With the Comte de Clermont, Mlle. de Camargo reached the highest point of her fortunes. Her lover could refuse her nothing. When his monastic revenues proved inadequate to satisfy her caprices, he ran into debt, and when his credit was exhausted, he had recourse to stratagems to obtain money from his mother. The Duchesse de Bourbon, having promised to settle the claims of some of his most clamorous creditors, the count instructed his steward, Moncrif, the Academician, to make out a statement showing a total liability of 80,000 livres, whereas the debts in question did not amount to much more than half that sum. The balance he was to remit to Mlle. de Camargo with his Highness's compliments. Moncrif, however, fearing the consequences to himself should the duchess ever discover the trick which had been played her, revealed the plot to the old lady, and so the ballerina never got the money. As for the steward, he was promptly dismissed "for having abused his master's confidence." Such was the count's infatuation for his enchantress that he was "even jealous of the pleasure which the public shared with him in seeing her dance," and, in 1736, insisted on her quitting the Opera, to the despair of all Paris. If we are to credit a report drawn up many years later by the Police-Inspector Meusnier, for the edification of Madame de Pompadour, "his passion tyrannised even over the quarter where she resided, so that the neighbours did not dare to show themselves at their windows or to glance in the direction of the Camargo's house."[111] In July 1737, the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with an annual revenue of 160,000 livres, became vacant, by the death of old Cardinal de Bissy. The Comte de Clermont had long had a covetous eye upon this rich prize, and a substantial addition to his income was imperatively needed, as Mlle. de Camargo's extravagance had reduced him to such straits that, in the previous December, he had been forced to sell his duchy of Châteauroux to Louis XV., who, some years later, conferred it on his mistress, Madame de la Tournelle. Deeming, however, that, under the circumstances, some concession to public opinion might be advisable, he counterfeited a fit of devotion, separated from his mistress, who, on a sudden, disappeared from Paris, and caused a report to be circulated that she had been imprisoned by order of the King in Sainte-Pélagie. No sooner, however, had the coveted abbey been conferred upon him, than Mdlle. de Camargo reappeared upon the scene, and went to do the honours of the Château de Berny, a charming country-house situated two leagues from Paris, on the road to Orléans, which had been acquired by the monks of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1686, with the price of the lands which they had ceded to Louis XIV. for the enlargement of the park of Versailles.