from my
asthma, of which I fear I shall never be cured."

It would be a wonder if he should be cured, with his unfortunate table
excesses, which would have killed half-a-dozen healthy men. In vain do
we seek in his correspondence with Favart and his wife, a single thought
unconnected with the pleasures of the stomach. We have read with what
delight he sings the praises of a pastry-cook established at Cauterets,
famous for his millet-cakes and cream-puffs. His happiness did not stop
here:--

"A second pastry-cook (he cries), upon my reputation, has set up here.
There is a daily trial of skill between the two artists; I eat and
judge, and it is my stomach that pays the cost. I go to the bath, and
return to the oven. I shall come here again in the thrush season. We
have red partridges, which are brought here from all parts; they are
delicious."

In short, he remained so long stuffing confectionary at Cauterets, where
he had gone solely to take care of himself, and to live with the
strictest regularity, that on the eve of his departure he wrote sadly to
Madame Favart:--'I am just the same as when you saw me last: sometimes
asthmatical, and always gormandizing.' The sufferings which he
experienced during his sojourn at, Bareges, previous to his final return
to Paris, are proofs of the deplorable effects of the mineral waters
upon his health:--

"I am suffering dreadfully; and am now, while I write, laboring
under so violent an attack of asthma, that I cannot doubt but
that the air of this country is as bad for me as that of
Montrouge. If I am as bad to-morrow, I shall return to pass the
week at Cauterets, and on Saturday go on to Pau, where I shall
wait for the ladies who are to pass through on Monday, on their
way to Bayonne. I know I shall be in a miserable state during
the journey."

Such were the benefits derived by the Abbe de Voisenon from his four
months' sojourn at the baths of Cauterets and Bareges. He returned to
Voisenon infinitely worse than when he left it. On the eve of his
departure for home, where, as he said some time afterwards, he wished
_to be on the same floor with the tombs of his ancestors_, he devoured a
monstrous dinner on the Bareges mountains.

Finding that the mineral waters of the Pyrenees had failed in
reestablishing his health--that is, if he ever had health--the Abbe de
Voisenon abandoned physicians and their fruitless prescriptions, to see