II

I loved Ophelia! forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.

Shakespeare.

“I was seventeen years old, and was finishing my studies at Amiens, whither my parents, who belonged to one of the first families in Picardy, had sent me.  I led a life so studious and well regulated, that my masters pointed to me as a model of conduct for the other scholars.  Not that I made any extraordinary efforts to acquire this reputation, but my disposition was naturally tractable and tranquil; my inclinations led me to apply to study; and even the natural dislike I felt for vice was placed to my credit as positive proof of virtue.  The successful progress of my studies, my birth, and some external advantages of person, made me a general favourite with the inhabitants of the town.

“I completed my public exercises with such general approbation, that the bishop of the diocese, who was present, proposed to me to enter the church, where I could not fail, he said, to acquire more distinction than in the Order of Malta, for which my parents had destined me.  I was already decorated with the Cross, and called the Chevalier des Grieux.  The vacation having arrived, I was preparing to return to my father, who had promised to send me soon to the Academy.

“My only regret on quitting Amiens arose from parting with a friend, some years older than myself, to whom I had always been tenderly attached.  We had been brought up together; but from the straitened circumstances of his family, he was intended to take orders, and was to remain after me at Amiens to complete the requisite studies for his sacred calling.  He had a thousand good qualities.  You will recognise in him the very best during the course of my history, and above all, a zeal and fervour of friendship which surpass the most illustrious examples of antiquity.  If I had at that time followed his advice, I should have always continued a discreet and happy man.  If I had even taken counsel from his reproaches, when on the brink of that gulf into which my passions afterwards plunged me, I should have been spared the melancholy wreck of both fortune and reputation.  But he was doomed to see his friendly admonitions disregarded; nay, even at times repaid by contempt from an ungrateful wretch, who often dared to treat his fraternal conduct as offensive and officious.

“I had fixed the day for my departure from Amiens.  Alas! that I had not fixed it one day sooner!  I should then have carried to my father’s house my innocence untarnished.