Letters of Two Brides (1825-33)

A series of letters exchanged between two young brides who became close friends during their education in a Carmelite convent. In the letters they discuss Renee gives the passionate Louise prudent advice which is often not heeded. The following passage gives you a flavor of what they talk about: "Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty. I shall soon be thirty, and at that age the dirge within begins. What though I am still beautiful, the limits of my woman's reign are none the less in sight. When they are reached, what then?"

"...one of the last epistolary novels of French literature... with an unprecedented wealth of detail on the realities of motherhood, from cracked nipples to post-natal depression, the pros and cons of nappies (Am. diapers) and the problems of communicating with a troublesome, semi-literate creature." (Robb, 250)

(Long, Memoires de deux jeunes mariees, l2brd10.txt)