fied for the work
of a spy (for France has plenty of such people). This man I employed to
be a constant and particular attendant upon his person and motions; and
he was especially employed and ordered to haunt him as a ghost, that he
should scarce let him be ever out of his sight. He performed this to a
nicety, and failed not to give me a perfect journal of all his motions
from day to day, and, whether for his pleasure or his business, was
always at his heels.

This was somewhat expensive, and such a fellow merited to be well paid,
but he did his business so exquisitely punctual that this poor man
scarce went out of the house without my knowing the way he went, the
company he kept, when he went abroad, and when he stayed at home.

By this extraordinary conduct I made myself safe, and so went out in
public or stayed at home as I found he was or was not in a possibility
of being at Paris, at Versailles, or any place I had occasion to be at.
This, though it was very chargeable, yet as I found it absolutely
necessary, so I took no thought about the expense of it, for I knew I
could not purchase my safety too dear.

By this management I found an opportunity to see what a most
insignificant, unthinking life the poor, indolent wretch, who, by his
unactive temper, had at first been my ruin, now lived; how he only rose
in the morning to go to bed at night; that, saving the necessary motion
of the troops, which he was obliged to attend, he was a mere motionless
animal, of no consequence in the world; that he seemed to be one who,
though he was indeed alive, had no manner of business in life but to
stay to be called out of it. He neither kept any company, minded any
sport, played at any game, or indeed did anything of moment; but, in
short, sauntered about like one that it was not two livres value whether
he was dead or alive; that when he was gone, would leave no remembrance
behind him that ever he was here; that if ever he did anything in the
world to be talked of, it was only to get five beggars and starve his
wife. The journal of his life, which I had constantly sent me every
week, was the least significant of anything of its kind that was ever
seen, as it had really nothing of earnest in it, so it would make no
jest to relate it. It was not important enough so much as to make the
reader merry withal, and for that reason I omit it.

Yet this nothing-doing wretch was I obliged to watch and guard against,
as against the only