most sensibly by this unexpected proof of her affection,
and by the sacrifice of her own interest which I had just witnessed,
and which she could only have been induced to make by her excessive
love for me. Still, however, I could not help thinking she had gone
rather too far. I reproached her with what I called her indiscretion.
She told me that my rival, after having besieged her for several days
in the Bois de Boulogne, and having made her comprehend his object by
signs and grimaces, had actually made an open declaration of love;
informing her at the same time of his name and all his titles, by means
of a letter, which he had sent through the hands of the coachman who
drove her and her companions; that he had promised her, on the other
side of the Alps, a brilliant fortune and eternal adoration; that she
returned to Chaillot, with the intention of relating to me the whole
adventure, but that, fancying it might be made a source of amusement to
us, she could not help gratifying her whim; that she accordingly
invited the Italian prince, by a flattering note, to pay her a visit;
and that it had afforded her equal delight to make me an accomplice,
without giving me the least suspicion of her plan. I said not a word
of the information I had received through another channel; and the
intoxication of triumphant love made me applaud all she had done."

IX

'Twas ever thus;--from childhood's hour
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;--
I never loved a tree or flower,
But it was sure to fade away;
I never nursed a dear Gazelle,
To glad me with its dark-blue eye,
But, when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die.
MOORE.

"During my life I have remarked that fate has invariably chosen for the
time of its severest visitations, those moments when my fortune seemed
established on the firmest basis. In the friendship of M. de T----,
and the tender affections of Manon, I imagined myself so thoroughly
happy, that I could not harbour the slightest apprehension of any new
misfortune: there was one, nevertheless, at this very period impending,
which reduced me to the state in which you beheld me at Passy, and
which eventually brought in its train miseries of so deplorable a
nature, that you will have difficulty in believing the simple recital
that follows.

"One evening, when M. de T---- remained to sup with us, we heard the
sound of a carriage stopping at the door of the inn