the first two parts almost wholly in this manner, without having any plan
formed, and not foreseeing I should one day be tempted to make it a
regular work. For this reason the two parts afterwards formed of
materials not prepared for the place in which they are disposed, are full
of unmeaning expressions not found in the others.

In the midst of my reveries I had a visit from Madam d'Houdetot, the
first she had ever made me, but which unfortunately was not the last, as
will hereafter appear. The Comtesse d'Houdetot was the daughter of the
late M. de Bellegarde, a farmer-general, sister to M. d'Epinay, and
Messieurs de Lalive and De la Briche, both of whom have since been
introductors to ambassadors. I have spoken of the acquaintance I made
with her before she was married: since that event I had not seen her,
except at the fetes at La Chevrette, with Madam d'Epinay, her
sister-in-law. Having frequently passed several days with her, both at
La Chevrette and Epinay, I always thought her amiable, and that she seemed
to be my well-wisher. She was fond of walking with me; we were both good
walkers, and the conversation between us was inexhaustible. However, I
never went to see her in Paris, although she had several times requested
and solicited me to do it. Her connections with M. de St. Lambert, with
whom I began to be intimate, rendered her more interesting to me, and it
was to bring me some account of that friend who was, I believe, then at
Mahon, that she came to see me at the Hermitage.

This visit had something of the appearance of the beginning of a romance.
She lost her way. Her coachman, quitting the road, which turned to the
right, attempted to cross straight over from the mill of Clairvaux to the
Hermitage: her carriage stuck in a quagmire in the bottom of the valley,
and she got out and walked the rest of the road. Her delicate shoes were
soon worn through; she sunk into the dirt, her servants had the greatest