telling me he was a spy whom the minister of France had appointed to
watch my proceedings. This information was of a nature to alarm me the
more, as everybody advised me to guard against the machinations of
persons who were employed to keep an eye upon my actions, and to entice
me into France for the purpose of betraying me. To shut the mouths, once
for all, of these foolish advisers, I proposed to Sauttern, without
giving him the least intimation of the information I had received,
a journey on foot to Pontarlier, to which he consented. As soon as we
arrived there I put the letter from D'Ivernois into his hands, and after
giving him an ardent embrace, I said: "Sauttern has no need of a proof of
my confidence in him, but it is necessary I should prove to the public
that I know in whom to place it." This embrace was accompanied with a
pleasure which persecutors can neither feel themselves, nor take away
from the oppressed.

I will never believe Sauttern was a spy, nor that he betrayed me: but I
was deceived by him. When I opened to him my heart without reserve, he
constantly kept his own shut, and abused me by lies. He invented I know
not what kind of story, to prove to me his presence was necessary in his
own country. I exhorted him to return to it as soon as possible. He
setoff, and when I thought he was in Hungary, I learned he was at
Strasbourgh. This was not the first time he had been there. He had
caused some disorder in a family in that city; and the husband knowing I
received him in my house, wrote to me. I used every effort to bring the
young woman back to the paths of virtue, and Sauttern to his duty.

When I thought they were perfectly detached from each other, they renewed
their acquaintance, and the husband had the complaisance to receive the
young man at his house; from that moment I had nothing more to say.
I found the pretended baron had imposed upon me by a great number of