I was delighted to have managed the matter so speedily and at such a cheap rate, and I went to bed in a calmer state of mind, deferring my interview with my brother till the next day.

He came at eight o’clock, and, constant to his folly, told me he had a plan to which he was sure I could have no objection.

“I don’t want to hear anything about it; make your choice, Paris or Rome.”

“Give me the journey-money, I will remain at Paris; but I will give a written engagement not to trouble you or your brother again.  That should be sufficient.”

“It is not for you to judge of that.  Begone!  I have neither the time nor the wish to listen to you.  Remember, Paris without a farthing, or Rome with twenty-five louis.”

Thereupon I called Clairmont, and told him to put the abbe out.

I was in a hurry to have done with the Corticelli affair, and went to the house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where I found a kindly and intelligent-looking man and woman, and all the arrangements of the house satisfactory and appropriate to the performance of secret cures.  I saw the room and the bath destined for the new boarder, everything was clean and neat, and I gave them a hundred crowns, for which they handed me a receipt.  I told them that the lady would either come in the course of the day, or on the day following.

I went to dine with Madame d’Urfe and the young Count d’Aranda.  After dinner the worthy marchioness talked to me for a long time of her pregnancy, dwelling on her symptoms, and on the happiness that would be hers when the babe stirred within her.  I had put to a strong restrain upon myself to avoid bursting out laughing.  When I had finished with her I went to the Corticelli, who called me her saviour and her guardian angel.  I gave her two louis to get some linen out of pawn, and promised to come and see her before I left Paris, to give her a hundred crowns, which would take her back to Bologna.  Then I waited on Madame du Rumain who had said farewell to society for three weeks.

This lady had an excellent heart, and was pretty as well, but she had so curious a society-manner that she often made me laugh most heartily.  She talked of the sun and moon as if they were two Exalted Personages, to whom she was about to be presented.  She was once discussing with me the state of the elect in heaven, and said that their greatest happiness was, no doubt, to love God to distraction, for she had no idea of calm and peaceful bliss.

I gave her the incense for the fumigation, and told her what psalms to recite, and then we had a delicious supper.  She told her chamber-maid to escort me at ten o’clock to a room on the second floor which she had furnished for me with the utmost luxury, adding,—­

“Take care that the Chevalier de Seingalt is able to come into my room at five o’clock to-morrow.”