Impoverished by his profligacy, he petitioned the King. Louis the Fifteenth recollected him as a playmate of his youth, and sent him a draft on the treasurer of his household for eight thousand livres. As the amount was specified in figures, the chevalier added a cipher, which augmented the royal generosity to an unreasonable amount. The King was urged to compel the restitution of the sum thus obtained, and his majesty replied, "In my situation I cannot pay too dearly for a useful lesson. It will teach me, for the future, to economise less the letters of the alphabet." Afterwards the Chevalier d'Arc became one of the most indefatigable purveyors for the Parc-aux-Cerfs; and in reference to this part of his life, we have to notice the following, which is romantic in the extreme, and is also free from any details of an immoral tendency, rather a rare feature in any adventure connected with the Parc-aux-Cerfs. The chevalier being admitted, by reason of the reputation of his father and his consanguinity to the Duc de Penthievre, to an intimacy with some respectable gentlemen of Querci sojourning at Paris, whither they had come to solicit official employment, or seek royal favor, was not long in remarking the exquisite beauty of the only daughter of one of them. Mademoiselle de Pal----[15] was beloved by a young officer of musketeers, of honorable family and high character, every way worthy of her hand, and they deferred the marriage only until the realization of their hopes from courtly favor would leave the family in more easy circumstances. But a demon entered their residence when they admitted the Chevalier d'Arc. He applied himself to stimulate the soul of the Comte de Pal----, father of Mademoiselle Helene, with suggestions of guilty ambition, until the foolish but obstinate old man determined to effect the admission of his daughter into the Parc-aux-Cerfs. But how to procure the concurrence of the two brothers of the old gentleman, one Lieutenant-Colonel the Baron de M----, the other an abbé, and grand vicar of the Bishop of Tulle. These gentlemen, high in their sense of honor, and proud in their family recollections, would scorn to see fortune coming through so vile an avenue. How to reconcile a virtuous girl to her own degradation. Above all, how to dispose of her lover.