uld otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind
was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure
that I should never see him any more that I think nothing could be like
it. The impression was so strong that I think nothing could make so deep
a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate that,
when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any
extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing,
and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had
brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.

I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many
acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this
occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been
thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible
that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description,
for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what
was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say
anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of
them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of
his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to
their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them
masks on.

I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant
stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on
that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went
impudently to the curate of the parish of St. Sulpitius, in Paris, and
told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic; that the
thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth six
thousand livres; that his widow was a Catholic, and had sent by him
sixty crowns to the church of ----, for masses to be said for the repose
of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word was true, he was buried
with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.

I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself
to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree
inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first,
and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?

Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and,
above all, the strange notices I had of it.