Madame Grangié nee Boisson
Care of Monsieur Boisson Senior, Cahors
Montréal, 14 January 1803
Do not accuse me, my dear Sophie, of indifference or idleness. I did receive your two letters and felt equally gratified by your words of friendship for me. Be assured, my friend, that if I have not written sooner it is because I have been so busy paying and receiving visits, despite always intending to reply. Time passed and I could make no use of it. Today finds me a little freer, contentedly chatting away, from which you will be absolutely convinced of my happiness. Yes, my dear friend, I am as blissful as could be. My husband has a lively and brilliant mind, a good character, an excellent heart and a glorious future. His nature has not altered for a single second since we have been together. It is always the same attentiveness and the same esteem. This, I assure you, is returned by me, and the only pleasure I value is that of doing what will make him happy, something easily achieved because he loves me to distraction and it was love as much as convenience that intertwined our fates.
I have been here about two months, at my husband’s uncle's house, during which time his home has been overflowing with society which, as Uncle is a widower with but one eighteen-year-old daughter, he used not to care to receive. Every Sunday there are card parties: three Reversi, one Whist and one either Ecarté or Bouillotte. I very rarely play because I do not like gaming and found a way to get out of it. You well know how I am inclined to solitude, and my great laziness is not, believe me, particularly gratified by the daily performance I am obliged to deliver. There is the requisite toilette, a thing I have never enjoyed, then the subjection to Etiquette, which I equally dislike, and cruelly adhered to here. But when you are married you have to conduct yourself so differently from before, that you often find yourself having to do what is not to your liking. And to subject yourself to the attentions of society when beneficent indolence is gently calling you to a good fire and a good book… far sweeter than all the grandiose compliments and overwrought verbiage that are just thrown in my face, as is the custom here. When you hear the same thing over and over again it becomes a bore.
But enough of this
chapter! It is worth no more of our time.
Congratulations, my dear friend, on the birth of your beautiful little daughter. It is a great blessing to be able to nurse your own babies; you are only half a mother otherwise. How wonderful to see your little Adele unfolding before your own eyes. If those women who deprive themselves of nursing their children would reflect on the pure joy to be experienced in feeding these innocent little beings, they would not deliver them so readily into paid hands.
It is so hard to be sure such people have a right sensitivity. Ah! It is perfectly fitting that you yourself should partake of this happiness. Kiss your lovely little daughter for me and, even though I do not have the pleasure of knowing your husband, the fact that you call me friend—for which I am infinitely grateful—gives me permission to be remembered to him.
Remember me also to your family and believe, my dear friend, that it would be hard for anyone to love you more fondly than I do.
In Montréal, near Carcassone, Department of Aude!
Eleonore Labouisse
