lamentations, it was only to relapse into the tormenting remembrance of my fatal and unhappy love.  Manon’s absence—­the mystery in which her fate was veiled—­the dread of never again beholding her; these formed the subject of my melancholy thoughts.  I fancied her in the arms of G——­ M——.  Far from imagining that he could have been brute enough to subject her to the same treatment to which I was condemned, I felt persuaded that he had only procured my removal, in order that he might possess her in undisturbed enjoyment.

“Oh! how miserable were the days and nights I thus passed!  They seemed to be of endless duration.  My only hope of escape now, was in hypocrisy; I scrutinised the countenance, and carefully marked every observation that fell from the governor, in order to ascertain what he really thought of me; and looking on him as the sole arbiter of my future fate, I made it my study to win, if possible, his favour.  I soon had the satisfaction to find that I was firmly established in his good graces, and no longer doubted his disposition to befriend me.

“I, one day, ventured to ask him whether my liberation depended on him.  He replied that it was not altogether in his hands, but that he had no doubt that on his representation M. G——­ M——­, at whose instance the lieutenant-general of police had ordered me to be confined, would consent to my being set at liberty. `May I flatter myself,’ rejoined I, in the mildest tone, `that he will consider two months, which I have now spent in this prison, as a sufficient atonement?’ He offered to speak to him, if I wished it.  I implored him without delay to do me that favour.

“He told me two days afterwards that G——­ M——­ was so sensibly affected by what he had heard, that he not only was ready to consent to my liberation, but that he had even expressed a strong desire to become better acquainted with me, and that he himself purposed to pay me a visit in prison.  Although his presence could not afford me much pleasure, I looked upon it as a certain prelude to my liberation.

“He accordingly came to St. Lazare.  I met him with an air more grave and certainly less silly than I had exhibited at his house with Manon.  He spoke reasonably enough of my former bad conduct.  He added, as if to excuse his own delinquencies, that it was graciously permitted to the weakness of man to indulge in certain pleasures, almost, indeed, prompted by nature, but that dishonesty and such shameful practices ought to be, and always would be, inexorably punished.

“I listened to all he said with an air of submission, which quite charmed him.  I betrayed no symptoms of annoyance even at some jokes in which he indulged about my relationship with Manon and Lescaut, and about the little chapels of which he supposed I must have had time to erect a great many in St. Lazare, as I was so fond of that occupation.  But he happened, unluckily both for me and for himself, to