know if I saw anything
more of him.

Poinsinet, who was hearthless and homeless, as they say, spent the night
in my room, and in the morning I gave him two cups of chocolate and some
money wherewith to get a lodging. I never saw him again, and a few years
after he was drowned, not in the fountain of Hippocrene, but in the
Guadalquivir. He told me that he had spent a week with M. de Voltaire,
and that he had hastened his return to Paris to obtain the release of the
Abbe Morellet from the Bastile.

I had nothing more to do at Paris, and I was only waiting for some
clothes to be made and for a cross of the order, with which the Holy
Father had decorated me, to be set with diamonds and rubies.

I had waited for five or six days when an unfortunate incident obliged me
to take a hasty departure. I am loth to write what follows, for it was
all my own fault that I was nearly losing my life and my honour. I pity
those simpletons who blame fortune and not themselves for their
misfortunes.

I was walking in the Tuileries at ten o'clock in the morning, when I was
unlucky enough to meet the Dangenancour and another girl. This
Dangenancour was a dancer at the opera-house, whom I had desired to meet
previously to my last departure from Paris. I congratulated myself on the
lucky chance which threw her in my way, and accosted her, and had not
much trouble in inducing her to dine with me at Choisi.

We walked towards the Pont-Royal, where we took a coach. After dinner had
been ordered we were taking a turn in the garden, when I saw a carriage
stop and two adventurers whom I knew getting out of it, with two girls,
friends of the ones I had with me. The wretched landlady, who was
standing at the door, said that if we liked to sit down together she
could give us an excellent dinner, and I said nothing, or rather I
assented to the yes of my two nymphs. The dinner was excellent, and after
the bill was paid, and we were on the point of returning to Paris, I
noticed that a ring, which I had taken off to shew to one of the
adventurers named Santis, was still missing. It was an exceedingly pretty
miniature, and the diamond setting had cost me twenty-five Louis. I
politely begged Santis to return me the ring, and he replied with the
utmost coolness that he had done so already.

"If you had returned it," said I, "it would be on my finger, and you see
that it is not."

He persisted in his assertion; the girls said nothing, but Santis's
frie