“Although I could not but feel that I deserved, in some degree, these reproaches, yet he appeared to me to carry them beyond all reason.  I thought I might be permitted to explain my feelings.

“`I assure you, sir,’ said I to him, `that the modesty which you ridicule is by no means affected; it is the natural feeling of a son who entertains sincere respect for his father, and above all, a father irritated as you justly are by his faults.  Neither have I, sir, the slightest wish to pass for the most respectable member of my family.  I know that I have merited your reproaches, but I conjure you to temper them with mercy, and not to look upon me as the most infamous of mankind.  I do not deserve such harsh names.  It is love, you know it, that has caused all my errors.  Fatal passion!  Have you yourself never felt its force?  Is it possible that you, with the same blood in your veins that flows in mine, should have passed through life unscathed by the same excitements?  Love has rendered me perhaps foolishly tender—­too easily excited—­ too impassioned—­too faithful, and probably too indulgent to the desires and caprices, or, if you will, the faults of an adored mistress.  These are my crimes; are they such as to reflect dishonour upon you?  Come, my dear father,’ said I tenderly, `show some pity for a son, who has never ceased to feel respect and affection for you—­who has not renounced, as you say, all feelings of honour and of duty, and who is himself a thousand times more an object of pity than you imagine.’  I could not help shedding a tear as I concluded this appeal.

“A father’s heart is a chef-d’oeuvre of creation.  There nature rules in undisturbed dominion, and regulates at will its most secret springs.  He was a man of high feeling and good taste, and was so sensibly affected by the turn I had given to my defence, that he could no longer hide from me the change I had wrought.

“`Come to me, my poor chevalier,’ said he; `come and embrace me.  I do pity you!’

“I embraced him:  he pressed me to him in such a manner, that I guessed what was passing in his heart.

“`But how are we,’ said he, `to extricate you from this place?  Explain to me the real situation of your affairs.’

“As there really was not anything in my conduct so grossly improper as to reflect dishonour upon me; at least, in comparison with the conduct of other young men of a certain station in the world; and as a mistress is not considered a disgrace, any more than a little dexterity in drawing some advantage from play, I gave my father a candid detail of the life I had been leading.  As I recounted each transgression, I took care to cite some illustrious example in my justification, in order to palliate my own faults.

“`I lived,’ said I, `with a mistress without the solemnity of marriage.  The Duke of ——­ keeps two before the eyes of all Paris.  M——­ D——­ has had one now for ten years, and loves her with a fidelity which he has never shown to his wife.  Two-thirds of the men of fashion in Paris keep mistresses.