In leaving the shop where my _Chinoiseries_ were sold by Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar, I had another violent attack of love; and you cannot imagine how I cursed that rascal Raymond. Having vented my rage where it was so well deserved, I began to think seriously about a cure, and I walked about the streets searching at every corner for some advertisement of a remedy; useless trouble! I went to the Hospital for Incurables, and asked the doctor there whether he had not some patient afflicted with this malady, so perfectly unknown in our harems; but he only shrugged his shoulders, and turned his back upon me. My head burned like fire—my heart beat violently—my eyes glazed. The phantom of Mademoiselle Alexandrine danced before my eyes continually with fascinating grace, my ears were filled with her silvery voice—alas! I lived only in her! “Physician cure thyself,” has said the wise Menu—this thought suddenly occurred to me. Since the French doctors have forgotten to invent a cure for love, let us find a remedy; and we will give a Chinese name to this grand consolation for suffering Europe! If I could live for a week without thinking of Mademoiselle Alexandrine I should be saved! It was impossible to remain in my lodgings, every thing there reminded me of her, the faithless one! Besides, solitude never cures the wounds of love, it only festers them. Visits to the country are still more dangerous. The streets, boulevards and theatres are filled with women, and the species too often reminds one of the individual traitress; still it is necessary to live a week in total forgetfulness of the ungrateful fair. Fo has inspired me; let me render thanks to Fo! Paris is filled with monuments, many of them very high; I chose four from among them—the tower of Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Column Vendôme and the tower of St. James; by the payment of a few sous, one is permitted to ascend these towers, which are kept by a tractable porter. I resolved to pass some days in going up and down the stairs of these monuments and towers without taking rest, only, to vary the monotony of this continual ascent and descent, I jumped into a cabriolet occasionally at the Place Vendôme, drove to the Depôt of the Railroad to Versailles, and traversed the distance to that royal city five or six times, with my eyes shut. When evening came I returned home, and, after a slight repast, went to bed and slept soundly. In my dreams I imagined that huge giants poised me in a swing, hung over the moon on a golden nail, and the fright I had in such an alarming position drove the phantom of Alexandrine from the boundless space in which I undulated between the Pantheon and the fixed stars!