s did not make our
conversations either less smooth or lively. He spoke of his family, his
affairs, his adventures, and of the court of Vienna, with the domestic
details of which he seemed well acquainted. In fine, during two years
which we passed in the greatest intimacy, I found in him a mildness of
character proof against everything, manners not only polite but elegant,
great neatness of person, an extreme decency in his conversation, in a
word, all the marks of a man born and educated a gentleman, and which
rendered him in my eyes too estimable not to make him dear to me.

At the time we were upon the most intimate and friendly terms,
D' Ivernois wrote to me from Geneva, putting me upon my guard against the
young Hungarian who had taken up his residence in my neighborhood;
telling me he was a spy whom the minister of France had appointed to
watch my proceedings. This information was of a nature to alarm me the
more, as everybody advised me to guard against the machinations of
persons who were employed to keep an eye upon my actions, and to entice
me into France for the purpose of betraying me. To shut the mouths, once
for all, of these foolish advisers, I proposed to Sauttern, without
giving him the least intimation of the information I had received,
a journey on foot to Pontarlier, to which he consented. As soon as we
arrived there I put the letter from D'Ivernois into his hands, and after
giving him an ardent embrace, I said: "Sauttern has no need of a proof of
my confidence in him, but it is necessary I should prove to the public
that I know in whom to place it." This embrace was accompanied with a
pleasure which persecutors can neither feel themselves, nor take away
from the oppressed.

I will never believe Sauttern was a spy, nor that he betrayed me: but I
was deceived by him. When I opened to him my heart without reserve, he
constantly kept his own shut, and abused me by lies. He invented I know
not what kind of story, to prove to me his presence was necessary in his
own country. I exhorted him to return to it as soon as possible. He
setoff, and when I thought he was in Hungary, I learned he was at
Strasbourgh. This was not the first time he had been there. He had
caused some disorder in a family in that city; and the husband knowing I
received him in my house, wrote to me. I used every effort to bring the
young woman back to the paths of virtue, and Sauttern to his duty.

When I thought they we