Come in.
I met a lovely young man.
I'm glad to see you preserve your beautiful vitality.
Did you receive my letter?
Yes.
I'll be in Versailles tomorrow. Your fate will be decided there.
With your beloved Gercourt?
It was just play-acting.
Gercourt and Castellet have already secured the King's decision.
Your title and property will be taken from you.
Well, if the final act is already decided,
the show promises to be a mediocre affair.
Even if the role of the surprise witness
and perfect traitor seems to suit you.
Isabelle, I want to help you. Take this.
Money? Is that what our friendship has comes down to?
You must trust me. Leave for London as quickly as possible.
-But why? -I'll go to Versailles.
It's impossible.
I have to defend myself.
Up to now, you've known better than to underestimate me.
You should continue.
Leave for London today.
I have precious friends who will--
"Lady Isabelle..."
This will allow you to settle there.
-When should I pay you back? -Never.
-You are free. -Thank you.
Madame.
I'm starving.
Madame de Volanges is here, Madame. She is accompanied by a bailiff.
Very well. Bring them in.
But they didn't ask to see you.
Hello.
Madame. I didn't want to disturb your dinner.
Madame the Marquise, please.
-What are you doing? -An inventory.
You know how much I loved my brother.
This castle reminds me of him.
So you'll understand that I can't allow you to raid this house,
before you leave it for good.
I am Marquise de Merteuil and I will die Marquise de Merteuil.
You will die as a whore.
The way you were born, and the way you've always lived.
How could my little Cécile, my child, fall under your control?
The Comte de Gercourt will expose you in front of our good King.
You have never been married to the Marquis de Merteuil.
You have simply abused the kindness and the generosity of an old man.
Your brother was an old pervert who treated me like a piece of meat.
I've been married before
and I deserve every last piss pot in this castle.
You're crazy.
Go on.
Madame?
I came to say goodbye. I heard you were going to Versailles.
-To say goodbye and discuss Cécile? -Cécile is neither with her mother
nor the Marquise de Merteuil, who refused to receive me.
If you know where she is, I beg you.
Alas.
I am sorry. I can't help you.
I don't understand.
I was told that the Marquise de Merteuil was in trouble.
I could have helped her.
She chose a different path.
But like you...
I have a bitter taste in my mouth.
I thought she was mine.
Isabelle is burning with rage
and won't die without a fight.
Your face seems veiled in melancholy.
Go on, young man.
Madame, I forbid you.
-You forbid me? -Yes, I forbid you.
I forbid you not to see yourself as I see you.
Look at yourself.
This woman...
Is she made for regrets?
If Cécile could hear you speaking to me so freely...
she would be so proud of you.
Excuse me.
-Madame, I feel really-- -That's enough!
Excuse me, Madame.
-I'm thinking about Cécile, so-- -She's not here.
Do you know where she is?
I know everything about my nephew's life.
Get out.
-Get my horses ready. I'm going out. -Yes, Madame.
Dear Vicomte, I had to see you urgently.
Come with me to Versailles. Vicomte...
I'm sorry I come unannounced.
My dear Vicomte, how are you?
My situation is extremely serious. I am ruined, humiliated, destroyed.
My dear Vicomte...
My life is in your hands.
I beg you to come with me to Versailles.
Only your presence will allow me to be heard.
-Hello, Cécile. -Madame.
I had a dreadful conversation with your aunt.
I know.
She's right. Alone in Versailles, I would be helpless.
Let's go together. I risk losing my title and my property.
I'd rather die than imagine you losing everything.
So you want to help me?
Me? Begging the King for my life, and the life of my dearest friend?
Not at the sacrifice of my reputation, no, definitely not.
You're a man, a vicomte no less.
-I'm sure you'd be heard by the King. -No.
I am fortunate to have been born a man, Vicomte, and the nephew
of my dear aunt who looks after me like an angel, so I'll be spared.
Your position is more delicate, I agree.
I'd love to help you.
But how?
I know you, Vicomte.
Now we're alone, stop playing games and tell me clearly what you want.
Everything.
You, your hand.
It's ironic, but that's the way it is.
Your salvation will come from the Church, or more precisely
from a friend of mine, a cardinal, who owes me a favor.
He has the power to marry us again.
This would make our first union null and void.
Not even the King will be able to disapprove.
Forgive me if I don't kneel to ask for your hand.
You know that you're already mine.
With marriage, I give myself to you a second time.
It would be a fitting end to our story.
In fact, I've already started writing it. I'd like your opinion.
Is that your story?
Ready to marry the man she describes as "perfect and sublime",
your heroine is in love, "burning with pleasure and shame".
It's a bit arranged.
Literature turns reality into something more beautiful,
to make it more interesting.
-Be careful! -Valmont.
Chevalier, stop, please!
You defending him makes me want to shoot him even more.
Give me your weapon... Chevalier...
I don't know what part you played in my misfortune--
If anyone has to pay, it's me.
I pushed Cécile in this direction to complete her education.
Now she's a free woman.
She has nothing to be ashamed of,
especially not in front of a fool like you.
Shoot.
Go on, shoot.
Shoot!
Isabelle.
-Give me the gun. -No, Mademoiselle.
Cécile, I love you. That's all I have.
At first, I thought... I thought that loving you
meant accepting you as you are and not as I dream you...
Not possessing you, but accompanying you,
loving you as much as I can.
That I should belong to no one and take pleasure in it,
learn to be as free as you, so you would love me.
But no.
Of course not, Miss. My head tells me to think that way.
But my body yells at me that the way I love you is true.
And healthy. And beautiful.
So why do I feel so lonely and lost?
Chevalier...
-What if Danceny was right? -This simpleton?
This simpleton is here with the woman he loves and who loves him back.
Are you that scared?
Of what?
You're not listening to me.
Come.
This is my life. And it's yours.
I'm showing you who I really am.
-And here? -Read them, please.
I have nothing to hide.
I'll leave you to it. Take your time.
You want me to believe you've become another man?
I've seduced women
whose husbands are the most powerful men in the kingdom.
This is enough to get me killed 1,000 times over.
Does my recklessness surprise you?
You see, you've made a fool of me.
It was the role you chose when you came to meet me.
Do you really see no difference between how I was then
and how I am now because of you?
What are you doing?
I'd like to warm your heart.
It's not too late.
You need to believe that I can change too.
Stay tonight.
Marry me.
Yes.
Cécile?
Are you okay?
What happened between you and Valmont?
-Are you going to tell me? -Please.
Don't lie to me. I want the truth.
How many times did you sleep with him? How many times?
My dear Aunt, The game comes to an end,
and I've won.
Tonight, Isabelle will come, and tomorrow she'll marry me.
She has no other choice...
Isabelle lost, but that's what was needed so we could be happy...
in order to save her, so that I could finally say those simple words
that I've held out for so long,
I love her.
I LOVE HER
I'll get the bad role again.
What are you talking about?
This letter, did you write it for her?
Your aunt? Or to me?
To better seal this wedding, which will also be,
above all else, your most perfect triumph?
You knew I was coming.
You knew I needed you.
You prepared the final blow. It's perfectly reasonable.
I turned you into a monster.
I'll leave you, my friend.
I have to go to Versailles.
Dear Valmont, my great Valmont, my eternal one.
Before I had only seen Versailles through a few pale engravings.
But I had to stop myself getting emotional.
You and your aunt had promised me the worst.
My situation was desperate. My insolence made it even worse.
But I wasn't afraid.
Maybe I was enjoying my last steps as a free woman.
But I dared to look the greatest of kings in the eyes.
Your Majesty.
I was going to the scaffold, certain of my eternity.
And the man I had in front of me was only a man,
no different than the others.
Your aunt was there,
in a sinister role that didn't suit her at all.
It was she who taught me never to open my heart.
Without her, I wouldn't be who I am.
At this great ball of impostors, I fitted in perfectly.
And I was putting on,
perhaps for the last time,
my costume as the Marquise de Merteuil,
the enamored wife of a great warrior at the service of the kingdom
and its influence across the Atlantic.
Madame, I recognize in you virtues dear to my heart.
Courage, without which you would never have dared come to Versailles.
Passion, that raw force,
which, channeled at the service of a just and noble cause,
vibrates to the point of inspiring
and revealing the saddest souls.
And last...
but not least.
In you, I distinguish the most gracious of qualities.
Sincerity.
Thank you for coming to me,
Madame the Marquise, Isabelle de Merteuil.
My love, I would like to write that at that moment,
I knew I had become essential to the kingdom and saved my title
by convincing the King to make me the equal of his ministers,
the instrument of his will.
But what I saw in the eyes of this man,
king by the grace of God alone,
appeared to me of a much more familiar nature.
Prince or slave, all men are equal when it comes to desire.
The next day, a steward came to explain to me,
with remarkable rigor and precision,
the role that will become mine.
As His Majesty's first courtesan,
I will have to learn everything about him.
His little habits as well as his great appetites.
The King would no longer be bored.
My love...
I think again and again of the night we spent together.
My love, I'd also like to write about how much I miss you.
But I tell you and I tell you again,
in these letters that you can't read anymore,
I have taken a pledge of absolute sincerity.
And the truth is that your death fulfills me as much as it ravages me.
So you will never betray me.
My love, I would have been the meaner of the two of us
and that suits me.
Because it gives me the strength I need to survive.
Forever merciless...
and forever impenetrable.
Translation by Iyuno