his friendship. At the journey of Easter, my melancholy state no longer
permitting me to go to the castle, he never suffered a day to pass
without coming to see me, and at length, perceiving my sufferings to be
incessant, he prevailed upon me to determine to see Friar Come. He
immediately sent for him, came with him, and had the courage, uncommon to
a man of his rank, to remain with me during the operation which was cruel
and tedious. Upon the first examination, Come thought he found a great
stone, and told me so; at the second, he could not find it again. After
having made a third attempt with so much care and circumspection that I
thought the time long, he declared there was no stone, but that the
prostate gland was schirrous and considerably thickened. He besides
added, that I had a great deal to suffer, and should live a long time.
Should the second prediction be as fully accomplished as the first, my
sufferings are far from being at an end.

It was thus I learned after having been so many years treated for
disorders which I never had, that my incurable disease, without being
mortal, would last as long as myself. My imagination, repressed by this
information, no longer presented to me in prospective a cruel death in
the agonies of the stone.

Delivered from imaginary evils, more cruel to me than those which were
real, I more patiently suffered the latter. It is certain I have since
suffered less from my disorder than I had done before, and every time I
recollect that I owe this alleviation to M. de Luxembourg, his memory
becomes more dear to me.

Restored, as I may say, to life, and more than ever occupied with the
plan according to which I was determined to pass the rest of my days, all
the obstacle to the immediate execution of my design was the publication