was an affectionate mistress, but discreet rather by training than
disposition the favours she accorded me were of the most insignificant
description. She was lavish of nothing but her kisses, but kisses are
rather irritating than soothing. I used to be nearly wild with love. She
told me, like other virtuous women, that if she agreed to make me happy
she was sure I would not marry her, and that as soon as I made her my
wife she would be mine and mine only. She did not think I was married,
for I had given her too many assurances to the contrary, but she thought
I had a strong attachment to someone in Paris. I confessed that she was
right, and said that I was going there to put an end to it that I might
be bound to her alone. Alas! I lied when I said so, for Esther was
inseparable from her father, a man of forty, and I could not make up my
mind to pass the remainder of my days in Holland.

Ten or twelve days after sending the ultimatum, I received a letter from
M. de Boulogne informing me that M. d'Afri had all necessary instructions
for effecting the exchange of the twenty millions, and another letter
from the ambassador was to the same effect. He warned me to take care
that everything was right, as he should not part with the securities
before receiving 18,200,000 francs in current money.

The sad time of parting at last drew near, amid many regrets and tears
from all of us. Esther gave me the two thousand pounds I had won so
easily, and her father at my request gave me bills of exchange to the
amount of a hundred thousand florins, with a note of two hundred thousand
florins authorizing me to draw upon him till the whole sum was exhausted.
Just as I was going, Esther gave me fifty shirts and fifty handkerchiefs
of the finest quality.

It was not my love for Manon Baletti, but a foolish vanity and a desire
to cut a figure in the luxurious city of Paris, which made me leave
Holland. But such was the disposition that Mother Nature had given me
that fifteen months under The Leads had not been enough to cure this
mental malady of mine. But when I reflect upon after events of my life I
am not astonished that The Leads proved ineffectual, for the numberless
vicissitudes which I have gone through since have not cured me--my
disorder, indeed, being of the incurable kind. There is no such thing as
destiny. We ourselves shape our lives, notwithstanding that saying of the
Stoics, 'Volentem ducit, nolentem trahit'.

After promis