midst of a seraglio, and I amused myself by
watching their meek and modest looks as they did their work under the
direction of the foreman. The best paid did not get more than twenty-four
sous a day, and all of them had excellent reputations, for they had been
selected at her own request by the manager's wife, a devout woman of ripe
age, whom I hoped to find obliging if the fancy seized me to test her
choice. Manon Baletti did not share my satisfaction in them. She trembled
to see me the owner of a harem, well knowing that sooner or later the
barque of my virtue would run on the rocks. She scolded me well about
these girls, though I assured her that none of them slept in the house.

This business increased my own ideas of my importance; partly from the
thought that I was on the high road to fortune, and partly because I
furnished so many people with the means of subsistence. Alas! I was too
fortunate; and my evil genius soon crossed my career.

It was now three months since Mdlle. X. C. V. had gone into the convent,
and the time of her delivery drew near. We wrote to each other twice a
week, and I considered the matter happily settled; M. de la Popeliniere
had married, and when Mdlle. X. C. V. returned to her mother there would
be nothing more to be said But just at this period, when my happiness
seemed assured, the hidden fire leapt forth and threatened to consume me;
how, the reader will see.

One day after leaving Madame d'Urfe's I went to walk in the Tuileries. I
had taken a couple of turns in the chief walk when I saw that an old
woman, accompanied by a man dressed in black, was looking at me closely
and communicating her observations to her companion. There was nothing
very astonishing in this in a public place, and I continued my walk, and
on turning again saw the same couple still watching me. In my turn I
looked at them, and remembered seeing the man in a gaming-house, where he
was known by the name of Castel-Bajac. On scrutinizing the features of
the hag, I at last succeeded in recollecting who she was; she was the
woman to whom I had taken Mdlle. X. C. V. I felt certain that she had
recognized me, but not troubling myself about the matter I left the
gardens to walk elsewhere. The day after next, just as I was going to get
into my carriage, a man of evil aspect gave me a paper and asked me to
read it. I opened it, but finding it covered with an illegible scrawl I
gave it him back, telling him to read it hims