Volume 3: The Eternal Quest · Episode 11: Paris and Holland
Chapter III
The Count de la Tour D’Auvergne and Madame D’Urfe—Camille— My Passion for the Count’s Mistress—The Ridiculous Incident Which Cured Me—The Count de St. Germain
In spite of my love for Mdlle. Baletti, I did not omit to pay my court to the most noted ladies of the pavement; but I was chiefly interested in kept women, and those who consider themselves as belonging to the public only in playing before them night by night, queens or chamber-maids.
In spite of this affection, they enjoy what they call their independence, either by devoting themselves to Cupid or to Plutus, and more frequently to both together. As it is not very difficult to make the acquaintance of these priestesses of pleasure and dissipation, I soon got to know several of them.
The halls of the theatres are capital places for amateurs to exercise their talents in intriguing, and I had profited tolerably well by the lessons I had learnt in this fine school.
I began by becoming the friend of their lovers, and I often succeeded by pretending to be a man of whom nobody need be afraid.
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