or after dinner. I should thus have
amused myself as well as the rest, had I been less modest: I had only to
go in as they did, but this I never had courage enough to do. With
respect to Madam de Selle, I often went to eat at her house after the
departure of Altuna. I learned a great number of amusing anecdotes, and
by degrees I adopted, thank God, not the morals, but the maxims I found
to be established there. Honest men injured, husbands deceived, women
seduced, were the most ordinary topics, and he who had best filled the
foundling hospital was always the most applauded. I caught the manners
I daily had before my eyes: I formed my manner of thinking upon that I
observed to be the reigning one amongst amiable: and upon the whole, very
honest people. I said to myself, since it is the custom of the country,
they who live here may adopt it; this is the expedient for which I
sought. I cheerfully determined upon it without the least scruple, and
the only one I had to overcome was that of Theresa, whom, with the
greatest imaginable difficulty, I persuaded to adopt this only means of
saving her honor. Her mother, who was moreover apprehensive of a new
embarrassment by an increase of family, came to my aid, and she at length
suffered herself to be prevailed upon. We made choice of a midwife, a
safe and prudent woman, Mademoiselle Gouin, who lived at the Point Saint
Eustache, and when the time came, Theresa was conducted to her house by
her mother.

I went thither several times to see her, and gave her a cipher which I
had made double upon two cards; one of them was put into the linen of the
child, and by the midwife deposited with the infant in the office of the
foundling hospital according to the customary form. The year following,
a similar inconvenience was remedied by the same expedient, excepting the
cipher, which was forgotten: no more reflection on my part, nor
approbation on that of the mother; she obeyed with trembling. All the
vicissitudes which this fatal conduct has produced in my manner of
thinking, as well as in my destiny, will be successively seen. For the
present, we will confine ourselves to this first period; its cruel and
unforeseen consequences will but too frequently oblige me to refer to it.

I here mark that of my first acquaintance with Madam D'Epinay, whose name
will frequently appear in these memoirs. She was a Mademoiselle D'
Esclavelles, and had lately been married to M. D'Epinay, son