunning than his master was careful, found a means of procuring for me this precious testimony of your extreme good conduct and lofty virtue.’ (He leafs through the letters and scatters them on the table.) ‘You will not mind,’ he went on, ‘if from among the usual prattlings of a woman… excited by a handsome man, if I select one which to me seemed brisker and altogether more direct than the others:

My tedious husband will sup tonight at his own little pleasure house with that repulsive creature. I can scarcely believe that I brought her into the world… Come, my sweet, and console me for all the vexations those two monsters cause me… Yet when I think of it, is it not the best turn in the world they do me in the present juncture, for will not their little affair prevent my husband from noticing ours? So let him wrap himself as tightly in his amours as he pleases. But he would be well advised not to think of trying to unwrap mine which make me dote on the only man I have ever loved in the whole world.

Well, Madame?’

‘Well, sir, I can but applaud,’ replied Madame de Franval. ‘Each day adds to the impossibly high regard which you so handsomely deserve. In the past I have recognized many great qualities in you. But I confess I never knew until this moment that you also possessed the talents of forger and slanderer.’

‘So you deny everything?’

‘Not at all. I merely wish to be convinced. We will choose judges… experts. And, if you agree, we shall demand the severest punishment for whichever of us is guilty.’

‘This is what is called barefaced effrontery. Still I would prefer that to hand-wringing. Let us continue. That you should have a lover, Madame,’ said Franval, giving the second side of the wallet a shake, ‘since you have a pretty face and a tedious husband, is surely a matter plain and unvarnished. But that at your age you should keep a lover, and at my expense to boot, is something which you will permit me to find much less straightforward. Yet here are notes for a hundred thousand crowns either paid by you or made out in your hand in Valmont’s favour. Be so good as to glance at them, would you?’ the monster added, holding them in front of her but without letting her touch them.

To Zaïde, jeweller,

In full settlement of the sum of twenty-two thousand livres, this being the outstanding account of Monsieur de Valmont, as agreed with him,

Farneille de Franval

‘To Jamet, horse-dealer, six thousand livres…’ That was for the coach and chestnut pair which today are Valmont’s pride and joy. Yes, Madame, and this one is for three-hundred thousand, two-hundred and eighty-three livres and ten sous, of which you still owe a third after paying the rest as agreed. Well, Madame?’

‘Sir, this is a complete fabrication and much too crude to cause me a moment’s anxiety. I ask but one thing to silence those who have conspired against me, which is that the people for whom I am supposed to have signed these notes should come forward and swear that I have had dealings with them.’

‘They will do so, Madame, you may count on it. Would they themselves have informed me of your conduct were they not of a mind to affirm what they have stated? But for me, one of them would have begun proceedings against you this very day.’

Tears began to flow from the wretched woman’s lustrous eyes. Her courage gave way and she collapsed beneath an onslaught of despair which was accompanied by frightening symptoms: she beat her head against the marble walls around her and pummelled her face with her hands.

‘Sir,’ she cried, throwing herself at her husband’s feet, ‘since you are intent on making an end of me, I beg you do it by a method that is less slow and less horrible! Since my existence is a hindrance to your crimes, end it swiftly… do not drive me slowly to my grave… Am I guilty for loving you, for rebelling against your conduct which so cruelly deprived me of your love? Well then, punish me, unfeeling man, yes, take this blade,’ she exclaimed, reaching wildly for her husband’s sword, ‘take it, I say, and pierce my heart for pity’s sake! But let me at least die deserving of your respect. Let me take to the grave, as my only consolation, the knowledge that you believe me incapable of the vile actions of which you accuse me only so that you can conceal your own!’

She was on her knees, prostrate at Franval’s feet, her hands bleeding and cut by the naked blade she had attempted to seize and plunge into her breast, ready bared, over which tumbled her dishevelled hair and which was wet with the tears she shed copiously. Never did sorrow seem more piteous or more expressive; never had its every detail appeared more affecting, more vivid, and more noble…

‘No, Madame,’ said Franval, parrying her action, ‘it is not your death we seek… not yet… but your punishment. I can understand your contrition, your tears are no surprise to me, for you are angry at being found out. Your reaction pleases me, for it allows me to think you might mend your conduct… a change of heart which will doubtless be hastened by the fate I have in mind for you. I shall now leave you and give the matter my fullest attention.’

‘Stop, Franval!’ cried his distraught wife. ‘You cannot make your dishonour common knowledge! You must not inform the public yourself that you are a forger, an incestuous father, and a slanderer!… You would like to be rid of me. Very well, I shall go far away from you. I shall find some safe haven where I shall forget even the memory of you. You will be free, free to commit your crimes… Yes, I shall forget you, if I can, cruel man, or if the painful thought of you cannot be expunged from my heart, if it pursues me still into the depths of my solitude, I shall not seek to blot it out, the effort would be beyond my strength, no, I shall not blot it out, but shall punish myself for my own blindness, and to the horrors of the grave I shall consign a heart which loved you too well!’

At these words, which were the last throw of a soul overwhelmed by affliction, the hapless woman fainted away and collapsed unconscious. The cold shadows of death touched the rose petals of her luminous complexion, which had already been withered by the hand of despair. What remained was a lifeless body which, however, was not yet abandoned by beauty, modesty, and demureness—all the charms of virtue.

The monster left her and hastened away to share with his guilty daughter the appalling victory which vice, or rather villainy, had dared score over innocence and misfortune.

Franval’s odious daughter found his account vastly amusing. She would have liked to be present… the horror ought to have been made more horrible, Valmont ought to have overcome her mother’s resistance, Franval ought to have discovered them together… If all that had happened, what possible avenue for self-justification would have remained open to their victim? Was it not vital to deny her every means of defending herself? There you have Eugénie.

Meanwhile Franval’s unhappy wife, having only her mother to receive the burden of her tears, did not wait long before informing her of this latest aggravation of her miseries. It was now that Madame de Farneille supposed that the age, calling, and personal standing of Monsieur de Clervil might have some salutary effect on her son-in-law: nothing is as trusting as desperation. She therefore, as best she could, made that respectable man of God privy to all the details of Franval’s disorderly life. She convinced him that what he had always refused to believe was true, and in particular persuaded him that with such a villain he should take care to use only arguments designed to appeal to the heart, not the mind. When he had spoken to the blackguard, she suggested he should then seek an interview with Eugénie, during which he would likewise use all the eloquence he judged appropriate to make the wretched girl see the abyss which stood open beneath her feet and, if it were possible, return her to the arms of her mother and the fold of virtue.

Franval, forewarned that Clervil would ask to see his daughter as well as himself, had time to collude with Eugénie and, when their plans were fully laid, he let Madame de Farneille’s adviser know that both were ready to hear him. The gullible Madame de Franval placed all her faith in her mother’s spiritual guide. Those who are desperate grasp hungrily at illusions and, to obtain the relief which reality refuses them, will use all the ingenuity at their command to imagine that their hopes will come true!

Clervil arrived at nine o’clock in the morning. Franval received him in the apartment where he was in the habit of spending his nights with his daughter. He had ordered it to be decorated with the greatest elegance imaginable, while at the same time maintaining an aura of dissipation which bore witness to his criminal pleasures… Positioned close by, Eugénie was able to hear everything, so that she might prepare herself for the interview which had been arranged for her in turn.

‘It is only with the greatest fear of intruding, sir,’ began Clervil, ‘that I venture to stand before you now. Men of my calling are ordinarily so burdensome to persons like you who spend their whole lives surrounded by worldly pleasures that I chide myself for having agreed to the wishes of Madame de Farneille by asking your permission to speak with you briefly.’

‘Pray be seated, sir. As long as you continue to speak the language of justice and reason, you need never be afraid of taxing my patience.’

‘You are much loved by a young wife who has many charms and virtues. Now people say that you make her very unhappy, sir. She has only her innocence and candour to defend her, only the ear of her mother to listen to her grievances, and yet she cherishes you despite the wrong you have done her. You cannot fail to imagine the horror of her position!’

‘I would prefer it, sir, if we came directly to the point, for I sense that you are beating about the bush. What is the purpose of your mission?’

‘To reunite you, if possible, with happiness.’

‘So, if I prove to be as happy as I in fact am, then you would have nothing further to say to me?’

‘It is impossible, sir, that happiness can be found in crime.’

‘I agree. But the man who, by dint of long study and sober reflection, has succeeded in training his mind not to detect evil in anything, to consider all human actions with the utmost indifference, to regard them all as the inevitable consequences of a power—however it is defined—which is sometimes good and sometimes perverse but always irresistible, and gives rise both to what men approve and to what they condemn and never allows anything to distract or thwart its operations, such a man, I say, as you will agree, sir, may be as happy behaving as I behave as you are in the career which you follow. Happiness is an abstraction, a product of the imagination. It is one manner of being moved and depends exclusively on our way of seeing and feeling. Apart from the satisfaction of our needs, there is no single thing which makes all men happy. Every day we observe one man made happy by the very circumstance which makes his neighbour supremely miserable. There is therefore nothing which guarantees happiness. It can only exist for us in the form given to it by our physical constitution and our philosophical principles.’*

‘I do know that, sir. But while our mind may deceive us, conscience never leads us astray: it is the book in which nature has written all our duty.’

‘But do we not do as we please with this spurious conscience of yours? It bends under the weight of habit, we mould it like soft wax which our fingers press into countless shapes. If this book of yours were as complete as you claim, would not all men have the same invariable conscience? From one side of the globe to the other, would not all actions have the same meanings for them? And yet is that really the case? Does the Hottentot tremble at what frightens a Frenchman? And does not this same Frenchman commit actions every day for which he would be punished in Japan? No, sir. Nothing in the world is real, nothing which merits praise or blame, nothing deserving of reward or punishment, nothing which is unlawful here and perfectly legal five hundred leagues away, in other words, there is no unchanging, universal good.’*

‘You must not think so, sir. Virtue is not an illusion. It is not enough to say that a thing is good here and bad a few degrees of longitude distant to define it absolutely as a crime or a virtue, and then to stand firm and claim to have found happiness in the choice one makes between the two. A man’s only true happiness lies in his total submission to the laws of his country. He must either respect them or be wretched, for there is no middle ground between breaking them and disaster. It is not, if you like, these things in themselves which spawn the evils that bring us down when we submit to them, knowing them to be forbidden. It is rather the injuries that these things, which may in themselves be either good or bad, inflict on the social conventions of the climate we inhabit. Certainly there is nothing wrong in preferring to stroll along the Boulevards rather than the Champs-Elysées. But if it was decreed by law that citizens were not allowed to walk along the Boulevards, then perhaps anyone who broke that law would be forging for himself the first link of an unending chain of miseries, though he had done only a simple thing in not obeying. Moreover, the habit of rejecting the ordinary constraints quickly leads to the most serious infringements and, proceeding from one piece of wrongdoing to the next, we come to the kind of crimes which are punished in all countries of the universe, crimes which inspire revulsion in all rational beings who inhabit the globe, at every pole you care to mention. If there is not a universal conscience for man, there is therefore a national conscience which directs the life we have received from nature, upon which its hand imprints our duty in characters which we erase at our peril. For example, sir, your family accuses you of incest. Now whatever sophisms may have been used to justify this crime to diminish its repulsiveness, however specious the arguments which have been advanced on this issue, however authoritative the backing they have been given by examples borrowed from other lands, it is nonetheless proven that this offence, which is a crime only in certain cultures, is extremely dangerous in nations where it is forbidden by law. It is furthermore beyond doubt that it can bring the most appalling complications in its wake and breed further crimes from this first offence—crimes, I say, which are calculated to be viewed by all with horror. Had you married your daughter on the banks of the Ganges, where such marriages are allowed, you would have probably committed a very minor evil. But in a state where these unions are forbidden, then by offering this repulsive spectacle to the public… and to a wife who loves you and who will be forced into an early grave by such a betrayal, you undoubtedly commit a most shocking action, a breach likely to unravel the most holy bonds of nature—those same bonds which, by making a daughter cleave to the father who gave her life, must therefore make him in her eyes the most worthy and sacred of all men. You force your daughter to despise duties which are so precious, you make her hate the mother who bore her in her womb, you give her weapons which, though you do not realize it, she may turn against you, you offer her no system of values, you instil in her no set of principles where your guilt is writ large… And if one day she raises her hand against you, you yourself will have sharpened the blade.’*

‘Your style of argument, so different from that of men of your calling,’ replied Franval, ‘encourages me to be quite candid with you, sir. Now, I could deny your indictment. But I hope my frankness in opening myself up to you will oblige you to believe that my wife is also guilty of wrongs, for I shall set them out for you with the same truthfulness which I shall use to set out mine. Yes, sir, I love my daughter. I love her with passion. She is my mistress, my wife, my sister, my confidante, my friend, my only god on earth, for she has all the qualities which would compel devotion in any man, and with every beat of my heart I give her mine by right. These sentiments will last for as long as I live. No doubt I must justify them, since I am quite incapable of relinquishing them.

‘The first duty of a father to his daughter is indisputably, as you will agree, to procure for her the largest portion of happiness possible. If he does not achieve this, he is in his daughter’s debt; if he succeeds, he is above reproach. I neither seduced nor forced Eugénie, a point which is very remarkable, and you must not let it escape. I never hid her from the company of others and cultivated the blooms of marriage without disguising the thorns which lurk among their petals. I then offered myself. I left Eugénie free to choose. She had ample time to reflect. She never hesitated, but declared that she was happy only with me. Was I wrong, in wanting her happiness, to give her what, with full knowledge of the facts, she appeared to want more than anything else?’

‘These sophisms justify nothing, sir. You ought not to have intimated to your daughter that the man she could not choose without doing a wrong could be the one to make her happy. However beautiful a fruit might look, would you not refrain from offering it to someone if you knew for sure that death lurked in its flesh? No, sir, you were thinking only of yourself in your odious proceeding, of which you have made your daughter both the accomplice and the victim. What you have done is unforgivable. And your virtuous, tender wife whose heart you are breaking so wantonly, what wrong do you believe she has done? What wrong, unjust man, other than loving you?’

‘I am glad you raise the point, sir, and on this matter I trust you will be frank. I think I have some right to expect it after the candid manner in which I have confessed to the charges which have been made against me.’

And then Franval showed Clervil the forged letters and receipts which he attributed to his wife, and assured him that the documents could not be more genuine, and as real as Madame de Franval’s liaison with the man they concerned.

But Clervil knew everything.

‘Well, sir,’ he said firmly to Franval, ‘was I not correct when I told you that a mistake which may initially be regarded as being of no consequence in itself, may, by accustoming us to step across boundaries, lead us to the ultimate horrors of crime and wickedness? You began with an action which you regarded as insignificant, but can you not see all the vile things you have had to do to justify or conceal it? Believe me, sir, let us put these inexcusable abominations on the fire and forget, I beg you, that they ever existed.’

‘These papers are genuine, sir.’

‘They are false.’

‘But you cannot be absolutely certain: are not your doubts sufficient to give me the benefit of them?’

‘One moment, sir. I have only your word for believing them to be authentic, and you have every reason for not withdrawing the accusations you have made. I have only the word of your wife for believing them false, though it would also be very much to her advantage to tell me if they were genuine, if indeed such is the case. That is how I judge these matters, sir… Human self-interest, that is what carries people through everything they do, it is the motive of all their actions. Wherever I encounter it, the torch of truth is lit for me. This rule has never led me astray, and I have been using it for forty years. So will not your wife’s virtue refute this disgraceful slander in the eyes of all? Is it with her honesty, is it with her candour, is it with the love with which she still burns for you, that a woman allows herself to commit such abominations? No, sir. These are not the first steps in crime. And since you know how crimes grow more serious by incremental leaps, you should be better skilled in directing its course.’

‘You insult me, sir!’

‘Forgive me. Injustice, slander, and depravity offend my soul so deeply that I am sometimes not master of the feelings which these horrors start in me. Let us burn these documents, sir, I earnestly beg you once more. Let us burn them for the sake of your honour and your peace of mind.’

‘I never imagined, sir,’ said Franval rising to his feet, ‘that given the ministry you profess it was so easy to become the apologist, the protector of licentiousness and adultery. My wife has sullied my good name and her extravagance is ruining me—I have shown you the proof. You are so blinded by her that you would prefer to accuse me and make me into a slanderer than see her as a faithless, depraved woman! Well, sir, we shall let the law decide: all the courts of France will ring with the action I shall bring. I shall produce my evidence, I shall make my dishonour public, and then we shall see if you will still be so naive, or rather so stupid, as to wish to defend such a shameless creature against me!’

‘I had better leave, sir,’ said Clervil, also getting to his feet. ‘I never imagined that the bizarre cast of your mind should so pollute the qualities of your heart, and that, blinded by unwarranted vengeance, you would be capable of coolly defending propositions which seem more like the ravings of madness. Sir, all this leaves me more convinced than ever that when a man rejects his first and most sacred of duties, he will soon be ready to abandon the rest of them. If reflection changes your opinion, be so good as to let me know, sir, and you will always find in your family, as in me, friends ready to welcome you back… But might I be allowed to speak for a moment with your daughter?’

‘As you wish, sir. But with her I would advise you to use either a more golden tongue or else more convincing arguments if you wish to set before her your luminous verities, in which I was unfortunate enough to detect only mental blindness and specious reasoning.’

Clervil entered Eugénie’s apartment. She was waiting for him in the most teasing, elegant déshabillé. The kind of immodesty which results from crime and self-abandonment ruled her gestures and her glance, and the perfidious creature, desecrating the graces which enhanced her beauty, encapsulated everything which inflames vice and outrages virtue.

Since it did not become an adolescent girl to enter into such deep arguments as a philosopher like Franval, Eugénie confined her remarks to ill-natured bantering, then imperceptibly graduated to the most brazen flirtatiousness. But quickly observing that her advances had no effect, and that so virtuous a man as this would never be caught in her snare, she neatly slipped the knots which held a veil over her beauty and appeared in the most provocative state before Clervil had time to realize what was happening.

‘The wretch!’ she shrieked at the top of her voice. ‘Make the monster go away! But not a word of this crime to my father! Merciful heavens! I expected to be offered pious counsel and the hypocrite has designs on my honour!… Do you see,’ she said to her servants, who had appeared in response to her screams, ‘do you see in what state the blackguard has left me? There you have them, these gentle disciples of a God they defile! Scandal, debauchery, seduction, that is what their morality is made of! And we, poor dupes of their false virtue, we go on stupidly venerating them!’

Clervil, extremely aggrieved by such an outrageous scene, managed nevertheless to hide his anger. Unruffled as he passed through the people who gathered around him, he withdrew.

‘May Heaven’, he said calmly, ‘preserve this unfortunate child… May she be made more pure, if such a thing be possible, and may no one beneath this roof seek to undermine, any more than I have, her virtuous sentiments which I did not come to blight but to resurrect in her heart.’

Such was the sole outcome which Madame de Farneille and her daughter saw from a negotiation of which they had conceived such high hopes. They were ignorant of the damage that can be done by the workings of the souls of criminals. Lessons which would be learned by others merely make them more determined, and it is in the precepts of goodness that they find the incitement to evil.

From this moment on relations on both sides grew even more poisoned. Franval and Eugénie clearly saw that Madame de Franval had to be made to accept that she had done wrong, and in such a way as to leave her no room for doubt. Meanwhile, Madame de Farneille, acting in concert with her daughter, thought very seriously of kidnapping Eugénie. They spoke of it to Clervil. This honest man refused to have any hand in dramatic proposals of this sort. He said he had been too ill-used in their affair to be capable of anything other than of pleading for mercy for the guilty pair. This he asked most particularly, and refused to undertake any further role or mediation. Such sublime sentiments! Why is such nobility so rare in men of the Church? Why were the robes worn by this unique individual made from a cloth which has become so debased?

Let us begin with the steps taken by Franval.

Enter Valmont once more.

‘You are a fool,’ Eugénie’s criminal lover told him. ‘You are not worthy to be my pupil. I shall hoist your incompetence high for all Paris to see if you do not perform any better with my wife this second time around. You must have her, my friend, well and truly have her, and I shall only be convinced when I see her humbled with my very own eyes. I must deny that hateful woman any excuse and any line of defence.’

‘And if she resists?’

‘Then you must use violence… I shall see to it that everybody is kept well away… Frighten her, threaten her, whatever you like… I shall interpret any means you use to succeed as particular favours to me.’

‘Listen,’ said Valmont, ‘I will do what you propose. I give you my word that your wife will submit. But I make one condition, and if you refuse, our arrangement is cancelled. Jealousy must not enter into any of this, as you know. So I want you to give me a quarter of an hour alone with Eugénie. You cannot imagine how I will perform once I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of a moment’s… conversation with her.’

‘But Valmont…’

‘I can understand your fears. But if you believe that I am your friend, then I cannot forgive you for having them. All I want is the pleasure of seeing her alone and of talking with her for a few moments.’

‘Valmont,’ said Franval, somewhat taken aback, ‘you set far too high a price on your services. I know as well as you do how ridiculous jealousy is, but I worship the girl you are talking of, and would rather give up my fortune than her favours.’

‘Don’t worry, that’s not what I’m after.’

Franval, realizing that among all his many acquaintances none was as capable of serving him so well as Valmont, was extremely anxious that he should not get away.

‘Look,’ said he, with a touch of ill-humour, ‘I repeat: your services do not come cheap. Perform them in this way, and you will forfeit any claim to my gratitude…’

‘Oh, gratitude is the price we pay for honourable services rendered. You will feel no gratitude to me for this particular service and, to boot, it will drive a wedge between us within two months… Look, my friend, I understand human nature… the aberrations… the transgressions… and the consequences they give rise to. Man is the most dangerous of all animals, in whatever situation you care to put him. I shall not fail to perform according to your requirements, but I want to be paid in advance. Otherwise I do nothing.’

‘I accept,’ said Franval.

‘Very well,’ replied Valmont. ‘So now matters rest entirely with you: just say when you want me to start.’

‘I shall need a few days to prepare,’ said Franval. ‘But four days from now at the most I shall be ready for you.’

Monsieur de Franval had raised his daughter in such a way that he was absolutely certain that it would not be through an excess of maidenly modestly that she would refuse to co-operate with the plans he had agreed with his friend. But he was jealous, and Eugénie knew it. She loved him at least as much as she was worshipped by him, and when she was informed of what was afoot, she confessed to Franval that she was extremely worried that the proposed tête-à-tête might take a serious turn. Believing he knew Valmont well enough to be sure that all he would get out of it was a few crumbs to satisfy his head and nothing to imperil his heart, Franval dispelled his daughter’s fears and the preparations went ahead.

It was at this juncture that Franval was informed, by the reliable testimony of servants in his mother-in-law’s house who were in his pay, that Eugénie was in great danger, for Madame de Farneille was on the point of obtaining an order for her removal. Franval convinced himself that this was Clervil’s doing and, setting Valmont’s plans temporarily to one side, he applied himself to finding a way of ridding himself of the vexatious cleric whose hand he erroneously detected behind this new manoeuvre. He dug recklessly into his pocket, and money, that all-powerful facilitator of every vice, was slipped into countless different hands until six inveterate footpads agreed to execute his orders.

One evening, as Clervil, who often dined with Madame de Farneille, was leaving her house alone and on foot, he was seized. He was informed that he was arrested by order of the government, shown a forged warrant, bundled into a carriage, and driven at high speed to the dungeons of a sequestered chateau owned by Franval in the heart of the Ardennes. There the unfortunate cleric was delivered into the keeping of the estate steward and described as a scoundrel who had attempted to kill his master. The most stringent precautions were taken to ensure that the hapless victim, whose only wrong was to have shown too much indulgence towards those who now used him so cruelly, would never again see the light of day.

Madame de Farneille was in despair. She was in no doubt in detecting the hand of her son-in-law behind this outrage. The time spent looking for Clervil meant that the business of removing Eugénie was somewhat delayed. Having only a small circle of friends and very limited funds, it was difficult for her to manage two such important affairs at once, and Franval’s decisive move had sent her off on the wrong tack. As a result, she concentrated her efforts on the missing clergyman. But all her enquiries proved fruitless. Our villain had laid his plans so carefully that it was impossible to find any trace of him. Madame de Franval dared not question her husband: they had not spoken to each other since their last confrontation. But what was at stake was so important that it overcame every other consideration. Finally she mustered enough courage to ask her despotic spouse if his intention was to add to the outrages he had inflicted on her the affront of depriving her mother of the best friend she had in the world. The monster denied all knowledge of the matter, and even carried his hypocrisy to the point of offering to help in the search himself. He realized that to prepare the way for her audience with Valmont, he could help calm his wife’s fears by repeating his word of honour that he would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to find Clervil. He therefore lavished kind words on his gullible wife, and swore that however unfaithful to her he might be, it was impossible for him not to worship her from the very depths of his soul. Madame de Franval, ever accommodating and gentle, and always happy when anything brought her closer to a man who was dearer to her than life itself, consented to everything her lying husband asked, anticipating his wishes, furthering them, wanting them too, without ever daring to turn the moment to her advantage, as she should have done, to extract from the brute an undertaking that he would improve his conduct and behave in such a way as not to plunge his long-suffering wife each day into a pit of suffering and despondency.

But even had she done so, would her efforts have succeeded? Would Franval, so devious in every action he had ever undertaken in his life, have been more sincere in an operation which he regarded as worth carrying out only insofar as it moved his own plans several steps forward? He would certainly have promised anything simply to have the pleasure of breaking his word; he might even have hoped to be asked to swear an oath to it, so that the pleasures of perjury would have been added to the list of his wicked enjoyments.

Franval, without a care in the world, now thought only of making trouble for others. Such, when challenged, was the vindictive, turbulent, impulsive nature of his character, for he constantly needed to recover his tranquillity at any cost, and to regain it would clumsily adopt methods most likely to deprive him of it once more. Did he succeed? All his faculties of mind and body were now directed solely at doing harm to others. And so, in a constant state of excitement, he was obliged either to spike the guns which he forced others to train upon him, or find other weapons to turn against them.

Everything was made ready to meet Valmont’s conditions, and the interview, which lasted almost an hour, took place in the garden of Eugénie’s apartment.

[There, in a marquee hung with decorations, Eugénie, naked on a pedestal, was got up as a native maiden wearied by the hunt, leaning against the trunk of a palm tree whose high fronds concealed an infinity of lanterns, so arranged that their light fell only on her body and showed off its beauty with the maximum of art. The kind of small stage on which this living statue stood was surrounded by a channel six feet wide filled with water, which served as a bulwark for the girl and prevented her from being reached from any direction. Valmont’s chair was placed at the edge of this barrier. It was fitted with a silk cord. By pulling upon it, he could make the pedestal revolve in such a way that the object of his veneration could be viewed from every angle, and her pose was such that whichever way she was turned she remained constantly agreeable to behold. Franval, hidden behind a section of the decor in the grove, could see both his mistress and his friend. The spectacle, as had been finally agreed, was to last half an hour. Valmont took his seat… he was entranced, and declared that never had so many feminine charms been set before his sight, and he surrendered to the excitement which inflamed his senses. The cord, permanently pulled this way and that, filled each moment with some new comeliness. To which would he make his sacrifice? Which would he choose? He could not say, for everything about Eugénie was so beautiful! Meanwhile the minutes ticked by, as they always do in such circumstances. The hour struck. The Chevalier Valmont could contain himself no longer, and the tribute of his love fell at the feet of the god whose shrine was forbidden to him. A veil descends and we must withdraw.]

‘Well? Are you satisfied?’ asked Franval, rejoining his friend.

‘She is the most delicious creature,’ replied Valmont. ‘But, Franval, a word of advice: never risk such a thing with another man. You should be thankful that I have sentiments in my heart which are your guarantee against all dangers.’

‘I shall count on it,’ replied Franval quite seriously. ‘But now it is time to act without further delay.’

‘I shall begin working on your wife tomorrow. You appreciate that I shall need a preliminary interview… then four days after that you will have what you want.’

They gave each other their word and then went their separate ways. But after an audience such as he had been granted, Valmont felt no strong desire to deceive Madame de Franval, nor to engineer a triumph for his friend of whom he had become only too envious. Eugénie had made too strong an impression on him to be ignored. He resolved to have her as his wife, whatever the cost. After mature reflection, and deciding that he did not find Eugénie’s intimacy with her father an obstacle, he felt sure that since his fortune was as large as Colunce’s, he was as well qualified to set out a claim to her hand. He supposed, therefore, that if he put himself forward as a husband he could not possibly be refused. If he acted promptly to end Eugénie’s incestuous relationship, and convinced her family that he would succeed in so doing, then he would not fail to win the woman he adored… though not without one last confrontation with Franval which, having every belief in his own courage and skill, he had every hope of winning.

He needed only twenty-four hours to make up his mind, and it was with his head full of these ideas that he called upon Madame de Franval. She had been informed of his visit. It will be remembered that at her last meeting with Franval she had virtually healed the breach between them, or at least, having been taken in by her husband’s deviousness and cunning, she could no longer refuse to see Valmont. Even so, she had taken strong exception to Franval’s documents, language, and accusations. But he had then seemed to attach little importance to them, and had completely convinced her that the best way of making him believe either that none of the charges were true or that the whole business was now in the past, was to see his friend as usual: to refuse, he told her, would merely confirm his suspicions. The best proof a woman could give of her honesty, he had said, was to go on being seen in public with the man whose name has been publicly linked to hers. Now all this was specious and Madame de Franval knew it. But she hoped that Valmont might clarify matters. Her need for an explanation, together with her reluctance to make her husband angry, had made her lose sight of every consideration which might reasonably have prevented any further contact with the young man. And so he came to the house, and Franval, making a hasty departure, left them together as on the previous occasion. The interview should have been spirited and lengthy. But Valmont, full of his plans, was brief and came directly to the point.

‘Ah, Madame, the person you see today is not the man who made himself so guilty in your eyes the last time he spoke to you,’ he said quickly. ‘I was then an accessory to your husband’s wrongdoing. Today I come to right those wrongs. You must trust me, Madame. I ask you to believe me implicitly when I give you my word that I have come here neither to lie to you nor to mislead you in any way.’

Whereupon he confirmed the business of the false documents and forged letters. He asked to be forgiven for lending himself to the deception, and informed Madame de Franval of the latest horrors that were demanded of him. To prove his honesty, he confessed his feelings for Eugénie, revealed everything that had been going on, and promised to put a stop to it, remove Eugénie from Franval’s clutches, and carry her off to Picardy, to one of Madame de Farneille’s estates, provided that she and her daughter gave their consent and agreed to reward him by allowing him to marry the girl he would have thus plucked from the abyss.

Valmont’s words, his confession, rang so profoundly true that Madame de Franval could not help but be convinced. Valmont was an excellent match for her daughter, and after the way she had behaved, could she expect a better offer? Valmont was prepared to take charge of everything. It was the only way of ending the appalling crime which was driving Madame de Franval to despair. Besides, could she not reasonably expect her husband’s feelings to revert to her once the only liaison which could prove a real threat to both of them was ended? These considerations persuaded her and she acquiesced, but only on condition that Valmont gave her his word of honour that he would never cross swords with her husband, that he would go abroad after delivering Eugénie to Madame de Farneille, and that he would stay there until Franval’s head had cooled sufficiently to console him for the termination of his illicit affair and for him to give his consent to the marriage. Valmont agreed to everything. For her part, Madame de Franval vouched for the support of her mother who, she assured him, would not try to impede the decisions which they took jointly. Valmont withdrew, apologizing once more to Madame de Franval for having committed against her all the wrongs her dastardly husband had demanded of him. The next morning Madame de Farneille, having been fully informed, left for Picardy. Franval, fully absorbed in his never-ending round of pleasures, fully counting on Valmont, fearing nothing more from Clervil, walked into the trap which had been set for him, displaying the same unsuspecting confidence that he so often hoped to find in others when he in turn schemed to make them stumble into his snares.

For the past six months or so Eugénie, now approaching her seventeenth birthday, had been going out frequently by herself or with other girls who were her friends. The evening before the day Valmont, as agreed with Franval, was to open his siege of Madame de Franval, she went unescorted to see a new play at the Comédie Française.* Afterwards she left, still alone, to fetch her father from an address where he had arranged to meet her, so that they could go on together to another house and take supper there. Mademoiselle de Franval’s carriage had barely left the Faubourg Saint-Germain when ten masked men stopped her horses, opened the carriage door, laid hands on Eugénie, and bundled her into a post-chaise next to Valmont who, taking every precaution to stop her crying out, ordered the driver to press on quickly and was carried beyond the city limits in the twinkling of an eye.

Unfortunately it had not been possible to dispatch Eugénie’s grooms and carriage. As a result, Franval was soon informed of what had happened. To cover his tracks, Valmont had counted on Franval’s not knowing which road he had taken and on the two or three hours’ start he would obviously have. Providing he reached the perimeter of Madame de Farneille’s estate, he need do no more, because from that point on two dependable women and a carriage and post-horses stood waiting to whisk Eugénie to a spot just short of the frontier, to a place of safety unknown even to Valmont. He would immediately continue on to Holland, and return only for his marriage once Madame de Farneille and her daughter had sent word that all obstacles to it had been removed. But fate decreed that this careful plan would not succeed against the ghastly designs of our villain.

Franval, quickly informed, did not waste an instant. He went directly to the post-coach stables and asked for which routes horses had been ordered since six o’clock that evening. A berline* had left for Lyons at seven and a post-chaise at eight for Picardy. Franval did not hesitate. The Lyons coach was obviously of no interest to him, but a post-chaise bound for a province where Madame de Farneille had an estate was: it would have been folly to doubt it. Accordingly, he ordered the stables’ eight best horses be put to the carriage he had arrived in, hired hacks for his men, bought pistols and loaded them while the horses were being harnessed and saddled, and flew like an arrow where love, despair, and vengeance led him. At the staging inn at Senlis he learned that the carriage he was pursuing had left only moments before. Franval ordered his driver not to spare the horses. For his sins, he caught up with the coach. He and his men, brandishing pistols, forced Valmont’s postillion to halt, and the reckless Franval, seeing his enemy, blew his brains out before he could attempt to defend himself, laid hold of Eugénie, who had fainted, climbed into his carriage with her, and was back in Paris before ten the next morning. Quite untroubled by what had happened, Franval’s only thoughts concerned Eugénie. Had the scoundrel Valmont tried to take advantage of the situation? Was Eugénie still faithful to him? Were her culpable feelings for him tarnished? Mademoiselle de Franval soon put her father’s mind at rest. All Valmont had done was to tell her of his plans and, buoyed up by the hope of marrying her, had refrained from profaning the altar on which he would one day make an offering of his most chaste love. Eugénie’s assurances satisfied Franval. But what did his wife know of the conspiracy? Had she taken a hand in it? Eugénie, having had ample opportunity to ask questions, insisted that the entire plot was the work of her mother, on whom she lavished the most odious names, and added that the crucial interview, which Franval assumed Valmont had used to prepare the ground to serve his own purpose, was beyond doubt the moment when he had betrayed him so contemptibly.

‘Ah!’ cried Franval in a fury. ‘Why has he not still a hundred lives so that I might strip him of them all, one after the other? And what of my wife?… She was the first to deceive me… a creature whom everyone believes so mild and gentle… an angel of virtue… Betray me, would you! Well, your treachery will cost you dear… My vengeance calls for blood, and if I have to I shall suck it with my lips from your perfidious veins… You must not worry, Eugénie,’ Franval went on, still in a violent mood, ‘there is no need for concern, you must rest. Go now and sleep for a few hours. I will keep an eye on things here.’

Meanwhile, it was not long before Madame de Farneille, who had posted spies along the road, was informed of what had happened. Knowing that Valmont had been killed and her granddaughter recaptured, she returned at once to Paris. Infuriated, she called a meeting of her advisers, who convinced her that Valmont’s murder would deliver Franval into her hands, that his power and influence, which she feared so much, would be instantly eclipsed, and that she would be restored to her rights over both her daughter and Eugénie. But they also recommended that she avoid any whiff of scandal and, to avoid a damaging public trial, that she should seek a legal order which would keep her son-in-law out of circulation.

Franval was immediately informed of their advice and of the steps which would be taken as a result. Realizing at the same time that what he had done was known, and being informed that his mother-in-law was only waiting for his public disgrace to turn it to her advantage, he drove at once to Versailles, spoke to the minister, confessed everything, and in return was merely advised to take himself off to an estate he owned in Alsace, near the Swiss border. Franval returned immediately to Paris. He was determined not to be deprived of his vengeance, but to punish his wife’s treachery and assert his rights over two women so dear to Madame de Farneille that she would never dare—it would hardly be sensible—to take action against him. He therefore resolved to leave for Valmor, the estate recommended by the minister, but only if, as I say, he was accompanied by his wife and daughter… But would Madame de Franval agree to it? Even if she felt guilty for what she might think of as her betrayal of him with Valmont, from which all that had happened had flowed, would she still go? Would she discount her fears and dare to place herself in the hands of an outraged husband? Such was the quandary in which Franval found himself. To find out where he stood, he went directly and called on his wife, who knew everything.

‘Madame,’ he said with the utmost composure, ‘you have sunk me in a mire of troubles by your indiscreet, ill-considered conduct. But if I cannot condone its effects, I nonetheless approve its cause, which surely lies in the love you have for your daughter and for me. And since the first wrongs were mine, I have no right to remember yours which followed. You are the dearest, most tender half of my life,’ he continued, falling on his knees before her. ‘Will you accept a reconciliation which henceforth nothing shall jeopardize? I have come offering peace, and this is what I give into your keeping as an earnest of my intentions…’

And so saying, he laid at his wife’s feet all the forged documents and the fake correspondence with Valmont.

‘Burn it all, my dear, I beg you,’ the hypocrite went on, weeping bogus tears, ‘and forgive everything that jealousy drove me to do. Let us have an end to all bitterness between us. I have done great wrongs, I admit. But who knows if Valmont, in order to further his own plans, did not paint me to you in blacker colours than I deserve? Had he dared to say that I had stopped loving you… that you might not always have been the woman I loved and respected most in the whole universe… ah! dearest angel, had he dishonoured himself by uttering such calumnies, then how right I should have been to rid the world of a rogue and hypocrite like him!’

‘Oh, sir,’ said Madame de Franval through her tears, ‘how could anyone imagine what cruel abominations you concocted against me? How can you expect me to trust you after all the horrible things you have done?’

‘I wish you still loved me, tenderest and most gracious of women! I wish you would berate only my head for the multitude of wrongs I have done, and accept that this heart, where you will rule forever, was never capable of betraying you. Yes, I want you to know that there is not one of my mistakes which did not bring me closer to you… The further I grew away from my dearest wife, the less I could see her in anything: neither my new pleasures nor my feelings could replace those which my inconstancy stole from me when it robbed me of her, and even when languishing in the arms of her living image, I regretted the original… My sweet, exquisite darling, where shall I find another soul like yours? Where else shall I enjoy the favours garnered in your embrace? Yes, I abjure my wicked ways… All I want now is to live only for you, to revive in your wounded heart the love which was so understandably stifled by wrongs… which I hereby renounce, even unto the memory of them!’

It was impossible for Madame de Franval to resist such tender words on the lips of the man she still adored. Can we hate what we have loved? With a soul as fine and delicate as hers, could this remarkable woman turn an unfeeling eye upon the man who meant everything to her and now lay at her feet weeping tears of remorse? She began to sob. Taking her husband’s hands and pressing them to her heart, she cried:

‘I have never stopped loving you, cruel man! Yet you have callously reduced me to despair! As God is my witness, of all the hurts you inflicted on me, the thought that I had lost your love or given you cause for your suspicions was the hardest to bear!… And who was it you chose to betray me with? My own daughter! It was with her hand that you stabbed me through the heart… Would you have me hate my own child, whom nature has made so dear to me?’

‘Ah!’ said Franval, his exaltation mounting, ‘I want to bring her back so that she may kneel before you, I want her to abjure, as I do, her insolence and the wrongs she has done… I want her to be forgiven, as I am. Let all three of us think only of our mutual happiness. I shall restore your daughter to you… please restore my wife to me… and then let us go away!’

‘Great heavens, go away?’

‘My little… escapade has set tongues wagging… Tomorrow might be too late for me… All my friends, the minister too, have suggested a visit to Valmor… Won’t you consent to accompany me, my dear? Surely it is not at the moment when I kneel before you to ask forgiveness that you will break my heart by refusing me?’

‘You are frightening me… You mean that what you did…’

‘… is being treated as murder, not as a duel.’

‘Oh God, and I am the cause of it all!… Give your orders… I am yours to command, dear husband… I shall follow you if needs be to the ends of the earth… Ah! I am the most unhappy of women!’

‘Say rather the most fortunate, for every instant of my life shall henceforth be devoted to replacing with flowers the thorns I have strewn beneath your feet… Is not a quiet backwater enough for people who are in love? In any case, the move will not be for ever. Once my friends are informed, they will intervene.’

‘But my mother… I would like to see her…’

‘Oh you must not think of it, my dear. I have irrefutable proof that she is inflaming Valmont’s family… that she herself, with their support, is calling for my ruination…’

‘She is quite incapable of doing any such thing. Stop imagining all these vile horrors. She has a soul made for loving and is a stranger to duplicity… You never appreciated her qualities, Franval… Why could you not love her as I do? In her embrace we would have known heaven on earth, she was the angel of peace who offered salvation for the errors of your ways. But you were unjust and rejected her enfolding arms, which were ever open to your affection. By your unpredictability or your whims, your ingratitude or your dissolute habits, you deliberately cut yourself off from the best and most loving friend nature could have created for you. Well, am I not to be allowed to see her?’

‘No, I beg you most earnestly! Every moment is precious. You can write to her, you can tell her how sincerely I have repented… Perhaps she will be won round by my remorse, perhaps one day I might win back her respect and affection. All this will pass and we shall come back… we shall return and savour her embrace of forgiveness and love… But now, my dear, let us leave… we must be gone within the hour… the carriages are waiting…’

Madame de Franval, deeply apprehensive, did not dare say another word and made her preparations: was not Franval’s wish her command? The scoundrel hurried to his daughter and brought her to kneel at her mother’s feet. The false creature prostrated herself as perfidiously as her father had done. She wept, she begged to be forgiven, she was forgiven. Madame de Franval embraced her. It is so difficult for a woman to forget that she is a mother, whatever wrong her children may have done her, for the voice of nature speaks so powerfully in a sensitive heart that a single tear shed by these sacrosanct creatures is enough to efface the memory of twenty years of delinquency and aberrations.

They set out for Valmor. Madame de Franval, still gullible and still blind, accepted the extreme haste with which the expedition was perforce undertaken as an adequate explanation for the small number of servants who accompanied them. Crime does not like to be seen, it fears all eyes: it is safe only when hidden beneath a cloak of mystery, and when it decides to act it wraps itself in its folds.

As they drove through the countryside there was nothing to cloud her expectations. Courtesy, attentiveness, deference, marks of affection on the one hand and, on the other, the most demonstrative love were given unstintingly, and it all captivated the hapless Madame de Franval… Although she was far from anywhere, far from her mother, deep in a horrible, wild country, she was happy because she had, so she told herself, the love of her husband and because her daughter sat constantly at her feet and thought only of ways of pleasing her.

The apartments occupied by Eugénie and her father did not adjoin. Franval’s was situated in the furthermost wing of the chateau, while Eugénie’s rooms were next to her mother’s. At Valmor, propriety, regular habits, and chaste behaviour replaced in the most noteworthy degree the disorderliness of life in the capital. Each night Franval visited his wife, and the blackguard, in the presence of innocence, candour, and love, shamelessly nurtured her hope with his abominations. Too cruel to be disarmed by the artless, burning caresses lavished on him by the most delicate of wives, it was with the torch of love that the villain lit the brand of revenge.

Even so, it may be imagined that Franval’s attentiveness to his daughter continued undiminished. Each morning, while her mother was being dressed, Eugénie met her father in a distant part of the gardens. She in turn received not only his instructions as to how she should behave in the circumstances, but also his favours, which she was certainly not prepared to surrender entirely to her rival.

They had not been a week in this sequestered haunt when Franval learned that Valmont’s family had instituted the most serious proceedings against him, and that the affair would be treated with the utmost gravity. It was now impossible, he also learned, to pass the matter off as a duel, for unfortunately there had been too many witnesses. Furthermore, Franval was told, it was quite clear that Madame de Farneille was leading a coalition of her son-in-law’s enemies and was bent on completing his downfall, either by depriving him of his freedom or by forcing him to flee France, so that the two beings she loved but from whom she was separated would be prised from his grasp.

Franval showed the letters he had received to his wife. She at once took up her pen to calm her mother, to try to persuade her to take a more sanguine view of the matter, and to inform her how happy she had been ever since misfortune had softened the heart of her hapless husband. Moreover, she gave her to understand that whatever steps were taken to make her return to Paris with her daughter would be to no avail, that she was resolved not to leave Valmor until her husband’s case was satisfactorily settled, and that if the malice of his enemies or the stupidity of his judges secured a ruling which disgraced him, she was quite determined to leave the country with him.

Franval thanked his wife. But he had no desire to await the fate which was being decided for him, and he informed her of his intention to spend some time in Switzerland. He would leave Eugénie with her, and urged both of them not to leave Valmor until his future had been clarified. He added that whatever was finally decided, he would come back and spend twenty-four hours with his wife so that they might agree together on arrangements for their return to Paris, if there was nothing to prevent their doing so, or if there was, to make plans to find another place where they could live in safety.

Once these decisions were agreed on, Franval, breathing vengeance—for he had not forgotten that his wife’s plotting with Valmont was the sole cause of his predicament—sent word to his daughter that he was waiting for her in a distant part of the grounds. Closeting himself with her in a solitary gazebo, he made her swear to follow unquestioningly the instructions he would give her, kissed her, and spoke as follows:

‘Daughter, you are about to lose me… perhaps for ever…’ (Observing Eugénie in tears): ‘Don’t worry, angel,’ said he, ‘you have it in your power to make our happiness flourish once more and ensure that, whether here in France or in another place, we shall be almost as perfectly happy as we used to be. I think I am right in saying, Eugénie, that you are as convinced as anyone can be that your mother is the sole cause of all our troubles, and you know that I have not forgotten my determination to be avenged. If I have hidden it from my wife, you have been told my reasons, you approved them, and you helped me fashion the blindfold which it was prudent to place over her eyes. The time is now ripe, Eugénie, and the hour to act has come: your safety depends on it, and what you are about to do will guarantee mine for ever. You will hear me out, I hope, for you are far too astute to be alarmed for a moment by what I am about to propose… Yes, daughter, it is time to act, to act without delay, to act without remorse, and what is done must be done by you. Your mother wanted to make you unhappy, she defiled the bonds of marriage which she would now reclaim, though she has forfeited all right to them. Since this is so, not only is she now no more than just another woman to you, but she is also your most mortal enemy. Now the law of nature which is most deeply engraved on our souls enjoins us to be the first to act and thus rid ourselves, if we can, of those who plot against us. This sacred law, which constantly spurs and prompts us to act, was not intended to make us love our neighbour more than we love ourselves. We come first, the rest follow, that is nature’s way. Consequently, we need have no respect, no consideration for others if we are convinced that our misfortune or ruin is the sole end they have in mind. To behave any differently, my dear, would mean preferring others to ourselves, and that would be absurd.* But let us now come to the reasons which shall determine the course of action I recommend to you.

‘I have to go away. You already know why. If I leave you here with that woman, then within a month she will be talked round by her mother and will take you back to Paris. Since you will not be able to marry after the scandal which will ensue, you can be quite sure that both those cruel women will assert their rights and pack you off to a convent, where you will weep eternal tears of regret for your weakness and our pleasures. It is your grandmother, Eugénie, who has initiated proceedings against me. She it is who has joined forces with my enemies to crush me into the ground. Such an initiative on her part can have no other purpose than to take you back, but can she have you back unless she keeps you under lock and key? The more acrimonious my case becomes, the stronger, the more credible the party persecuting us will be. Now you must be in no doubt that your mother is inwardly committed to that party, nor should you doubt that she will rejoin it once I have gone. Yet the coalition only wants my ruin so that they can make you the most miserable woman on this earth. It is a matter of urgency that we find ways of weakening it: detaching Madame de Franval from it would remove the mainspring of its energy. What if we changed the plan? Let’s say I was to take you away with me? Your mother would be furious and immediately go back to hers, and from that moment, Eugénie, we would not know a moment’s peace. We would be hunted and pursued everywhere. No country would have the right to give us sanctuary, and no refuge anywhere on the face of the globe would be sacred and inviolable in the eyes of the monsters whose fury would follow us everywhere. Are you aware how far the odious arm of despotism and tyranny can reach when it is driven by hatred and lubricated with money?

‘But if, on the other hand, your mother were dead, Madame de Farneille, who loves her more than she loves you, and serves only her own purposes, would accept that her party was diminished by the loss of the one person who is her reason for belonging to it, and would withdraw. She would no longer encourage my enemies and would cease to stir them up against me. If that happened, one of two things would follow: either the Valmont business would be settled and there would be nothing to prevent us from returning to Paris, or else it would take a turn for the worse. This would mean that we would be forced to go abroad, where we would at least be safe from persecution by Farneille who, as long as your mother is alive, will have no other purpose but to make life impossible for us because, I repeat, she believes that her daughter’s happiness can only be secured through our downfall.

‘So whichever way you look at our situation, you can regard Madame de Franval as an ever-present threat to our peace and tranquillity, and her accursed existence as the greatest obstacle to our happiness.

‘Oh Eugénie,’ Franval went on ardently, taking his daughter’s hands in his, ‘dear Eugénie, you love me. Are you prepared to lose the man who idolizes you because you fear a course of action which is crucial to our interests? Oh my dear, gentle girl, you must decide. You can allow only one of your parents to live. Since one of us must die, you have only to choose which heart to pierce with your felonious blade. Either it shall be your mother or else you must give me up… no, more, you must cut my throat yourself… for how, alas, could I go on living without you?… Do you think I could tolerate life without my Eugénie? How should I survive the thought of the pleasures I might have tasted in your arms, delicious pleasures of which my senses would be deprived for ever? The crime, Eugénie, would be the same in both cases. Either you must kill a mother who hates you and exists only to make you unhappy, or murder a father who lives and breathes only for you. Choose, Eugénie, choose, and if I am the one you sentence to death, do not hesitate, ungrateful child, but put aside pity and rend this heart whose only fault was to have loved too much. I shall bless the hand that strikes me. I shall adore you with my last breath.’

Franval fell silent and waited for his daughter’s reply. But she was deep in thought and seemed gripped by uncertainty… Then at last she threw herself into her father’s arms.

‘You are the one I shall love all my life!’ she cried. ‘Can you doubt which way I shall lean? Can you suspect my courage? Place the weapon in my hand, and she who is doomed by her abominable interference and my fears for your safety will soon be cut down by my avenging blade. Give me your instructions, Franval, tell me what I must to do, then go, since your salvation depends on it… I shall act in your absence. I shall keep you informed of everything that happens. But whatever turn our affairs take, once our enemy is dead I insist that you will not leave me alone here in this chateau… Come back for me or let me know where I can come to you.’

‘My darling daughter,’ said Franval, embracing the monster he had so thoroughly drawn into his web, ‘I knew all along I should find in you those sentiments of love and courage which are indispensable to our mutual happiness… Take this case… there is death inside it.’

Eugénie took the fatal case and renewed her pledges to her father. Then the outstanding practical details were settled. It was decided that she would await the outcome of the trial, and that the planned murder would take place or not according to whether the verdict would find for or against her father… Then they separated. Franval rejoined his wife and had the audacity and hypocrisy to shed tears as he spoke, and the insolence to accept without demur the touching, ingenuous caresses showered on him by that angel from on high. Then, having confirmed that she would be quite safe if she remained in Alsace with her daughter, whatever the result of his trial, the scoundrel got on to his horse and rode away—away from innocence and virtue which had for so long been sullied by his crimes.

Franval settled in Basle. There he would be safe from any proceedings that might be taken against him and, at the same time, would stay as close to Valmor as possible so that in his absence his letters would keep Eugénie as firm of purpose as he required her to be… Basle was approximately twenty-five leagues from Valmor, but the roads, though they traversed the Black Forest, were good enough for him to receive news from his daughter once a week. As a precaution Franval had brought vast sums with him, more of it in letters of credit than ready money. Let us leave him to establish himself in Switzerland and return to his wife.

The intentions of that excellent woman could not have been purer or more sincere. She had promised her husband that she would stay on his estate until she received fresh word from him. Nothing would have persuaded her to change her decision, as she assured Eugénie every day… Unfortunately, Eugénie, too haughty to acquire the trust which her worthy mother was so well fitted to inspire in her, and continuing to replicate Franval’s injustice, a tender plant which he kept well watered by his regular letters, could not imagine that she had a greater enemy in the whole world than her mother. However, this good woman did everything within her power to overcome the invincible aloofness which her ungrateful daughter nurtured in the depths of her heart. She lavished caresses and loving kindness on her, she looked forward tenderly with her to the happy return of her husband, and on occasions carried gentleness and consideration to the point of expressing her thanks to Eugénie and of giving her all the credit for her most welcome conversion. Then she would berate herself for being the innocent cause of the recent troubles which threatened Franval. Far from accusing Eugénie, she aimed her recriminations at herself alone, and holding her close asked her tearfully if she could ever forgive her… Eugénie’s depraved heart was impervious to such angelic conduct, her perverse soul was deaf to the voice of nature, for vice had closed off all routes by which she might have been reached… Coldly disengaging herself from her mother’s arms, she would stare at her, sometimes wildly, and say to herself, to keep up her courage: ‘How deceitful this woman is… how perfidious… she caressed me on the very day she had me abducted.’ But these unmerited reproaches were no more than the abominable sophisms with which crime bolsters itself when it sets out to silence the voice of duty. By ordering Eugénie to be abducted to serve for the good of the one, the peace of mind of the other, and the interests of virtue, Madame de Franval had managed to keep her true motives a secret. Such proceedings are objected to only by the guilty who are deceived by them, for they do not conflict with an upright heart. In short, Eugénie resisted all the tender overtures offered by Madame de Franval because she wanted to commit a foul deed, and not at all because of any wrongdoing by her mother who certainly had done absolutely nothing to harm her.

Towards the end of the first month of their sojourn at Valmor Madame de Farneille wrote to her daughter saying that her husband’s case was taking a most ominous turn and that, since she feared that a very punitive sentence would be handed down, the return of Madame de Franval and Eugénie had become extremely urgent—as much to win round the public, among whom the most damaging comments were circulating, as to join forces with her so that together they might plead for some kind of arrangement that might draw the teeth of the law, by which Franval might be bound over but not sacrificed.

Madame de Franval, who had decided to have no secrets from her daughter, showed her the letter at once. Coolly, Eugénie looked her mother in the eye and asked her, in the face of this distressing news, what action she intended to take.

‘I do not know,’ answered Madame de Franval. ‘But looking at the matter squarely, what is the point of our being here? Would we not be far more useful to my husband if we were to follow my mother’s advice?’

‘It is for you to decide, Madame,’ said Eugénie. ‘I am here to do your bidding and you may count on my complete obedience.’

But Madame de Franval, sensing from the curtness of this reply that her proposal did not appeal to her daughter, said that she would go on waiting and write again, and that Eugénie could be quite sure that if she were to depart from Franval’s wishes, it would only be because she was absolutely convinced that she could be more useful to him in Paris than at Valmor.

Another month went by in this way. During this time Franval never stopped writing to his wife and daughter, and in return received from them letters which could not have pleased him more, for in his wife’s he found the most unquestioning obedience to his wishes, and in his daughter’s the most unquestioning commitment to the execution of the planned murder, if a development in his case required it, or if it looked as though Madame de Franval was about to yield to her mother’s pleading. For, as Eugénie wrote in her letters, ‘if all I continue to see in your wife is uprightness and plain dealing, and if the friends who serve your interests in Paris succeed in upholding them, then I shall return to you the mission you gave me, and you yourself shall carry it out when we are together, if you think fit at that time. However, if, despite this, you should order me to take action and consider it vital that I do so, then you may leave everything to me. On that you may depend.’

In his reply Franval approved everything his daughter had told him. But that was the last letter he received from her and the last he wrote to her. The next post brought no more. Franval grew concerned. And no more satisfied by the posts which followed, he grew desperate and, his impulsive nature making it impossible for him to wait, he immediately formulated a plan to return to Valmor himself to discover the reason for the delays which made him worry so cruelly.

He set out on horseback, attended by one faithful valet, counting on arriving on the second day late enough at night to be seen by no one. On the edge of the woods which screened the chateau de Valmor and, to the east, merged into the Black Forest, six fully armed men stopped Franval and his servant. They demanded his purse. The rogues were well informed and knew who their man was. They also knew that Franval, being implicated in some serious trouble with the law, never went anywhere without his wallet and a large quantity of gold. The valet tried to resist, and was left for dead under his horse’s hooves. Franval, sword in hand, leaped to the ground, laid into the villains, wounded three of them, but was overpowered by the rest. They robbed him of everything he carried, though they were unable to relieve him of his sword. Once they had taken all he had, they made off. Franval pursued them, but the bandits rode away with their booty so quickly that he was unable to tell which way they had gone.

It was a wild night of high winds and hail. All the elements seemed to have united against the wretched man… There are perhaps times when nature, outraged by the crimes perpetrated by the miscreant she pursues, sets out to heap miseries on him with all the means at her disposal before finally gathering him to herself… Franval, half-naked but still grasping his sword, set forth from the ill-fated clearing as quickly as he could and directed his steps towards Valmor. Being unfamiliar with the approaches to an estate where he had resided only on the sole occasion when we observed him there, he lost his way along the gloomy tracks of a forest which was totally unknown to him… Weary to the point of exhaustion, weakened by pain, consumed by anxiety, buffeted by the storm, he flung himself to the ground where the first real tears he had ever shed in his life filled his eyes and overflowed.

‘Ah, wretch that I am!’ he exclaimed. ‘Everything conspires to bring about my downfall at last… to make me feel remorse… remorse which would not have gained entry to my soul except it were put there by the hand of misfortune! Had I continued to be cradled by the comforts of prosperity, I would never have known what it was. My wife, whom I have outraged so grievously and who, even as I speak, is perhaps being made the victim of my barbarity… my adorable wife, are you still of this world which should take such pride from your life? Or has the hand of Heaven intervened to halt my horrible crimes? Eugénie, my too trusting daughter, too ignobly seduced by my abominable stratagems, has your heart been softened by nature? Has nature suspended the cruel consequences of my power and your weakness? Is it too late? My God, is there still time?’

Suddenly, the plaintive, majestic sound of church bells, dolefully rising into the clouds, reached him and amplified the horror of his fate… He began to tremble and feel afraid.

‘What is that sound?’ he cried, getting to his feet. ‘Oh, unfeeling Eugénie, does it mean death? Or does it signal vengeance? Or is it the din of the Furies who have come from hell to complete their handiwork? Do these bells toll for me?… where am I?… can I bear to hear them?… Be done, Heaven above!… Make an end of this sinner…’ (prostrating himself on the ground) ‘… Lord on high, grant that I might add my voice to those which are at this moment raised to you in supplication… Behold my remorse and your power, forgive me for rejecting you… and hear my prayer… the first prayer I ever dared offer up to you! Almighty God, protect virtue, protect the woman who was your sweetest image in this vale of tears, so that these sounds, these lugubrious sounds, may not prove to signify what I most fear!’

Franval, now quite distraught, no longer knowing what he was doing or where he was going, mouthing only broken words, followed the first path on which he stumbled… He heard someone approach… he gathered his wits… he strained his ears… it was a man on horseback.

‘Whoever you are,’ cried Franval, advancing towards the man, ‘whatever you might be, take pity on a poor man driven mad by suffering! I am ready to end my life… Enlighten me, help me if you are a man and charitably disposed… help me to save me from myself!’

‘My God!’ replied a voice which was only too familiar to the desperate man. ‘What? Are you here?… Merciful God, stay thy hand!’

And Clervil, for it was he, in the flesh—the worthy cleric who had escaped from Franval’s dungeons and was sent by fate to meet the poor wretch at the lowest ebb of his existence… Clervil leaped down from his horse and threw himself into the arms of his enemy.

‘Is it you, sir,’ said Franval, holding the good man close, ‘is it really you, against whom I have committed so many sins which lie heavy on my conscience?’

‘Calm yourself, sir, compose yourself! I put aside the hardship I have recently endured, I forget the terrible treatment you were determined to inflict on me, for Heaven has granted that I might serve you yet… and I shall serve you, sir, in ways that are cruel no doubt but unavoidable… Come, let us sit… here, at the foot of this cypress, for only its baleful leaves are fit now to make a wreath for your brow… Oh Franval, I have such dreadful things to say to you!… Weep… for weeping will bring you relief, my friend… yet I have a tale to tell which will make you shed tears that will be more bitter still… your halcyon days are done… they have dissolved like a dream, and those which remain to you will be filled with suffering.’

‘Ah sir, I understand… the bells…’

‘… will convey to the feet of the Lord most high the homage and prayers of the sorrowing denizens of Valmor, to whom almighty God granted the boon of knowing an angel only so that they might pity and mourn her.’

Franval, turning the point of his sword and placing it on his heart, was about to snap the thread by which his life hung. But Clervil prevented him from committing this act of frenzy.

‘No, no, my friend,’ he cried, ‘making amends, not dying, is what you must do! Listen to me. There is much to tell, and you must be calm if you are to hear what I have to say.’

‘Very well, sir, speak. I am listening. Drive your dagger into my heart slowly, by degrees, for it is just that I should suffer as I have made others suffer.’

‘I shall be brief in setting out what concerns me, sir,’ said Clervil. ‘After passing a few months in the gruesome cell to which you condemned me, I managed to soften my gaoler’s heart. He unlocked my prison gates. I urged him most particularly to use every care to conceal the injustice you had done to me. He will never speak of it, dear Franval, not one word.’

‘Oh, sir!…’

‘Listen, I say again, for I have much else to say. On returning to Paris I learned of your ill-advised escapade and flight. I shared the tears of Madame de Farneille, which were more sincere than you ever thought, and I supported her worthy efforts to persuade Madame de Franval to bring Eugénie back to us, for their presence was more necessary in Paris than in Alsace… You forbade her to leave Valmor… she did as you commanded… she informed us of your orders and conveyed her reluctance to disobey them. She put off the moment of decision for as long as she could… Then you were found guilty, Franval, and guilty you are. You were sentenced to death for the crime of murder on the king’s highway. Neither the canvassing of Madame de Farneille nor the steps taken on your behalf by your family and friends could deflect the sword of justice, and your cause was lost… your name is stained for ever… you are ruined… everything you own is confiscated…’ (and, countering a second wild interruption from Franval) ‘… Listen, sir, I insist that you listen to me as an atonement for your crimes, I demand it in the name of God, whose anger may yet be assuaged by your repentance! It was then that we wrote to Madame de Franval and told her everything. Her mother told her that her presence had become indispensable, and she sent me to Valmor to make her see finally that she must leave. I set out at the same time as the letter which, alas, arrived before I did. When I reached the house it was too late. Your ghastly plan had succeeded only too well. I found Madame de Franval on the point of death… Oh sir, was there ever such villainy!… But your sufferings move me greatly, and I shall cease to reproach you for the crimes you have committed… But that is not all. Eugénie could not bear the sight. When I arrived, her repentance was already all too visible in the bitterness of her tears and sobbing… Oh, sir, how can I convey to you the dread effect produced by that appalling spectacle?… Your wife about to expire and racked by the convulsions of agony… Eugénie, restored to the feelings of nature, uttering the most hideous screams, admitting her guilt, calling upon death, and ready to kill herself, one moment prostrate at the feet of the mother whose pardon she implored, the next clinging to her breast, attempting to breathe life back into her, to warm her with her tears, to melt her heart with her remorse. Such, sir, was the dread spectacle which presented itself to my sight when I entered your house.

‘Madame de Franval recognized me… she gripped my hands, bathed them with her tears, and said a few words which I could scarcely hear, so faintly were they breathed out from her throat which was constrained by the workings of the poison… She forgave you… she prayed to God for you… and above all she asked pardon for her daughter… Now mark this well, unfeeling man: the final thoughts, the last wishes of the wife you tormented, were directed to your happiness. I did all I could for her. I made the servants do likewise. I sent for the best physicians. I spoke words of consolation to your Eugénie. I was moved by her horrible plight and did not think I could refuse her anything. But nothing helped: your most unhappy wife surrendered her soul, tormented… by convulsions… by agonies which words cannot express.

‘It was then, sir, that I saw one of the prompt effects of remorse which I had never observed before that moment. Eugénie flung herself on her mother and died at the very same instant that she did. We thought she had merely fainted. But no, all her living faculties had been extinguished. Her organs, reeling under the shock of her predicament, had given out simultaneously… she had died of the violent shock which remorse, grief, and despair had administered to her system… Yes, sir, both met their end on your account. And these bells, whose sound still rings in your ears, are tolled to celebrate two women, both born to make you happy, whom your crimes turned into the victims of their affection for you, and whose bloody memory will haunt you to the grave.

‘Oh my dear Franval! Was I wrong an age ago to urge you to climb out of the pit into which your appetites had cast you? And will you now blame, will you mock the defenders of virtue? Do you think they are mistaken to worship at its shrine, when they see what troubles and calamities are begotten by crime?’

Clervil fell silent. He looked at Franval and saw that grief had turned him to stone: his eyes were fixed and staring, tears streamed from them, but no words passed his lips. Clervil asked him to explain the state of undress in which he had found him. Franval told him briefly.

‘Oh sir!’ exclaimed that charitable mortal. ‘I count myself fortunate, even in the midst of the horrors which surround me, that I can alleviate your condition. I was on my way to see you in Basle, to tell you everything and offer you the small wealth that I possess… Accept it, I beg you. I am not a rich man, as you know… but here are a hundred louis… my savings, it is all I have… All I ask of you…’

‘Generous man!’ exclaimed Franval, falling to his knees before this honest, exceptional friend. ‘But great Heavens, what needs have I, now that I have lost everything? And you, whom I have treated so abominably, it is you who hold out your hand to help me!’

‘Should we remember the injuries we have suffered when misfortune overwhelms those who raised their arm against us? The best revenge we can take against them in such circumstances is to offer comfort. And why should we add to their miseries when they are already lacerated by their own remorse?… Sir, there you hear the voice of nature. As you see, it is not contradicted by the sacred belief in a Supreme Being as you once imagined, since the promptings of the one are the holy laws of the other.’

‘No,’ answered Franval, rising to his feet. ‘No, sir. I no longer have needs, for by leaving me this ultimate resource,’ he continued, brandishing his sword, ‘Heaven has shown me what use I must make of it…’ (Staring at it.) ‘It is the same, yes, my dear, my only friend, this is the very same weapon which my saintly wife tried to seize and turn against herself on the day I heaped vile accusations and slander on her… It is the same… Perhaps I shall find traces of her hallowed blood on it… It must be washed clean with mine… But let us go… Let us find shelter in some cottage and I will tell you my last wishes… and then we shall separate for ever.’

They set off and looked for a path which would lead them to some inhabited place… The forest continued to be cloaked in night… the sound of mournful chanting was heard, then suddenly the faint glimmer of torches dispersed the shadows and stained them with a horror that can be imagined only by sensitive souls. The tolling of the bells quickened, and to their lugubrious clangour, still scarcely audible, were added crashes of thunder which, silent until that moment, lit up the sky with flashes of lightning and punctuated the funereal dirge, still audible, with violent detonations. The lightning which furrowed the clouds and intermittently eclipsed the sinister flicker of the torches seemed to challenge the right of earth-dwellers to escort to her final resting place the body of a woman borne by a cortège. The scene inspired horror, breathed desolation… and was perhaps arrayed in nature’s eternal mourning dress!

‘What is this?’ said Franval apprehensively.

‘It is nothing,’ replied Clervil, and he took his friend by the hand and began to steer him away from the path they were following. ‘Nothing? You lie! I must know what it is…

‘He sprang forward… and saw a coffin.

‘Great God!’ he cried. ‘There she is… it is she! I know it! Almighty God has granted that I might see her again…’

At the bidding of Clervil, who realized that the poor wretch was not to be quieted, the priests withdrew in silence… Distraught, Franval fell upon on the coffin and from it bore away the sorry remains of the woman he had so mortally offended. He took her corpse in his arms, set it down at the foot of a tree, and threw himself upon it with all the frenzy of despair.

‘Ah!’ he raved. ‘Your life was ended by my barbarity, sweet creature whom I still love to distraction! See, your husband prostrates himself before you and presumes to beg for your forgiveness and his pardon. You must not think he asks this in order that he might live, no no, but that the Almighty, touched by your virtues, might yet, if such a thing be possible, pardon me as you are pardoned… Blood must be shed, my dearest wife, blood must be spilled if you are to be avenged… and you shall be… But first see my tears, see my repentance. I shall follow you where you go, my dead darling… but who will receive my tormented soul unless you intercede for it? It is as unacceptable to God’s love as it is to yours… Is it your wish that it be consigned to the burning fires of hell, when it repents so sincerely of its crimes? Only pardon, dear soul, forgive, and see what amends I make for them!’

And with these words, Franval, eluding Clervil’s vigilance, grasped the sword he still held in his hand and drove it twice through his body. His corrupt blood coursed over his victim and seemed less to avenge than to defile her.

‘Ah, my friend,’ he said to Clervil, ‘I am dying, but I die in the arms of remorse… Give an account of my deplorable death and my crimes to such friends as I have left. Tell them that this was the inevitable end that awaited one who was the joyless slave of his passions, a man so base that he silenced in his heart the cry of duty and nature. Do not refuse me a place in the coffin of my unhappy wife. Had I not repented I would not have deserved to have it, but my remorse has made me worthy to be granted this petition.’

Clervil respected the wretched man’s last wishes, and the cortège resumed its progress. Soon an everlasting haven received the remains of a husband and wife who were born to love each other, born to be happy, and might have known untrammelled felicity if crime and its inevitable consequences, directed by the culpable hand of one of them, had not intervened to turn the roses of their life into serpents.

The honest man of God soon returned to Paris with the ghastly tale of each of these several catastrophes. No one lamented the death of Franval; the only feeling it aroused was outrage for his life. But his wife was mourned, bitterly mourned. For indeed, what creature could be more precious, more commendable in the sight of men than this woman who had cherished, respected, and cultivated all the virtues of this world only to find unhappiness and suffering at every turn?*

If the brush-strokes I have used to portray crime disturb and distress you, then your redemption is nigh and I shall have accomplished what I set out to achieve. But if you find the truth they depict offensive, if they provoke you to curse their author… then, wretched reader, you have recognized your own self and you will never change your ways.*