“Could any savage remain unmoved by such proofs of cordial repentance as those I had just witnessed?  For my part, I felt at the moment that I could gladly have given up all the bishoprics in Christendom for Manon.  I asked what course she would recommend in our present emergency. `It is requisite,’ she replied, `at all events, to quit the seminary, and settle in some safer place.’  I consented to everything she proposed.  She got into her carriage to go and wait for me at the corner of the street.  I escaped the next moment, without attracting the porter’s notice.  I entered the carriage, and we drove off to a Jew’s.  I there resumed my lay-dress and sword.  Manon furnished the supplies, for I was without a sou, and fearing that I might meet with some new impediment, she would not consent to my returning to my room at St. Sulpice for my purse.  My finances were in truth wretchedly low, and hers more than sufficiently enriched by the liberality of M. de B——­ to make her think lightly of my loss.  We consulted together at the Jew’s as to the course we should now adopt.

“In order to enhance the sacrifice she had made for me of her late lover, she determined to treat him without the least ceremony. `I shall leave him all his furniture,’ she said; `it belongs to him:  but I shall assuredly carry off, as I have a right to do, the jewels, and about sixty thousand francs, which I have had from him in the last two years.  I have given him no control over me,’ she added, `so that we may remain without apprehension in Paris, taking a convenient house, where we shall live, oh how happily together!’

“I represented to her that, although there might be no danger for her, there was a great deal for me, who must be sooner or later infallibly recognised, and continually exposed to a repetition of the trials I had before endured.  She gave me to understand that she could not quit Paris without regret.  I had such a dread of giving her annoyance, that there were no risks I would not have encountered for her sake.  However, we compromised matters by resolving to take a house in some village near Paris, from whence it would be easy for us to come into town whenever pleasure or business required it.  We fixed on Chaillot, which is at a convenient distance.  Manon at once returned to her house, and I went to wait for her at a side-gate of the garden of the Tuileries.

“She returned an hour after, in a hired carriage, with a servant-maid, and several trunks, which contained her dresses, and everything she had of value.

“We were not long on our way to Chaillot.  We lodged the first night at the inn, in order to have time to find a suitable house, or at least a commodious lodging.  We found one to our taste the next morning.