in the office of M.
de St. Florentin. The mayor had been to see him sometime before my
adventure. Little remarks of this kind, though of no consequence,
in themselves, may lead to the discovery of many underhand
dealings.]

This choice was so agreeable to my peaceful inclinations, and my solitary
and indolent disposition, that I consider it as one of the pleasing
reveries of which I became the most passionately fond. I thought I
should in that island be more separated from men, more sheltered from
their outrages, and sooner forgotten by mankind: in a word, more
abandoned to the delightful pleasures of the inaction of a contemplative
life. I could have wished to have been confined in it in such a manner
as to have had no intercourse with mortals, and I certainly took every
measure I could imagine to relieve me from the necessity of troubling my
head about them.

The great question was that of subsistence, and by the dearness of
provisions, and the difficulty of carriage, this is expensive in the
island; the inhabitants are besides at the mercy of the receiver. This
difficulty was removed by an arrangement which Du Peyrou made with me in
becoming a substitute to the company which had undertaken and abandoned
my general edition. I gave him all the materials necessary, and made the
proper arrangement and distribution. To the engagement between us I
added that of giving him the memoirs of my life, and made him the general
depositary of all my papers, under the express condition of making no use
of them until after my death, having it at heart quietly to end my days
without doing anything which should again bring me back to the
recollection of the public. The life annuity he undertook to pay me was
sufficient to my subsistence. My lord marshal having recovered all his
property, had offered me twelve hundred livres (fifty pounds) a year,
half of which I accepted. He wished to send me the principal, and this I
refused on account of the difficulty of placing it. He then sent the
amount to Du Peyrou, in whose hands it remained, and who pays me the
annuity according to the terms agreed upon with his lordship. Adding
therefore to the result of my agreement with Du Peyrou, the annuity of
the marshal, two-thirds of which were reversible to Theresa after my
death, and the annuity of three hundred livres from Duchesne, I was
assured of a genteel subsistence for myself, and after me for Theresa, to
who