Read "Letters of Two Brides" by Honoré De Balzac online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHAT! To be married so soon. But this is unheard of. At the end of a month you become engaged to a man who is a stranger to you, and about whom you know nothing. The man may be deaf -- there are so many kinds of deafness! -- he may be sickly, tiresome, insufferable!
Don't you see, Renee, what they want with you? You are needful for carrying on the glorious stock of the l'Estorades, that is all. You will be buried in the provinces. Are these the promises we made each other? Were I you, I would sooner set off to the Hyeres islands in a caique, on the chance of being captured by an Algerian corsair and sold to the Grand Turk. Then I should be a Sultana some day, and wouldn't I make a stir in the harem while I was young -- yes, and afterwards too!