some further details concerning this celebrated impostor; and in the
meanwhile I must relate a catastrophe of another kind, which was near to
have made me die the death of a fool.

It was Christmas Day. I had got up early in the morning in better spirits
than usual. The old women tell you that always presages misfortune, but I
was as far then as I am now from making my happiness into an omen of
grief. But this time chance made the foolish belief of good effect. I
received a letter and a large packet from Paris; they came from Manon. I
opened the letter and I thought I should have died of grief when I
read,--

"Be wise, and receive the news I give you calmly. The packet contains
your portrait and all the letters you have written to me. Return me my
portrait, and if you have kept my letters be kind enough to burn them. I
rely on your honour. Think of me no more. Duty bids me do all I can to
forget you, for at this hour to-morrow I shall become the wife of M.
Blondel of the Royal Academy, architect to the king. Please do not seem
as if you knew me if we chance to meet on your return to Paris."

This letter struck me dumb with astonishment, and for more than two hours
after I read it I was, as it were, bereft of my senses. I sent word to M.
d'O---- that, not feeling well, I was going to keep my room all day. When
I felt a little better I opened the packet. The first thing to fall out
was my portrait. I looked at it, and such was the perturbation of my
mind, that, though the miniature really represented me as of a cheerful
and animated expression, I thought I beheld a dreadful and a threatening
visage. I went to my desk and wrote and tore up a score of letters in
which I overwhelmed the faithless one with threats and reproaches.