make your life better

My dear Friend,
Yes, I have told you, and repeat it: I love you dearly.
You certainly said the same thing to me, I begin to know the world.
I will tell you what I suggest, now: pay attention.
I don`t want to remain a shopgirl, but a little more my own mistress, and would therefore like to find someone to keep me.
If I did not love you, I would try to get money from you; I would say to you, you shall begin by renting me a room and furnishing it; only as you told me that you are not rich, you can take me to your own place.
It will not cost you anymore rent, nor more for your table and the rest of your housekeeping. To keep me and my headdress will be the only expense, and for those give me one hundred livres a month, and that will include everything.
Thus we could both live happily, and you would never again have to complain about my refusal. If you love me, accept this proposal; but if you do not love me, then let each of us try his luck elsewhere.

Good-by, I embrace you heartily,
Jeanne Rancon
(later known as Madame Du Barry)

Whether or not M. Duval`s ardor was dampened by this letter, we have no way of knowing. What we do know is that before many months passed, Jeanne was installed in the household of Count Du Barry. A gentleman whose wealth was derived from "unmentionable sources." It is believed that Jeanne acted as his decoy for a gambling establishment. With his help, she advanced to the boudoir of Louis XV. The story of her rise to power in the court, her flight from France and her execution during the revolution in a most dramatic story of those times. She was guillotined at the age of forty-seven, on December 7, 1793.

My dearest Teresa,
I have read this book in your garden, my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it.
It is a favorite book of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian.
But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book that was yours, he could only think of love.
In that word, beautiful in all languages,
but most so in yours - Amor mio - is comprised my existence here and thereafter.
I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter, to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you,
and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent, I wish you had stayed there, with all my heart,
or at least, that I had never met you in your married state.
But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me,
at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events.
But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you.
Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it.

Byron

To Anne Boleyn

My Mistress and Friend,
I and my heart put ourselves in your hands, begging you to recommend us to your good grace and not to let absence lessen your affection...or myself the pang of absence is already to great, and when I think of the increase of what I must needs suffer it would be well nigh intolerable but for my firm hope of your unchangeable affection...

Henry VIII (1528)

August 1812

My dearest Caroline,

If tears, which you saw & know I am not apt to shed, if the agitation in which I parted from you, agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached, if all that I have said & done, & am still but too ready to say & do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are & must be ever towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer.

God knows I wish you happy, & when I quit you, or rather when you from a sense of duty to your husband & mother quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise & vow, that no other in word or deed shall ever hold the place in my affection which is & shall be most sacred to you, till I am nothing.

I never knew till that moment, the madness of -- my dearest & most beloved friend -- I cannot express myself -- this is no time for words -- but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can hardly conceive -- for you don not know me. -- I am now about to go out with a heavy heart, because -- my appearing this Evening will stop any absurd story which the events of today might give rise to -- do you think now that I am cold & stern, & artful -- will even others think so, will your mother even -- that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more much more on my part, than she shall ever know or can imagine.

"Promises not to love you" ah Caroline it is past promising -- but shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive -- & never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed -- & more than can ever be known but to my own heart -- perhaps to yours -- May God protect forgive & bless you -- ever & even more than ever.

yr. most attached
BYRON

Paris, December 1795

I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart! Are you angry? Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried?... My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for you lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!

You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours.

Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.