friend." It was about this time that my lord marshal spoke to me of his,
of what he intended to do in it for me, and that I made him the answer of
which I have spoken in the first part of my memoirs.

My second loss, still more afflicting and irreparable, was that of the
best of women and mothers, who, already weighed down with years, and
overburthened with infirmities and misery, quitted this vale of tears for
the abode of the blessed, where the amiable remembrance of the good we
have done here below is the eternal reward of our benevolence. Go,
gentle and beneficent shade, to those of Fenelon, Berneg, Catinat, and
others, who in a more humble state have, like them, opened their hearts
to pure charity; go and taste of the fruit of your own benevolence, and
prepare for your son the place he hopes to fill by your side. Happy in
your misfortunes that Heaven, in putting to them a period, has spared you
the cruel spectacle of his! Fearing, lest I should fill her heart with
sorrow by the recital of my first disasters, I had not written to her
since my arrival in Switzerland; but I wrote to M. de Conzie, to inquire
after her situation, and it was from him I learned she had ceased to
alleviate the sufferings of the afflicted, and that her own were at an
end. I myself shall not suffer long; but if I thought I should not see
her again in the life to come, my feeble imagination would less delight
in the idea of the perfect happiness I there hope to enjoy.

My third and last loss, for since that time I have not had a friend to
lose, was that of the lord marshal. He did not die but tired of serving
the ungratful, he left Neuchatel, and I have never seen him since.
He still lives, and will, I hope, survive me: he is alive, and thanks to
him all my attachments on earth are not destroyed. There is one man
still worthy of my friendship; for the real value of this consists more
in what we feel than in that which we inspire; but I have lost the