From time to time he faced the question whether it would be well to marry. Madame Necker dissuaded him from the adventure on the ground that in order to marry happily it is necessary to marry young. It is not certain that her advice was disinterested, but it was good advice to give to a man who, after expressing his readiness to adopt 'some expedient, even the most desperate, to secure the domestic society of a female companion,' summed up his sentiments upon the subject in this candid language: 'I am not in love with any of the hyænas of Lausanne, though there are some who keep their claws tolerably well pared. Sometimes, in a solitary mood, I have fancied myself married to one or another of those whose society and conversation are the most pleasing to me; but when I have painted in my fancy all the probable consequences of such a union, I have started from my dream, rejoiced in my escape, and ejaculated a thanksgiving that I was still in possession of my natural freedom.' [Illustration: THE MARKET-PLACE, LAUSANNE] This, however, was not written until after the History was finished. Gibbon never felt the need of a female companion so long as he had his work to occupy him. The fact that he began to feel it acutely as soon as ever the work was done gives an added pathos to this, the most famous and the most frequently quoted passage of his memoirs: 'I have presumed to mark the moment of conception: I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a _berceau_, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all Nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.'