must confess that this proceeding appeared to me little
short of actual robbery, it was not the most dishonest one with which I
thought I had to reproach myself. I had more scruples about the money
which I had won at play. However, we derived as little advantage from
one as from the other; and Heaven sometimes ordains that the lightest
fault shall meet the severest punishment.

"M. G---- M---- was not long in finding out that he had been duped. I
am not sure whether he took any steps that night to discover us, but he
had influence enough to ensure an effectual pursuit, and we were
sufficiently imprudent to rely upon the extent of Paris and the
distance between our residence and his. Not only did he discover our
abode and our circumstances, but also who I was--the life that I had
led in Paris--Manon's former connection with B----,--the manner in
which she had deceived him: in a word, all the scandalous facts of our
history. He therefore resolved to have us apprehended, and treated
less as criminals than as vagabonds. An officer came abruptly one
morning into our bedroom, with half a dozen archers of the guard. They
first took possession of our money, or I should rather say, of
G----M----'s. They made us quickly get up, and conducted us to the
door, where we found two coaches, into one of which they forced poor
Manon, without any explanation, and I was taken in the other to St.
Lazare.

"One must have experienced this kind of reverse, to understand the
despair that is caused by it. The police were savage enough to deny me
the consolation of embracing Manon, or of bidding her farewell. I
remained for a long time ignorant of her fate. It was perhaps
fortunate for me that I was kept in a state of ignorance, for had I
known what she suffered, I should have lost my senses, probably my life.

"My unhappy mistress was dragged then from my presence, and taken to a
place the very name of which fills me with horror to remember. This to
be the lot of a creature the most perfect, who must have shared the
most splendid throne on earth, if other men had only seen and felt as I
did! She was not treated harshly there, but was shut up in a narrow
prison, and obliged, in solitary confinement, to perform a certain
quantity of work each day, as a necessary condition for obtaining the
most unpalatable food. I did not learn this till a long time after,
when I had myself endured some months of rough and cruel treatment.

"My gua