od wishes
nor intercourse. She sent me young fat pullets from Mons, and her
intention was to come and see me the year following had not a journey,
upon which Madam de Luxembourg determined, prevented her. I here owe her
a place apart; she will always hold a distinguished one in my
remembrance.

In this list I should also place a man whom, except Roguin, I ought to
have mentioned as the first upon it; my old friend and brother
politician, De Carrio, formerly titulary secretary to the embassy from
Spain to Venice, afterwards in Sweden, where he was charge des affaires,
and at length really secretary to the embassy from Spain at Paris. He
came and surprised me at Montmorency when I least expected him. He was
decorated with the insignia of a Spanish order, the name of which I have
forgotten, with a fine cross in jewelry. He had been obliged, in his
proofs of nobility, to add a letter to his name, and to bear that of the
Chevalier de Carrion. I found him still the same man, possessing the
same excellent heart, and his mind daily improving, and becoming more and
more amiable. We would have renewed our former intimacy had not Coindet
interposed according to custom, taken advantage of the distance I was at
from town to insinuate himself into my place, and, in my name, into his
confidence, and supplant me by the excess of his zeal to render me
services.

The remembrance of Carrion makes me recollect one of my country
neighbors, of whom I should be inexcusable not to speak, as I have to
make confession of an unpardonable neglect of which I was guilty towards
him: this was the honest M. le Blond, who had done me a service at
Venice, and, having made an excursion to France with his family, had
taken a house in the country, at Birche, not far from Montmorency.

[When I wrote this, full of my blind confidence, I was far from
suspecting the real motive and the effect of his journey to Paris.]

As soon as I heard he was my neighbor, I, in the joy of my heart, and
making it more a pleasure than a duty, went to pay him a visit. I set
off upon this errand the next day. I was met by people who were coming
to see me, and with whom I was obliged to return. Two days afterwards I
set off again for the same purpose: he had dined at Paris with all his
family. A third time he was at home: I heard the voice of women, and
saw, at the door, a coach which alarmed me. I wished to see him, at
least for the first time, quite at