At nine o’clock I placed her legs in a bath of lukewarm water, and taught her how to suffumigate.  Her legs were moulded by the hand of the Graces and I wiped them amorously, laughing within myself at her expression of gratitude, and I then laid her in bed, contenting myself with a solemn kiss on her pretty forehead.  When it was over I went up to my room where I was waited on by the pretty maid, who performed her duties with that grace peculiar to the French soubrette, and told me that as I had become her mistress’s chambermaid it was only right that she should be my valet.  Her mirth was infectious, and I tried to make her sit down on my knee; but she fled away like a deer, telling me that I ought to take care of myself if I wanted to cut a good figure at five o’clock the next day.  She was wrong, but appearances were certainly against us, and it is well known that servants do not give their masters and mistresses the benefit of the doubt.

At five o’clock in the morning I found Madame du Rumain nearly dressed when I went into her room, and we immediately went into another, from which the rising sun might have been see if the “Hotel de Bouillon” had not been in the way, but that, of course, was a matter of no consequence.  Madame du Rumain performed the ceremonies with all the dignity of an ancient priestess of Baal.  She then sat down to her piano, telling me that to find some occupation for the long morning of nine hours would prove the hardest of all the rules, for she did not dine till two, which was then the fashionable hour.  We had a meat breakfast without coffee, which I had proscribed, and I left her, promising to call again before I left Paris.

When I got back to my inn, I found my brother there looking very uneasy at my absence at such an early hour.  When I saw him I cried,—­

“Rome or Paris, which is it to be?”

“Rome,” he replied, cringingly.

“Wait in the antechamber.  I will do your business for you.”

When I had finished I called him in, and found my other brother and his wife, who said they had come to ask me to give them a dinner.

“Welcome!” said I.  “You are come just in time to see me deal with the abbe, who has resolved at last to go to Rome and to follow my directions.”

I sent Clairmont to the diligence office, and told him to book a place for Lyons; and then I wrote out five bills of exchange, of five louis each, on Lyons, Turin, Genoa, Florence, and Rome.

“Who is to assure me that these bills will be honoured?”

“I assure you, blockhead.  If you don’t like them you can leave them.”

Clairmont brought the ticket for the diligence and I gave it to the abbe, telling him roughly to be gone.

“But I may dine with you, surely?” said he.

“No, I have done with you.  Go and dine with Possano, as you are his accomplice in the horrible attempt he made to murder me.  Clairmont, shew this man out, and never let him set foot here again.”