my sister as another portion of myself.’ `Do you hear that,’ said he to Lescaut; `he is indeed a clever boy!  It is a pity he should not see something of the world.’ `Oh, sir,’ I replied, `I have seen a great deal of it at home, attending church, and I believe I might find in Paris some greater fools than myself.’ `Listen,’ said he; `it is positively wonderful in a boy from the country.’

“The whole conversation during supper was of the same kind.  Manon, with her usual gaiety, was several times on the point of spoiling the joke by her bursts of laughter.  I contrived, while eating, to recount his own identical history, and to paint even the fate that awaited him.  Lescaut and Manon were in an agony of fear during my recital, especially while I was drawing his portrait to the life:  but his own vanity prevented him from recognising it, and I did it so well that he was the first to pronounce it extremely laughable.  You will allow that I had reason for dwelling on this ridiculous scene.

“At length it was time to retire.  He hinted at the impatience of love.  Lescaut and I took our departure.  G——­ M——­ went to his room, and Manon, making some excuse for her absence, came to join us at the gate.  The coach, that was waiting for us a few doors off, drove up towards us, and we were out of the street in an instant.

“Although I must confess that this proceeding appeared to me little short of actual robbery, it was not the most dishonest one with which I thought I had to reproach myself.  I had more scruples about the money which I had won at play.  However, we derived as little advantage from one as from the other; and Heaven sometimes ordains that the lightest fault shall meet the severest punishment.

“M.  G——­ M——­ was not long in finding out that he had been duped.  I am not sure whether he took any steps that night to discover us, but he had influence enough to ensure an effectual pursuit, and we were sufficiently imprudent to rely upon the extent of Paris and the distance between our residence and his.  Not only did he discover our abode and our circumstances, but also who I was—­the life that I had led in Paris—­Manon’s former connection with B——­,—­the manner in which she had deceived him:  in a word, all the scandalous facts of our history.  He therefore resolved to have us apprehended, and treated less as criminals than as vagabonds.  An officer came abruptly one morning into our bedroom, with half a dozen archers of the guard.  They first took possession of our money, or I should rather say, of G——­M——­’s.  They made us quickly get up, and conducted us to the door, where we found two coaches, into one of which they forced poor Manon, without any explanation, and I was taken in the other to St. Lazare.

“One must have experienced this kind of reverse, to understand the despair that is caused by it.  The police were savage enough to deny me the consolation of embracing Manon, or of bidding her farewell.  I remained for a long time ignorant of her fate.  It was perhaps fortunate for me that I was kept in a state of ignorance, for had I known what she suffered, I should have lost my senses, probably my life.