glad of, but principally on account of my treasure I had there, which, as you have heard, was very considerable. It is true I had letters very frequently from my maid Amy, with accounts that everything was very safe, and that was very much to my satisfaction. However, as the prince's negotiations were at an end, and he was obliged to return, I was very glad to go; so we returned from Venice to Turin, and in the way I saw the famous city of Milan. From Turin we went over the mountains again, as before, and our coaches met us at Pont-a-Voisin, between Chambery and Lyons; and so, by easy journeys, we arrived safely at Paris, having been absent two years, wanting about eleven days, as above.
I found the little family we left just as we left them, and Amy cried for joy when she saw me, and I almost did the same.
The prince took his leave of me the night before, for, as he told me, he knew he should be met upon the road by several persons of quality, and perhaps by the princess herself; so we lay at two different inns that night, lest some should come quite to the place, as indeed it happened.
After this, I saw him not for above twenty days, being taken up in his family, and also with business; but he sent me his gentleman to tell me the reason of it, and bid me not to be uneasy, and that satisfied me effectually.
In all this affluence of my good fortune I did not forget that I had been rich and poor once already alternately, and that I ought to know that the circumstances I was now in were not to be expected to last always; that I had one child, and expected another; and if I had bred often, it would something impair me in the great article that supported my interest—I mean, what he called beauty; that, as that declined, I might expect the fire would abate, and the warmth with which I was now caressed would cool, and in time, like the other mistresses of great men, I might be dropped again; and that, therefore, it was my business to take care that I should fall as softly as I could.
I say, I did not forget, therefore, to make as good provision for myself as if I had nothing to have subsisted on but what I now gained; whereas I had no less than ten thousand pounds, as I said above, which I had amassed, or secured rather, out of the ruins of my faithful friend the jeweller, and which he, little thinking of what was so near him when he went out, told me, though in a kind of a jest, was all my own, if he was knocked on the head, and which, upon the title, I took care to preserve.
My greatest difficulty now was how to secure my wealth and to keep what I had got; for I had greatly added to this wealth by the generous bounty of the Prince , and the more by the private, retired mode of living, which he rather desired for privacy than parsimony; for he supplied me for a more magnificent way of life than I desired, if it had been proper.
I shall cut short the history of this prosperous wickedness with telling you I brought him a third son, within little more than eleven months after our return ftom Italy; that now I lived a little more openly, and went by a particular name, which he gave me abroad, but which I must omit, viz. the Countess de ; and had coaches and servants, suitable to the quality he had given me the appearance of; and, which is more than usually happens in such cases, this held eight years from the beginning, during which time, as I had been very faithful to him, so I must say, as above, that I believe he was so separated to me, that, whereas he usually had two or three women, which he kept privately, he had not in all that time meddled with any of them, but that I had so perfectly engrossed him that
