My guardian was of opinion that with my philosophical convictions, which were at that time not only unpopular, but odious and execrated in our own class in England, I should have to remain an old bachelor. She herself would certainly never have married an unbeliever, and although her great personal affection for me made her glad to have me in the house, she must have felt that it was like sheltering a pariah. Her sister once heard some rumor or suggestion, connecting my name with that of a pious young lady, and looked upon it as a sort of sacrilege. Under these circumstances I came at last to the conclusion that, being under a ban, I would at least enjoy my liberty, either by living my own life as a bachelor, or else by marrying purely and simply according to inclination, without any reference to the opinion of other people.
It was at this time that the idea of a foreign marriage first occurred to me as a possibility. I had never thought of it before, and if such an idea had entered my head, the clear foresight of the enormous inconveniences would have immediately expelled it. A foreign marriage is, in fact, quite an accumulation of inconveniences. One of the two parties must always be living in a foreign country, and in all their intercourse together one of the two must always be speaking a foreign language. The families of the two parties will never know each other or understand each other properly; there will be either estrangement or misunderstanding. And unless there is great largeness of mind in the parties themselves, the difference of national customs is sure to produce quarrels.
All this was plain enough, and yet one morning, when I was writing on my desk (a tall oak desk that I used to stand up to), the idea suddenly came, as if somebody had uttered these words in my ear: "Why should you remain lonely all your days? Eugénie Gindriez would be an affectionate and faithful wife to you. She is not rich, but you would work and fight your way."
I pushed aside the sheet of manuscript and took a sheet of note-paper instead. I then wrote, in French, a letter to a lady in Paris who knew the Gindriez family, and asked her if Mademoiselle Eugénie was engaged to be married. The answer came that she was well, and that there had been no engagement. Soon afterwards I was in Paris.