rdier, to whom the house in which I was going to live was very
convenient, did not see me arrive there with pleasure; however, she with
a good grace put me in possession of my lodgings, and I eat with her
until Theresa came, and my little establishment was formed.

Perceiving at my departure from Montmorency I should in future be a
fugitive upon the earth, I hesitated about permitting her to come to me
and partake of the wandering life to which I saw myself condemned. I
felt the nature of our relation to each other was about to change, and
that what until then had on my part been favor and friendship, would in
future become so on hers. If her attachment was proof against my
misfortunes, to this I knew she must become a victim, and that her grief
would add to my pain. Should my disgrace weaken her affections, she
would make me consider her constancy as a sacrifice, and instead of
feeling the pleasure I had in dividing with her my last morsel of bread,
she would see nothing but her own merit in following me wherever I was
driven by fate.

I must say everything; I have never concealed the vices either of my poor
mamma or myself; I cannot be more favorable to Theresa, and whatever
pleasure I may have in doing honor to a person who is dear to me, I will
not disguise the truth, although it may discover in her an error, if an
involuntary change of the affections of the heart be one. I had long
perceived hers to grow cooler towards me, and that she was no longer for
me what she had been in our younger days. Of this I was the more
sensible, as for her I was what I had always been. I fell into the same
inconvenience as that of which I had felt the effect with mamma, and this
effect was the same now I was with Theresa. Let us not seek for
perfection, which nature never produces; it would be the same thing with
any other woman. The manner in which I had disposed of my children,
however reasonable it had appeared to me, had not always left my heart at
ease. While writing my 'Treatise on Education', I felt I had neglected
duties with which it was not possible to dispense. Remorse at length
became so strong that it almost forced from me a public confession of my
fault at the beginning of my 'Emilius', and the passage is so clear, that
it is astonishing any person should, after reading it, have had the
courage to reproach me with my error. My situation was however still the
same, or something worse, by the animosity of my en