rearing plants, etc.; to this garden was added a summer--house, which was
furnished in the customary manner; we sometimes dined, and I frequently
slept, there. Insensibly I became attached to this little retreat,
decorated it with books and prints, spending part of my time in
ornamenting it during the absence of Madam de Warrens, that I might
surprise her the more agreeably on her return. Sometimes I quitted this
dear friend, that I might enjoy the uninterrupted pleasure of thinking on
her; this was a caprice I can neither excuse nor fully explain, I only
know this really was the case, and therefore I avow it. I remember Madam
de Luxembourg told me one day in raillery, of a man who used to leave his
mistress that he might enjoy the satisfaction of writing to her; I
answered, I could have been this man; I might have added, That I had done
the very same.

I did not, however, find it necessary to leave Madam de Warrens that I
might love her the more ardently, for I was ever as perfectly free with
her as when alone; an advantage I never enjoyed with any other person,
man or woman, however I might be attached to them; but she was so often
surrounded by company who were far from pleasing me, that spite and
weariness drove me to this asylum, where I could indulge the idea,
without danger of being interrupted by impertinence. Thus, my time being
divided between business, pleasure, and instruction, my life passed in
the most absolute serenity. Europe was not equally tranquil: France and
the emperor had mutually declared war, the King of Sardinia had entered
into the quarrel, and a French army had filed off into Piedmont to awe
the Milanese. Our division passed through Chambery, and, among others,
the regiment of Champaigne, whose colonel was the Duke de la Trimouille,
to whom I was presented. He promised many things, but doubtless never
more thought of me. Our little garden was exactly at the end of the
suburb by which the troops entered, so that I could fully satisfy my