I was thinking of supping with the charming Helen and her three friends at the house on the lake, but an express summoned me to Lausanne.  Madame Lebel, my old housekeeper, invited me to sup with her and her husband.  She wrote that she had made her husband promise to take her to Lausanne as soon as she got my letter, and she added she was sure that I would resign everything to give her the pleasure of seeing me.  She notified the hour at which she would be at her mother’s house.

Madame Lebel was one of the ten or twelve women for whom in my happy youth I cherished the greatest affection.  She had all the qualities to make a man a good wife, if it had been my fate to experience such felicity.  But perhaps I did well not to tie myself down with irrevocable bonds, though now my independence is another name for slavery.  But if I had married a woman of tact, who would have ruled me unawares to myself, I should have taken care of my fortune and have had children, instead of being lonely and penniless in my old age.

But I must indulge no longer in digressions on the past which cannot be recalled, and since my recollections make me happy I should be foolish to cherish idle regrets.

I calculated that if I started directly I should get to Lausanne an hour before Madame Lebel, and I did not hesitate to give her this proof of my regard.  I must here warn my readers, that, though I loved this woman well, I was then occupied with another passion, and no voluptuous thought mingled with my desire of seeing her.  My esteem for her was enough to hold my passions in check, but I esteemed Lebel too, and nothing would have induced me to disturb the happiness of this married pair.

I wrote in haste to the syndic, telling him that an important and sudden call obliged me to start for Lausanne, but that I should have the pleasure of supping with him and his three friends at Geneva on the following day.

I knocked at Madame Dubois’s door at five o’clock, almost dying with hunger.  Her surprise was extreme, for she did not know that her daughter was going to meet me at her house.  Without more ado I gave her two louis to get us a good supper.

At seven o’clock, Madame Lebel, her husband, and a child of eighteen months, whom I easily recognized as my own, arrived.  Our meeting was a happy one indeed; we spent ten hours at table, and mirth and joy prevailed.  At day-break she started for Soleure, where Lebel had business.  M. de Chavigni had desired to be remembered most affectionately to me.  Lebel assured me that the ambassador was extremely kind to his wife, and he thanked me heartily for having given such a woman up to him.  I could easily see that he was a happy husband, and that his wife was as happy as he.

My dear housekeeper talked to me about my son.  She said that nobody suspected the truth, but that neither she nor Lebel (who had faithfully kept his promise, and had not consummated the marriage for the two months agreed upon) had any doubts.