He shared this poor asylum with Dr. Jean-François Dominique, ex-professor in the College of Plessis. By an odd freak of fortune, the young Marquis, destined to charm people in so many conditions of life, had first exercised his inconceivable fascinations on this old professor, who was drawn to him with the most tender affection. Notwithstanding a thousand malicious tricks of the frolicsome child, Dr. Dominique recognized in his pupil so much spirit and heart, as well as nobility of soul, that he became singularly attached to him. Perhaps, also, the rare aptitude of the Marquis, who was one of the most distinguished linguists of the Plessis College, for the study of the dead languages, was another reason for the extraordinary devotion of the old professor to his pupil. The Abbé of Vighan, an uncle of M. de Létorière, had for six years paid the college expenses of his nephew, a poor orphan. During a journey of the Abbé, the balance of the quarterly account was left in arrears. The Marquis interpreting, in a manner displeasing to his delicacy, some words of the principal on the subject of this tardiness in the payment, resolutely decided to quit the college. Dominique, acquainted with his project, did his best to dissuade him from its execution; but the Marquis was nineteen years of age, and had a determined will. The poor professor, not being able to prevent him from committing this folly, determined at least to accompany him in his flight, so unwilling was he to leave the young Marquis to encounter alone the temptations of a great city. Dominique himself made all the plans for the escape; and one dark night the master and scholar scaled the walls of the college, not without danger to the old professor, little used to this kind of exercise. The principal of the college, satisfied, perhaps, to be rid of a mutinous and turbulent pupil, took no steps to arrest the fugitive. Létorière possessed fifteen louis-d'or; Dominique had a little income of fifty pistoles from the salt tax; these were their only pecuniary resources. The Marquis's father had left nothing to his son save two or three interminable lawsuits. The most important of these, which had lasted fifty years, had been instigated against the dukes of Brunswick-Oëls and the princes of Brandebourg-Bareuth, on the subject of the claims of a grand-aunt of M. de Létorière, Mademoiselle d'Olbreuse, who, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had emigrated and married one of the relations of the Duke of Brunswick. A poor gentleman of Xaintonge, without influential friends and without credit, Létorière despaired of ever carrying on the lawsuit upon which depended the fortune that he could not hope to enjoy; twenty times on the point of enlisting and becoming a soldier, the persuasions of the good Dominique had withheld him.