Madame de Farcy, continuing in ill-health, at last resolved to leave Brittany. She persuaded Lucile to accompany her; Lucile, in her turn, overcame my repugnance: we set out for Paris; it was the sweet partnership of the three youngest birds of the brood. My brother was married; he lived with his father-in-law, the President de Rosanbo, in the Rue de Bondy. We agreed to settle in his neighbourhood: through the good offices of M. Delisle de Sales[228], who lived in the Pavilions de Saint-Lazare, at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Denis, we secured an apartment in these same "pavilions[229]." [Sidenote: Delisle de Sales.] Madame de Farcy had become acquainted, I know not how, with Delisle de Sales, who had formerly been sent to Vincennes for some philosophical nonsense or other. At that time, one became a celebrity if he had scribbled a few lines of prose or published a quatrain in the _Almanack des Muses._ Delisle de Sales, a very worthy man, most decidedly under the average, suffered from a serious relaxation of the intellect, and allowed his years to slip from under him. The old man had got together a handsome library consisting of his own works, which he dealt in abroad, and which nobody read in Paris. Every year, in spring, he went to Germany to renew his stock of ideas. He wore a greasy, unbuttoned coat, and carried a roll of dirty paper which one saw protruding from his pocket: on this he would jot down his thoughts of the moment at the street-corners. On the pedestal of his own bust in marble he had himself placed the following inscription, borrowed from the bust of Buffon: "God, man and nature: he explained them all." Delisle de Sales explaining everything! These boasts are very pleasant, but very discouraging. Who is in a position to flatter himself that he possesses real talent? May we not all, such as we are, be under the sway of an illusion similar to that of Delisle de Sales? I would wager that some author will read this phrase who believes himself a genius and is none the less a blockhead. If I have expatiated at too great length on the subject of the worthy man of the Pavilions de Saint-Lazare, the reason is that he was the first man of letters I met. He introduced me to the company of others. The presence of my two sisters made life in Paris less unbearable to me; my love of study still further overcame my distaste. Delisle de Sales I considered an eagle. I met at his rooms Carbon Flins des Oliviers[230], who fell in love with Madame de Farcy. She laughed at him; he put a good face upon it, for he prided himself upon being a man of breeding. Flins introduced me to his friend Fontanes, who became mine.