was then acquainted, to say I was ever
dazzled for an instant with splendor, or that the vapor of the incense I
received ever affected my head; that I was less uniform in my manner,
less plain in my dress, less easy of access to people of the lowest rank,
less familiar with neighbors, or less ready to render service to every
person when I had it in my power so to do, without ever once being
discouraged by the numerous and frequently unreasonable importunities
with which I was incessantly assailed.

Although my heart led me to the castle of Montmorency, by my sincere
attachment to those by whom it was inhabited, it by the same means drew
me back to the neighborhood of it, there to taste the sweets of the equal
and simple life, in which my only happiness consisted. Theresa had
contracted a friendship with the daughter of one of my neighbors, a mason
of the name of Pilleu; I did the same with the father, and after having
dined at the castle, not without some constraint, to please Madam de
Luxembourg, with what eagerness did I return in the evening to sup with
the good man Pilleu and his family, sometimes at his own house and at
others, at mine.

Besides my two lodgings in the country, I soon had a third at the Hotel
de Luxembourg, the proprietors of which pressed me so much to go and see
them there, that I consented, notwithstanding my aversion to Paris,
where, since my retiring to the Hermitage, I had been but twice, upon the
two occasions of which I have spoken. I did not now go there except on
the days agreed upon, solely to supper, and the next morning I returned
to the country. I entered and came out by the garden which faces the
boulevard, so that I could with the greatest truth, say I had not set my
foot upon the stones of Paris.

In the midst of this transient prosperity, a catastrophe, which was to be
the conclusion of it, was preparing at a distance. A short time after my
return to Mont Louis, I made there, and as it was customary, against my
inclination, a new acquaintance, which makes another era in my private
history. Whether this be favorable or unfavorable, the reader will
hereafter be able to judge. The person with whom I became acquainted was
the Marchioness of Verdelin, my neighbor, whose husband had just bought
a country-house at Soisy, near Montmorency. Mademoiselle d'Ars, daughter
to the Comte d'Ars, a man of fashion, but poor, had married M. de
Verdelin, old, ugly, deaf, uncouth, brutal, jea