mily; and I engaged four servants, a waiting-maid, and a
porter. I had to give another share to an accountant, who furnished me
with two clerks, who also took up their abode in the house. The
carpenters, blacksmiths, and painters worked hard from morning to night,
and in less than three weeks the place was ready. I told the manager to
engage twenty girls to paint, who were to be paid every Saturday. I
stocked the warehouse with three hundred pieces of sarcenet and camlet of
different shades and colours to receive the designs, and I paid for
everything in ready money.

I had made an approximate calculation with my manager that I should have
to spend three hundred thousand francs, and that would not break me. If
the worst happened I could fall back on my shares, which produced a good
income, but I hoped I should not be compelled to do so, as I wanted to
have an income of two hundred thousand francs a year.

All the while I did not conceal from myself that the speculation might be
my ruin, if custom did not come in, but on looking at my beautiful
materials these fears were dispelled, especially as I heard everybody
saying that I sold them much too cheap.

To set up the business I spent in the course of a month about sixty
thousand francs, and my weekly expenses amounted to twelve hundred
francs.

As for Madame d'Urfe she laughed every time she saw me, for she was quite
certain that this business was only meant to put the curious off the
scent and to preserve my incognito: so persuaded was she of my
omnipotence.

The sight of twenty girls, all more or less pretty, the eldest of whom
was not twenty-five, far from making me tremble as it ought, delighted
me. I fancied myself in the 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; partl