parting from us for the first time, overtook our joy at his good fortune
by surprise, at the last moment, as we were about to bid each other
good-night. For a while there had seemed to be an uneasiness under our
cheerful talk, as if each one present were concealing something with an
effort; and it was Jean-Baptiste himself who gave way at last. And then
we sat down again, still together, and allowed free play to what was in
our hearts, almost till morning, my sisters weeping much. I know better
how to control myself. In a few days that delightful new life will have
begun for him: and I have made him promise to write often to us. With how
small a part of my whole life shall I be really living at Valenciennes!


January 1714.

Jean-Philippe Watteau has received a letter from his son to-day. Old
Michelle Watteau, whose sight is failing, though she still works (half
by touch, indeed) at her pillow-lace, was glad to hear me read the letter
aloud more than once. It recounts--how modestly, and almost as a matter
of course!--his late successes. And yet!--does he, in writing to these
old people, purposely underrate his great good fortune and seeming
happiness, not to shock them too much by the contrast between the delicate
enjoyments of the life he now leads among the wealthy and refined, and
that bald existence of theirs in his old home? A life, agitated, exigent,
unsatisfying! That is what this letter really discloses, below so
attractive a surface. As his gift expands so does that incurable
restlessness one supposed but the humour natural to a promising youth
who had still everything to do. And now the only realised enjoyment he
has of all this might seem to be the thought of the independence it has
purchased him, so that he can escape from one lodging-place to another,
just as it may please him. He has already deserted, somewhat incontinently,