This business increased my own ideas of my importance; partly from the thought that I was on the high road to fortune, and partly because I furnished so many people with the means of subsistence.  Alas!  I was too fortunate; and my evil genius soon crossed my career.

It was now three months since Mdlle.  X. C. V. had gone into the convent, and the time of her delivery drew near.  We wrote to each other twice a week, and I considered the matter happily settled; M. de la Popeliniere had married, and when Mdlle.  X. C. V. returned to her mother there would be nothing more to be said But just at this period, when my happiness seemed assured, the hidden fire leapt forth and threatened to consume me; how, the reader will see.

One day after leaving Madame d’Urfe’s I went to walk in the Tuileries.  I had taken a couple of turns in the chief walk when I saw that an old woman, accompanied by a man dressed in black, was looking at me closely and communicating her observations to her companion.  There was nothing very astonishing in this in a public place, and I continued my walk, and on turning again saw the same couple still watching me.  In my turn I looked at them, and remembered seeing the man in a gaming-house, where he was known by the name of Castel-Bajac.  On scrutinizing the features of the hag, I at last succeeded in recollecting who she was; she was the woman to whom I had taken Mdlle.  X. C. V. I felt certain that she had recognized me, but not troubling myself about the matter I left the gardens to walk elsewhere.  The day after next, just as I was going to get into my carriage, a man of evil aspect gave me a paper and asked me to read it.  I opened it, but finding it covered with an illegible scrawl I gave it him back, telling him to read it himself.  He did so, and I found myself summoned to appear before the commissary of police to answer to the plea which the midwife (whose name I forget) brought against me.

Although I could guess what the charge would be, and was certain that the midwife could furnish no proofs of her accusation, I went to an attorney I knew and told him to appear for me.  I instructed him that I did not know any midwife in Paris whatsoever.  The attorney waited on the commissary, and on the day after brought me a copy of the pleas.

The midwife said that I came to her one night, accompanied by a young lady about five months with child, and that, holding a pistol in one hand and a packet of fifty Louis in the other, I made her promise to procure abortion.  We both of us (so she said) had masks on, thus shewing that we had been at the opera ball.  Fear, said she, had prevented her from flatly refusing to grant my request; but she had enough presence of mind to say that the necessary drugs were not ready, that she would have all in order by the next night; whereupon we left, promising to return.  In the belief that we would not fail to keep the appointment, she went in to M. Castel-Bajac to ask him to hide