nt to me was the place of my abode,
provided I might live happy in the society of my mistress? Is not the
universe the residence of two fond and faithful lovers? Does not each
find in the other, father, mother, friends, relations, riches, felicity?

"If anything caused me uneasiness, it was the fear of seeing Manon
exposed to want. I fancied myself already with her in a barbarous
country, inhabited by savages. 'I am quite certain,' said I, 'there
will be none there more cruel than G---- M---- and my father. They
will, at least, allow us to live in peace. If the accounts we read of
savages be true, they obey the laws of nature: they neither know the
mean rapacity of avarice, nor the false and fantastic notions of
dignity, which have raised me up an enemy in my own father. They will
not harass and persecute two lovers, when they see us adopt their own
simple habits.' I was therefore at ease upon that point.

"But my romantic ideas were not formed with a proper view to the
ordinary wants of life. I had too often found that there were
necessaries which could not be dispensed with, particularly by a young
and delicate woman, accustomed to comfort and abundance. I was in
despair at having so fruitlessly emptied my purse, and the little money
that now remained was about being forced from me by the rascally
imposition of the gendarmes. I imagined that a very trifling sum would
suffice for our support for some time in America, where money was
scarce, and might also enable me to form some undertaking there for our
permanent establishment.

"This idea made me resolve on writing to Tiberge, whom I had ever found
ready to hold out the generous hand of friendship. I wrote from the
first town we passed through. I only alluded to the destitute
condition in which I foresaw that I should find myself on arriving at
Havre-de-Grace, to which place I acknowledged that I was accompanying
Manon. I asked him for only fifty pistoles. 'You can remit it to me,'
said I to him, 'through the hands of the postmaster. You must perceive
that it is the last time I can by possibility trespass on your friendly
kindness; and my poor unhappy mistress being about to be exiled from
her country for ever, I cannot let her depart without supplying her
with some few comforts, to soften the sufferings of her lot, as well as
to assuage my own sorrows.'

"The gendarmes became so rapacious when they saw the violence of my
passion, continually increa