y such
as to reflect dishonour upon you? Come, my dear father,' said I
tenderly, 'show some pity for a son, who has never ceased to feel
respect and affection for you--who has not renounced, as you say, all
feelings of honour and of duty, and who is himself a thousand times
more an object of pity than you imagine.' I could not help shedding a
tear as I concluded this appeal.

"A father's heart is a chef-d'oeuvre of creation. There nature rules
in undisturbed dominion, and regulates at will its most secret springs.
He was a man of high feeling and good taste, and was so sensibly
affected by the turn I had given to my defence, that he could no longer
hide from me the change I had wrought.

"'Come to me, my poor chevalier,' said he; 'come and embrace me. I do
pity you!'

"I embraced him: he pressed me to him in such a manner, that I guessed
what was passing in his heart.

"'But how are we,' said he, 'to extricate you from this place? Explain
to me the real situation of your affairs.'

"As there really was not anything in my conduct so grossly improper as
to reflect dishonour upon me; at least, in comparison with the conduct
of other young men of a certain station in the world; and as a mistress
is not considered a disgrace, any more than a little dexterity in
drawing some advantage from play, I gave my father a candid detail of
the life I had been leading. As I recounted each transgression, I took
care to cite some illustrious example in my justification, in order to
palliate my own faults.

"'I lived,' said I, 'with a mistress without the solemnity of marriage.
The Duke of ---- keeps two before the eyes of all Paris. M---- D----
has had one now for ten years, and loves her with a fidelity which he
has never shown to his wife. Two-thirds of the men of fashion in Paris
keep mistresses.

"'I certainly have on one or two occasions cheated at play. Well, the
Marquis of ---- and the Count ---- have no other source of revenue.
The Prince of ---- and the Duke of ---- are at the head of a gang of
the same industrious order.' As for the designs I had upon the pockets
of the two G---- M----s, I might just as easily have proved that I had
abundant models for that also; but I had too much pride to plead guilty
to this charge, and rest on the justification of example; so that I
begged of my father to ascribe my weakness on this occasion to the
violence of the two passions which agitated me--Revenge and Love.

"He aske