The rest is silence; and the presumption is strong that these were actually the last words which sealed the estrangement. If it were not for Mademoiselle Curchod's subsequent attitude towards him, one would be bound to say that Gibbon behaved abominably. But, as we shall see presently, her resentment was not enduring. Perhaps she was aware of extenuating circumstances that we do not know of. Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she was conscious of having spread her net to catch a husband who then seemed a very brilliant match to the daughter of the country clergyman. The letter of the friend who begged her not to advertise so clearly her desire to make herself agreeable to men would certainly lend some colour to the suggestion. At any rate, since she herself forgave Gibbon, it seems unfair for anyone else to press the case against him. It was nearly twenty years later--in 1783--that Gibbon decided to make Lausanne his home. A good deal of water had flowed under the bridge in the meantime. He had written, and published, half of his History; and that half had sufficed to make him famous. He had been an officer in the militia and a Member of Parliament. He had been a constant figure in fashionable society, and an occasional figure in literary society; a fellow-member with Charles James Fox of Boodle's, White's, and Brooks's; a fellow-member of the Literary Club with Johnson, Burke, Adam Smith, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Joseph Banks. He had held office in the department of the Board of Trade, and lost it at the time of the coalition between Fox and North. His applications for employment in the Diplomatic Service--whether as Secretary to the Embassy at Paris or as Minister Plenipotentiary at Berne--had been politely rejected. And he had become a middle-aged bachelor whose income, unless supplemented by the emoluments of some public office, hardly sufficed for the demands of his social position. In these circumstances it occurred to him to propose to his friend, M. Deyverdun--the same M. Deyverdun with whom Mademoiselle Curchod vowed that she had never flirted--that they should keep house together at Lausanne. M. Deyverdun, who was like himself a confirmed bachelor of moderate means, and had a larger house than he wanted, was delighted with the proposal. All Gibbon's friends and relatives told him that he was making a fool of himself; but he knew better. He sold all his property, except his library, and 'bade a long farewell to the _fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ_.' His first winter, as he puts it in his delightful style, 'was given to a general embrace without nice discrimination of persons and characters.' The comprehensive embrace completed, he settled down to work.