“After many reflections we could discover no other resource than in flight.  To effect this it would be requisite to cheat the vigilance of Manon’s guardian, who required management, although he was but a servant.  We determined, therefore, that, during the night, I should procure a post-chaise, and return with it at break of day to the inn, before he was awake; that we should steal away quietly, and go straight to Paris, where we might be married on our arrival.  I had about fifty crowns in my pocket, the fruit of my little savings at school; and she had about twice as much.  We imagined, like inexperienced children, that such a sum could never be exhausted, and we counted, with equal confidence, upon the success of our other schemes.

“After having supped, with certainly more satisfaction than I had ever before experienced, I retired to prepare for our project.  All my arrangements were the more easy, because, for the purpose of returning on the morrow to my father’s, my luggage had been already packed.  I had, therefore, no difficulty in removing my trunk, and having a chaise prepared for five o’clock in the morning, at which hour the gates of the town would be opened; but I encountered an obstacle which I was little prepared for, and which nearly upset all my plans.

“Tiberge, although only three years older than myself, was a youth of unusually strong mind, and of the best regulated conduct.  He loved me with singular affection.  The sight of so lovely a girl as Manon, my ill-disguised impatience to conduct her to the inn, and the anxiety I betrayed to get rid of him, had excited in his mind some suspicions of my passion.  He had not ventured to return to the inn where he had left me, for fear of my being annoyed at his doing so; but went to wait for me at my lodgings, where, although it was ten o’clock at night, I found him on my arrival.  His presence annoyed me, and he soon perceived the restraint which it imposed. `I am certain,’ he said to me, without any disguise, `that you have some plan in contemplation which you will not confide to me; I see it by your manner.’  I answered him rather abruptly, that I was not bound to render him an account of all my movements. `Certainly not!’ he replied; `but you have always, hitherto, treated me as a friend, and that appellation implies a certain degree of confidence and candour.’  He pressed me so much and so earnestly to discover my secret, that, having never up to that moment felt the slightest reserve towards him, I confided to him now the whole history of my passion.  He heard it with an appearance of disapprobation, which made me tremble; and I immediately repented of my indiscretion, in telling him of my intended elopement.  He told me he was too sincerely my friend not to oppose every obstacle in his power to such a scheme; that he would first try all other means of turning me from such a purpose, but that if I refused to renounce so fatal a resolution, he assuredly would inform some persons of my intention, who would be able to defeat it.  He held forth upon the subject for a full quarter of an hour, in the most serious tone, and ended by again threatening to inform against me, if I did not pledge him my word that I would return to the paths of discretion and reason.