de Malby's.

Being this time more at leisure, I saw her more frequently, and she made
the most sensible impressions on my heart. I had some reason to believe
her own was not unfavorable to my pretensions; but she honored me with
her confidence so far as to remove from me all temptation to allure her
partiality.

She had no fortune, and in this respect exactly resembled myself; our
situations were too similar to permit us to become united; and with the
views I then had, I was far from thinking of marriage. She gave me to
understand that a young merchant, one M. Geneve, seemed to wish to obtain
her hand. I saw him once or twice at her lodgings; he appeared to me to
be an honest man, and this was his general character. Persuaded she
would be happy with him, I was desirous he should marry her, which he
afterwards did; and that I might not disturb their innocent love,
I hastened my departure; offering up, for the happiness of that charming
woman, prayers, which, here below were not long heard. Alas! her time
was very short, for I afterwards heard she died in the second or third
year after her marriage. My mind, during the journey, was wholly
absorbed in tender regret. I felt, and since that time, when these
circumstances have been present to my recollection, have frequently done
the same; that although the sacrifices made to virtue and our duty may
sometimes be painful, we are well rewarded by the agreeable remembrance
they leave deeply engravers in our hearts.

I this time saw Paris in as favorable a point of view as it had appeared
to me in an unfavorable one at my first journey; not that my ideas of its
brilliancy arose from the splendor of my lodgings; for in consequence of
an address given me by M. Bordes, I resided at the Hotel St. Quentin, Rue
des Cordier, near the Sorbonne; a vile street, a miserable hotel, and a
wretched apartment: but nevertheless a house in which several men of
merit, such as Gresset, Bordes, Abbe Malby, Condillac, and several
others, of whom unfortunately I found not one, had taken up their
quarters; but I there met with M. Bonnefond, a man unacquainted with the
world, lame, litigious, and who affected to be a purist. To him I owe
the acquaintance of M. Roguin, at present the oldest friend I have and by
whose means I became acquainted with Diderot, of whom I shall soon have
occasion to say a good deal.

I arrived at Paris in the autumn of 1741, with fifteen louis in my purse,
and wi