The
colour of the rose was fading fast away; - she ought to have been a
deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first
visit.
She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of
disputing the point of religion more closely. - In short Madame de
V- told me she believed nothing. - I told Madame de V- it might be
her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level
the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel
as hers could be defended; - that there was not a more dangerous
thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; - that it was a
debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her; - that I had not
been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to
form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and
the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have
check'd them as they rose up?
We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there is
need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
them on us. - But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, - 'tis too-
-too soon.
I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
V-. - She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abbe M-, that in one half
hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their
Encyclopaedia had said against it. - I was listed directly into
Madame de V-'s coterie; - and she put off the epocha of deism for
two years.
I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in
which I was showing the necessity of a FIRST cause, when the young
Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the
room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn'd too straight about my
neck. - It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down
upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, TO THE WISE -
And FROM THE WISE, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,-
-IS ENOUGH.
The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
embraced by mortal man.
For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met. -
Pardi! ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres. - Il
raisonne bien, said another. - C'est un bon enfant, said a third. -
And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all
the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest RECKONING; - I
grew ashamed of it.
