One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such an hour, at a certain house in the Rue ------. It occurred to me as no improbable supposition that the appointment might relate to my individual circumstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour prescribed I appeared at the place of assignation. My mind misgave me when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels in this apartment about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman, of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed; the lady sighed. An /eclaircissement/ ensued; and I found that I had the good fortune to be the object of a /caprice/ in the favourite mistress of the Abbe Dubois. Nothing was further from my wishes! What a pity it is that one cannot always tell a woman one's mind! I attempted a flourish about friendship, honour, and the respect due to the /amante/ of the most intimate /ami/ I had in the world. "Pooh!" said the tawny Calypso, a little pettishly, "pooh! one does not talk of those things here." "Madame," said I, very energetically, "I implore you to refrain. Do not excite too severe a contest between passion and duty! I feel that I must fly you: you are already too bewitching." Just as I rose to depart in rushes the /femme de chambre/, and announces, not Monsieur the Abbe, but Monseigneur the Regent. Of course (the old resort in such cases) I was thrust in a closet; in marches his Royal Highness, and is received very cavalierly. It is quite astonishing to me what airs those women give themselves when they have princes to manage! However, my confinement was not long: the closet had another door; the /femme de chambre/ slips round, opens it, and I congratulate myself on my escape. When a Frenchwoman is piqued, she passes all understanding. The next day I am very quietly employed at breakfast, when my valet ushers in a masked personage, and behold my gentlewoman again! Human endurance will not go too far, and this was a case which required one to be in a passion one way or the other; so I feigned anger, and talked with exceeding dignity about the predicament I had been placed in the day before. "Such must always be the case," said I, "when one is weak enough to form an attachment to a lady who encourages so many others!" "For your sake," said the tender dame, "for your sake, then, I will discard them all!"