She had no more objection to this than myself.  I knew at that time almost as much of it as she did, and after two or three efforts, we could make shift to decipher an air.  Sometimes, when I saw her busy at her furnace, I have said, “Here now is a charming duet, which seems made for the very purpose of spoiling your drugs;” her answer would be, “If you make me burn them, I’ll make you eat them:”  thus disputing, I drew her to the harpsichord; the furnace was presently forgotten, the extract of juniper or wormwood calcined (which I cannot recollect without transport), and these scenes usually ended by her smearing my face with the remains of them.

It may easily be conjectured that I had plenty of employment to fill up my leisure hours; one amusement, however, found room, that was well worth all the rest.

We lived in such a confined dungeon, that it was necessary sometimes to breathe the open air; Anet, therefore, engaged Madam de Warrens to hire a garden in the suburbs, both for this purpose and the convenience of rearing plants, etc.; to this garden was added a summer—­house, which was furnished in the customary manner; we sometimes dined, and I frequently slept, there.  Insensibly I became attached to this little retreat, decorated it with books and prints, spending part of my time in ornamenting it during the absence of Madam de Warrens, that I might surprise her the more agreeably on her return.  Sometimes I quitted this dear friend, that I might enjoy the uninterrupted pleasure of thinking on her; this was a caprice I can neither excuse nor fully explain, I only know this really was the case, and therefore I avow it.  I remember Madam de Luxembourg told me one day in raillery, of a man who used to leave his mistress that he might enjoy the satisfaction of writing to her; I answered, I could have been this man; I might have added, That I had done the very same.

I did not, however, find it necessary to leave Madam de Warrens that I might love her the more ardently, for I was ever as perfectly free with her as when alone; an advantage I never enjoyed with any other person, man or woman, however I might be attached to them; but she was so often surrounded by company who were far from pleasing me, that spite and weariness drove me to this asylum, where I could indulge the idea, without danger of being interrupted by impertinence.  Thus, my time being divided between business, pleasure, and instruction, my life passed in the most absolute serenity.  Europe was not equally tranquil:  France and the emperor had mutually declared war, the King of Sardinia had entered into the quarrel, and a French army had filed off into Piedmont to awe the Milanese.  Our division passed through Chambery, and, among others, the regiment of Champaigne, whose colonel was the Duke de la Trimouille, to whom I was presented.  He promised many things, but doubtless never more thought of me.  Our little garden was exactly at the end of the suburb by which the