old inconvenient house, and for a small chamber ill-contrived and
ill-furnished, which, on the approach of Winter, instead of a
companionable fire, must be warmed by the dull invisible heat of a
stove. From a man I was again degraded to the dependence of a
schoolboy. Mr. Pavilliard managed my expences, which had been
reduced to a diminutive state: I received a small monthly allowance
for my pocket-money; and helpless and awkward as I have ever been, I
no longer enjoyed the indispensable comfort of a servant. My
condition seemed as destitute of hope, as it was devoid of pleasure:
I was separated for an indefinite, which appeared an infinite term
from my native country; and I had lost all connexion with my
catholic friends. I have since reflected with surprise, that as the
Romish clergy of every part of Europe maintain a close
correspondence with each other, they never attempted, by letters or
messages, to rescue me from the hands of the heretics, or at least
to confirm my zeal and constancy in the profession of the faith.
Such was my first introduction to Lausanne; a place where I spent
nearly five years with pleasure and profit, which I afterwards
revisited without compulsion, and which I have finally selected as
the most grateful retreat for the decline of my life.

But it is the peculiar felicity of youth that the most unpleasing
objects and events seldom make a deep or lasting impression; it
forgets the past, enjoys the present, and anticipates the future. At
the flexible age of sixteen I soon learned to endure, and gradually
to adopt, the new forms of arbitrary manners: the real hardships of
my situation were alienated by time. Had I been sent abroad in a
more splendid style, such as the fortune and bounty of my father
might have supplied, I might have returned home with the same stock
of language and science, which our countrymen usually import from