he execution of my
works. He was heedless and I was choleric; but in matters of interest
which related to them, although I never made with him an agreement in
form, I always found in him great exactness and probity. He is also the
only person of his profession who frankly confessed to me he gained
largely by my means; and he frequently, when he offered me a part of his
fortune, told me I was the author of it all. Not finding the means of
exercising his gratitude immediately upon myself, he wished at least to
give me proofs of it in the person of my governante, upon whom he settled
an annuity of three hundred livres (twelve pounds), expressing in the
deed that it was an acknowledgment for the advantages I had procured him.
This he did between himself and me, without ostentation, pretension, or
noise, and had not I spoken of it to anybody, not a single person would
ever have known anything of the matter. I was so pleased with this
action that I became attached to Rey, and conceived for him a real
friendship. Sometime afterwards he desired I would become godfather to
one of his children; I consented, and a part of my regret in the
situation to which I am reduced, is my being deprived of the means of
rendering in future my attachment of my goddaughter useful to her and her
parents. Why am I, who am so sensible of the modest generosity of this
bookseller, so little so of the noisy eagerness of many persons of the
highest rank, who pompously fill the world with accounts of the services
they say they wished to render me, but the good effects of which I never
felt? Is it their fault or mine? Are they nothing more than vain; is my
insensibility purely ingratitude? Intelligent reader weigh and
determine; for my part I say no more.

This pension was a great resource to Theresa and considerable alleviation
to me, although I was far from receiving from it a direct advantage, any
more than from the presents that were made her.

She herself has always disposed of everything. When I kept her money I
gave her a faithful account of it, without ever applying any part of the
deposit to our common expenses, not even when she was richer than
myself. "What is mine is ours," said I to her; "and what is thine is
thine." I never departed from this maxim. They who have had the
baseness to accuse me of receiving by her hands that which I refused to
take with mine, undoubtedly judged of my heart by their own, and knew but
little of me