n periods, and the separation
does not last for more than a few days. This period is not far off, but
long custom has made it impossible for the wife to impose on her husband.
It will, therefore, be necessary to wait. Love will warn you when the
hour of bliss has come. The plan will be to hide in the church; and there
must be no thought of seducing the door-keeper, for though poor he is too
stupid to be bribed, and would betray the secret. The only way will be to
hide so as to elude his watchfulness. He shuts the church at noon on
working days; on feast days he shuts it at evening, and he always opens
it again at dawn. When the time comes, all that need be done is to give
the door a gentle push-it will not be locked. As the closet which is to
be the scene of the blissful combat is only separated from the room by a
partition, there must be no spitting, coughing, nor nose-blowing: it
would be fatal. The escape will be a matter of no difficulty; one can go
down to the church, and go out as soon as it is opened. Since the beadle
has seen nobody in the evening, it is not likely that he will see more in
the morning."

I kissed again and again this charming letter, which I thought shewed
great power of mental combination, and I went next day to see how the
coast lay: this was the first thing to be done. There was a chair in the
church in which I should never have been seen, but the stair was on the
sacristy side, and that was always locked up. I decided on occupying the
confessional, which was close to the door. I could creep into the space
beneath the confessor's seat, but it was so small that I doubted my
ability to stay there after the door was shut. I waited till noon to make
the attempt, and as soon as the church was empty I took up my position. I
had to roll myself up into a ball, and even then I was so badly concealed
by the folding door that anyone happening to pass by at two paces
distance might easily have seen me. However I did not care for that, for
in adventures of that nature one must leave a great deal to fortune.
Determined to run all risks I went home highly pleased with my
observations. I put everything I had determined down in writing, and sent
it to her box at the theatre, enclosed in an old gazette.

A week after she asked the general in my presence if her husband could do
anything for him at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he was going on the morrow,
with the intention of returning in three days. That was enough f