favorite relaxation.  I composed several trios full of harmony, and of which I may perhaps speak in my supplement if ever I should write one.  Theatrical performances were another resource.  I wrote a comedy in fifteen days, entitled ’l’Engagement Temeraire’,—­[The Rash Engagement]—­which will be found amongst my papers; it has no other merit than that of being lively.  I composed several other little things:  amongst others a poem entitled, ‘l’Aliee de Sylvie’, from the name of an alley in the park upon the bank of the Cher; and this without discontinuing my chemical studies, or interrupting what I had to do for Madam Dupin.

Whilst I was increasing my corpulency at Chenonceaux, that of my poor Theresa was augmented at Paris in another manner, and at my return I found the work I had put upon the frame in greater forwardness than I had expected.  This, on account of my situation, would have thrown me into the greatest embarrassment, had not one of my messmates furnished me with the only resource which could relieve me from it.  This is one of those essential narratives which I cannot give with too much simplicity; because, in making an improper use of their names, I should either excuse or inculpate myself, both of which in this place are entirely out of the question.

During the residence of Altuna at Paris, instead of going to eat at a ‘Traiteurs’, he and I commonly eat in the neighborhood, almost opposite the cul de sac of the opera, at the house of a Madam la Selle, the wife of a tailor, who gave but very ordinary dinners, but whose table was much frequented on account of the safe company which generally resorted to it; no person was received without being introduced by one of those who used the house.  The commander, De Graville, an old debauchee, with much wit and politeness, but obscene in conversation, lodged at the house, and brought to it a set of riotous and extravagant young men; officers in the guards and mousquetaires.  The Commander de Nonant, chevalier to all the girls of the opera, was the daily oracle, who conveyed to us the news of this motley crew.  M. du Plessis, a lieutenant-colonel, retired from the service, an old man of great goodness and wisdom; and M. Ancelet,

[It was to this M. Ancelet I gave a little comedy, after my own manner entitled ‘les Prisouniers de Guerre’, which I wrote after the disasters of the French in Bavaria and Bohemia:  I dared not either avow this comedy or show it, and this for the singular reason that neither the King of France nor the French were ever better spoken of nor praised with more sincerity of heart than in my piece though written by a professed republican, I dared not declare myself the panegyrist of a nation, whose maxims were exactly the reverse of my own.  More grieved at the misfortunes of France than the French themselves I was afraid the public would construe into flattery and mean complaisance the marks of a sincere attachment, of