d M. Pavilliard, under
the influence of which gentleman he became a Protestant again at Lausanne
eighteen months later.

"The young fellow, while leading the life of gaiety natural to his age in
company with a friend named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the
classics and was soon a proficient in French, in which tongue he wrote
before long as fluently as in English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and
in his company Edward Gibbon also played. After visiting frequently at the
house of the celebrated Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being present when
the distinguished French philosopher played in his own comedies and
sentimental pieces, the young fellow's thoughts soon turned to the theme
which was the continual subject of conversation of the ladies and
gentlemen who were Voltaire's guests and formed the company of amateurs
with whom the great dramatic writer was in the habit of rehearsing his
plays. This was, as might have been suspected in such a society, the theme
of love.

"As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting Lausanne a young lady
who was a perfect paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and she was half
Swiss and half French, her father being a Swiss pastor and her mother a
Frenchwoman.

"Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, the fair Suzanne was well
instructed in sciences and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition made
her a prodigy and an object of universal admiration upon the occasion of
her visits to her relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection
existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; he frequently accompanied her
to stay at her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne also they
indulged in their dream of felicity. Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne
with a union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in later years
proud of the fact that he was once capable of feeling such an exalted
sentiment. There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult his own
inclinations alone, Gibbon would have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but,
the time coming when he was forced to return to his home in England his
father declared that he would not hear of 'such a strange alliance.'

"'Thereupon,' says Gibbon in his autobiography, 'I yielded to my
fate--sighed as a lover, obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly
healed by time, absence and new habits of life.'

"These habits of life included four or five years' service in the
Hampshire Militia, in which corps Suzanne's lover