Take from a man his fortune, his house, his reputation, but flatter his
vanity in each, and he will forgive you. Heap upon him benefits, fill him
with blessings: but irritate his self-love, and you have made the very
best man an ingrat. He will sting you if he can: you cannot blame him;
you yourself have instilled the venom. This is one reason why you must
not always reckon upon gratitude in conferring an obligation. It is a
very high mind to which gratitude is not a painful sensation. If you wish
to please, you will find it wiser to receive--solicit even--favours, than
accord them; for the vanity of the obliger is always flattered--that of
the obligee rarely.

Well, this is an unforeseen digression: let me return! I had mixed, of
late, very little with the English. My mother's introductions had
procured me the entree of the best French houses; and to them, therefore,
my evenings were usually devoted. Alas! that was a happy time, when my
carriage used to await me at the door of the Rocher de Cancale, and then
whirl me to a succession of visits, varying in their degree and nature as
the whim prompted: now to the brilliant soirees of Madame De--, or to the
appartemens au troisieme of some less celebrated daughter of dissipation
and ecarte;--now to the literary conversaziones of the Duchesse de D--s,
or the Vicomte d'A--, and then to the feverish excitement of the gambling
house. Passing from each with the appetite for amusement kept alive by
variety; finding in none a disappointment, and in every one a welcome;
full of the health which supports, and the youth which colours all excess
or excitation, I drained, with an unsparing lip, whatever that enchanting
metropolis could afford.

I have hitherto said but little of the Duchesse de Perpignan; I think it
necessary now to give some account of that personage. Ever since the
evening I had met her at the ambassador's, I had paid her the most