too honest
to bend the knee to so vicious yet able a minion had already singled him
out as a fit person to flatter and to rise by. For me, I neither sought
nor avoided him: but he was as civil towards me as his _brusque_ temper
permitted him to be towards most persons; and as our careers were not
likely to cross one another, I thought I might reckon on his neutrality,
if not on his friendship. Chance turned the scale against me.

One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such
an hour, at a certain house in the Rue------. It occurred to me as
no improbable supposition that the appointment might relate to my
individual circumstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly
had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour
prescribed I appeared at the place of assignation. My mind misgave me
when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry
descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels
in this apartment about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman,
of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed; the lady sighed. An
_eclaircissement_ ensued; and I found that I had the good fortune to be
the object of a _caprice_ in the favourite mistress of the Abbe Dubois.
Nothing was further from my wishes! What a pity it is that one cannot
always tell a woman one's mind!

I attempted a flourish about friendship, honour, and the respect due to
the _amante_ of the most intimate _ami_ I had in the world.

"Pooh!" said the tawny Calypso, a little pettishly, "pooh! one does not
talk of those things here."

"Madame," said I, very energetically, "I implore you to refrain. Do not
excite too severe a contest between passion and duty! I feel that I must
fly you: you are already too bewitching."

Just as I rose to depart in rushes the _femme de chambre_, and
announces, not Monsieur the Abbe, but Monseigneur the Regent. Of course
(the old resort in such cases) I was thrust in a closet; in marches his
Royal Highness, and is received very cavalierly. It is quite astonishing
to me what airs those women give themselves when they have princes to
manage! However, my confinement was not long: the closet had another
door; the _femme de chambre_ slips round, opens it, and I congratulate
myself on my escape.

When a Frenchwoman is piqued, she passes all understanding. The next
day I am very quietly employed at breakfast, when my valet ushers in a
masked pers