saw him, and he soon gained my friendship.  He, however, suddenly gave me to understand that Madam Dupin thought my visits too frequent, and begged me to discontinue them.  Such a compliment would have been proper when she returned my letter; but eight or ten days afterwards, and without any new cause, it appeared to me ill-timed.  This rendered my situation the more singular, as M. and Madam de Francueil still continued to give me the same good reception as before.

I however made the intervals between my visits longer, and I should entirely have ceased calling on them, had not Madam Dupin, by another unexpected caprice, sent to desire I would for a few days take care of her son, who changing his preceptor, remained alone during that interval.  I passed eight days in such torments as nothing but the pleasure of obeying Madam Dupin could render supportable:  I would not have undertaken to pass eight other days like them had Madam Dupin given me herself for the recompense.

M. de Francueil conceived a friendship for me, and I studied with him.  We began together a course of chemistry at Rouelles.  That I might be nearer at hand, I left my hotel at Quentin, and went to lodge at the Tennis Court, Rue Verdelet, which leads into the Rue Platiere, where M. Dupin lived.  There, in consequence of a cold neglected, I contracted an inflammation of the lungs that had liked to have carried me off.  In my younger days I frequently suffered from inflammatory disorders, pleurisies, and especially quinsies, to which I was very subject, and which frequently brought me near enough to death to familiarize me to its image.

During my convalescence I had leisure to reflect upon my situation, and to lament my timidity, weakness and indolence; these, notwithstanding the fire with which I found myself inflamed, left me to languish in an inactivity of mind, continually on the verge of misery.  The evening preceding the day on which I was taken ill, I went to an opera by Royer; the name I have forgotten.  Notwithstanding my prejudice in favor of the talents of others, which has ever made me distrustful of my own, I still thought the music feeble, and devoid of animation and invention.  I sometimes had the vanity to flatter myself:  I think I could do better than that.  But the terrible idea I had formed of the composition of an opera, and the importance I heard men of the profession affix to such an undertaking, instantly discouraged me, and made me blush at having so much as thought of it.  Besides, where was I to find a person to write the words, and one who would give himself the trouble of turning the poetry to my liking?  These ideas of music and the opera had possession of my mind during my illness, and in the delirium of my fever I composed songs, duets, and choruses.  I am certain I composed two or three little pieces, ‘di prima infenzione’, perhaps worthy of the admiration of masters, could they have heard them executed.  Oh, could an account be taken of the dreams of a man in a fever, what great and sublime things would sometimes proceed from his delirium!