Worn out and satiated with pleasure, I invited them to take some rest.  We slept until we were awakened by the alarum, which I had taken care to set at four o’clock.  We were certain of turning to good account the two hours we had then to spare before parting company, which we did at the dawn of day, humiliated at having to confess our exhaustion, but highly pleased with each other, and longing for a renewal of our delightful pleasures.

The next day, however, when I came to think of that rather too lively night, during which, as is generally the case, Love had routed Reason, I felt some remorse.  M——­ M——­ wanted to convince me of her love, and for that purpose she had combined all the virtues which I attached to my own affection—­namely, honour, delicacy, and truth, but her temperament, of which her mind was the slave, carried her towards excess, and she prepared everything in order to give way to it, while she awaited the opportunity of making me her accomplice.  She was coaxing love to make it compliant, and to succeed in mastering it, because her heart, enslaved by her senses, never reproached her.  She likewise tried to deceive herself by endeavouring to forget that I might complain of having been surprised.  She knew that to utter such a complaint I would have to acknowledge myself weaker or less courageous than she was, and she relied upon my being ashamed to make such a confession.  I had no doubt whatever that the absence of the ambassador had been arranged and concerted beforehand.  I could see still further, for it seemed evident to me that the two conspirators had foreseen that I would guess the artifice, and that, feeling stung to the quick, in spite of all my regrets, I would not shew myself less generous than they had been themselves.  The ambassador having first procured me a delightful night, how could I refuse to let him enjoy as pleasant a one?  My friends had argued very well, for, in spite of all the objections of my mind, I saw that I could not on my side put any obstacle in their way.  C——­ C——­ was no impediment to them.  They were certain of conquering her the moment she was not hindered by my presence.  It rested entirely with M——­ M——­, who had perfect control over her.  Poor girl!  I saw her on the high road to debauchery, and it was my own doing!  I sighed when I thought how little I had spared them in our last orgie, and what would become of me if both of them should happen to be, by my doing, in such a position as to be compelled to run away from the convent?  I could imagine both of them thrown upon my hands, and the prospect was not particularly agreeable.  It would be an ’embarras de richesse’.  In this miserable contest between reason and prejudice, between nature and sentiment, I could not make up my mind either to go to the supper or to remain absent from it.  “If I go,” said I to myself, “that night will pass with perfect decency, but I shall prove myself very ridiculous, jealous, ungrateful, and even wanting in common politeness:  if I remain