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"We were not long on our way to Chaillot. We lodged the first
night at the inn, in order to have time to find a suitable house,
or at least a commodious lodging. We found one to our taste the
next morning.
"My happiness now appeared to be secured beyond the reach of
fate. Manon was everything most sweet and amiable. She was so
delicate and so unceasing in her attentions to me, that I deemed
myself but too bountifully rewarded for all my past troubles. As
we had both, by this time, acquired some experience, we discussed
rationally the state of our finances. Sixty thousand francs (the
amount of our wealth) was not a sum that could be expected to
last our whole life; besides, we were neither of us much disposed
to control our expenses. Manon's chief virtue assuredly was not
economy, any more than it was mine. This was my proposition.
`Sixty thousand francs,' said I, `may support us for ten years.
Two thousand crowns a year will suffice, if we continue to live
at Chaillot. We shall keep up appearances, but live frugally.
Our only expense will be occasionally a carriage, and the
theatres. We shall do everything in moderation. You like the
opera; we shall go twice a week, in the season. As for play, we
shall limit ourselves; so that our losses must never exceed three
crowns. It is impossible but that in the space of ten years some
change must occur in my family: my father is even now of an
advanced age; he may die; in which event I must inherit a
fortune, and we shall then be above all other fears.'
"This arrangement would not have been by any means the most
silly act of my life, if we had only been prudent enough to
persevere in its execution; but our resolutions hardly lasted
longer than a month. Manon's passion was for amusement; she was
the only object of mine. New temptations to expense constantly
presented themselves, and far from regretting the money which she
sometimes prodigally lavished, I was the first to procure for her
everything likely to afford her pleasure. Our residence at
Chaillot began even to appear tiresome.
"Winter was approaching, and the whole world returning to town;
the country had a deserted look. She proposed to me to take a
house in Paris. I did not approve of this; but, in order partly
at least to satisfy her, I said that we might hire furnished
apartments, and that we might sleep there whenever we were late
in quitting the assembly, whither we often went; for the
inconvenience of returning so late to Chaillot was her excuse for
wishing to leave it. We had thus two dwellings, one in town and
the other in the country. This change soon threw our affairs
into confusion, and led to two adventures, which eventually
caused our ruin.
"Manon had a brother in the Guards. He unfortunately lived in
the very street in which we had taken lodgings. He one day
recognised his sister at the window, and hastened over to us. He
was a fellow of the rudest manners, and without the slightest
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