than his kitchen-garden at the Chevrette,
although three-fourths of it were stolen from him. That I might not be a
guest entirely useless, I took upon myself the direction of the garden
and the inspection of the conduct of the gardener. Everything went on
well until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it
disappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of. The
gardener assured me it was the dormice which eat it all. I destroyed a
great number of these animals, notwithstanding which the fruit still
diminished. I watched the gardener's motions so narrowly, that I found
he was the great dormouse. He lodged at Montmorency, whence he came in
the night with his wife and children to take away the fruit he had
concealed in the daytime, and which he sold in the market at Paris as
publicly as if he had brought it from a garden of his own. The wretch
whom I loaded with kindness, whose children were clothed by Theresa, and
whose father, who was a beggar, I almost supported, robbed us with as
much ease as effrontery, not one of the three being sufficiently vigilant
to prevent him: and one night he emptied my cellar.

Whilst he seemed to address himself to me only, I suffered everything,
but being desirous of giving an account of the fruit, I was obliged to
declare by whom a great part of it had been stolen. Madam d'Epinay
desired me to pay and discharge him, and look out for another; I did so.
As this rascal rambled about the Hermitage in the night, armed with a
thick club staff with an iron ferrule, and accompanied by other villains
like himself, to relieve the governesses from their fears, I made his
successor sleep in the house with us; and this not being sufficient to
remove their apprehensions, I sent to ask M. d'Epinay for a musket, which
I kept in the chamber of the gardener, with a charge not to make use of
it except an attempt was made to break open the door or scale the walls
of the garden, and to fire nothing but powder, meaning only to frighten
the thieves. This was certainly the least precaution a man indisposed
could take for the common safety of himself and family, having to pass
the winter in the midst of a wood, with two timid women. I also procured
a little dog to serve as a sentinel. De Leyre coming to see me about
this time, I related to him my situation, and we laughed together at my
military apparatus. At his return to Paris he wished to amuse Diderot
with the story,