Previous  - next

'

"I gave him, as briefly as I could, a history of my
long-standing and insurmountable passion for Manon, of the
flourishing condition of our fortunes previous to the robbery
committed by our servants, of the offers which G---- M---- had
made to my mistress, of the understanding they had come to, and
the manner in which it had been defeated. To be sure, I
represented things to him in as favourable a light for us as
possible. `Now you can comprehend,' continued I, `the source of
M. G---- M----'s holy zeal for my conversion. He has had
influence enough to have me shut up here, out of mere revenge.
That I can pardon; but, my good sir, that is not all. He has
taken from me my heart's blood: he has had Manon shamefully
incarcerated in the Magdalen; and had the effrontery to announce
it to me this day with his own lips. In the Magdalen, good sir!
Oh heavens! my adorable mistress, my beloved Manon, a degraded
inmate of the Hospital! How shall I command strength of mind
enough to survive this grief and shame!'

"The good Father, seeing me in such affliction, endeavoured to
console me. He told me that he had never understood my history,
as I just now related it; he had of course known that I led a
dissolute life, but he had imagined that M. G---- M----'s
interest about me was the result of his esteem and friendship for
my family; that it was in this sense he had explained the matter
to him; that what I had now told him should assuredly produce a
change in my treatment, and that he had no doubt but the accurate
detail which he should immediately transmit to the
lieutenant-general of police would bring about my liberation.

"He then enquired why I had never thought of informing my family
of what had taken place, since they had not been instrumental to
my incarceration. I satisfactorily answered this by stating my
unwillingness to cause my father pain, or to bring upon myself
the humiliation of such an exposure. In the end, he promised to
go directly to the lieutenant-general of police if it were only,
said he, to be beforehand with M. G---- M----, who went off in
such a rage, and who had sufficient influence to make himself
formidable.

"I looked for the good Father's return with all the suspense of
a man expecting sentence of death. It was torture to me to think
of Manon at the Magdalen. Besides the infamy of such a prison, I
knew not how she might be treated there; and the recollection of
some particulars I had formerly heard of this horrible place,
incessantly renewed my misery. Cost what it might, I was so bent
upon relieving her by some means or other, that I should
assuredly have set fire to St. Lazare, if no other mode of escape
had presented itself.

"I considered what chances would remain to me if the lieutenant-
general still kept me in confinement. I taxed my ingenuity: I
scanned every imaginable gleam of hope--I could discover nothing
that gave me any prospect of escape, and I feared that I should

Previous  - next