We get forward in the world not so much by doing services as receiving them. You take a withering twig and put it in the ground, and then you water it because you have planted it.  
Monsieur le Comte de B——, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.
 
I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honors to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have dined or supped a single time or two round, and then by TRANSLATING French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen that I had got hold of the couvert* of some more entertaining guest; and in course of time should have resigned all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them. As it was, things did not go much amiss.
 
* Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon.
 
I had the honor of being introduced to the old Marquis de B——. In days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. The Marquis de B—— wished to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain. "He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much of the English ladies. "Stay where you are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis," said I. "Les Messieurs Anglais can scarce get a kind look from them as it is." The marquis invited me to supper.
 
M. P——, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes. They were very considerable, he heard. "If we knew but how to collect them," said I, making him a low bow.
 
I could never have been invited to M. P——'s concerts upon any other terms.
 
I had been misrepresented to Mme. de Q—— as an esprit—Mme. de Q—— was an esprit herself; she burned with impatience to see me and hear me talk. I had not taken my seat before I saw she did not care a sou whether I had any wit or no. I was let in to be convinced she had. I call Heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.
 
Mme. de V—— vowed to every creature she met, "She had never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life."
 
There are three epochs in the empire of a Frenchwoman—she is coquette, then deist, then devote. The empire during these is never lost—she only changes her subjects. When thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love she repeoples it with slaves of infidelity, and, then with the slaves of the church.
 
Mme. de V—— was vibrating between the first of these epochs; the color of the rose was fading fa............