The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease,
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
Close hid his castle 'mid embowering trees,
That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checkered day and night:
Meanwhile unceasing at the massy gate,
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was placed; and to his lute, of cruel fate
And labor harsh, complained, lamenting man's estate.

MANON LESCAUT.

BY ABBÉ PRÉVOST.

[ABBÉ ANTOINE FRANÇOIS PRÉVOST D'EXILES, better known as the Abbé Prévost, was born of good family at Hesdin, Artois, April 1, 1697; died near Chantilly, November 23, 1763. He served for a time in the army, and in 1719 joined the Benedictines of St. Maur, leaving the order in 1727. He then went to Holland and gave his time wholly to writing. He published “Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité" (8 vols., 1728-1732), “L'Histoire de M. Cléveland " (8 vols., 1732-1739), "Le Doyen de Killerine" (6 vols., 1735), "Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731), and many essays and translations. “Manon Lescaut " is his greatest work and one of the greatest of French novels. ]

ON quitting me my father went to pay a visit to M. GM. He found him with his son, whom the guardsman had safely restored to liberty. I never learned the particulars of their conversation; but I could easily infer them from the disastrous results. They went together (the two old gentlemen) to the lieutenant general of police, from whom they requested one favor each: the first was to have me at once liberated from Le Châtelet; the second to condemn Manon to perpetual imprisonment or to transport her for life to America. They happened at that very period to be sending out a number of convicts to the Mississippi. The lieutenant general promised to have her embarked on board the first vessel that sailed.

M. GM and my father came together to bring me the news of my liberation. M. GM said something civil with reference to what had passed; and having congratulated me upon my happiness in having such a father, he exhorted me to profit henceforward by his instruction and example. My father desired me to express my sorrow for the injustice I had

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ASTOR, LENOX, AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

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even contemplated against his family, and my gratitude for his having assisted in procuring my liberation.

We all left the prison together without the mention of Manon's name. I dared not in their presence speak of her to the turnkeys. Alas! all my entreaties in her favor would have been useless. The cruel sentence upon Manon had arrived at the same time as the warrant for my discharge. The unfortunate girl was conducted in an hour after to the hospital to be there classed with some other wretched women who had been condemned to the same punishment.

My father having forced me to accompany him to the house where he was residing, it was near six o'clock before I had an opportunity of escaping his vigilance. In returning to Le Châtelet my only wish was to convey some refreshments to Manon, and to recommend her to the attention of the porter; for I had no hope of being permitted to see her; nor had I as yet had time to reflect on the best means of rescuing her.

I asked for the porter. I had won his heart as much by my liberality to him as by the mildness of my manner; so that, having a disposition to serve me, he spoke of Manon's sentence as a calamity which he sincerely regretted, since it was calculated to mortify me. I was at first unable to comprehend his meaning. We conversed for some minutes without my understanding him. At length, perceiving that an explanation was necessary, he gave me such an one as on a former occasion I wanted courage to relate to you, and which even now makes my blood curdle in my veins to remember.

Never did apoplexy produce on mortal a more sudden or terrible effect than did the announcement of Manon's sentence upon me. I fell prostrate, with so intense a palpitation of the heart that as I swooned I thought that death itself was come upon me. This idea continued even after I had been restored to my senses. I gazed around me upon every part of the room, then upon my own paralyzed limbs, doubting, in my delirium, whether I still bore about me the attributes of a living man. It is quite certain that, in obedience to the desire I felt of terminating my sufferings, even by my own hand, nothing could have been to me more welcome than death at that moment of anguish and despair. Religion itself could depict nothing more insupportable after death than the racking agony with which I was then convulsed. Yet, by a miracle, only within the power of omnipotent love, I soon regained strength enough to express

my gratitude to Heaven for restoring me to sense and reason. My death could have only been a relief and blessing to myself; whereas Manon had occasion for my prolonged existence, in order to deliver her, to succor her, to avenge her wrongs; I swore to devote that existence unremittingly to these objects. The porter gave me every assistance that I could have expected at the hands of my oldest friend; I accepted his services with the liveliest gratitude. "Alas!" said I to him, "you then are affected by my sufferings! The whole world abandons me; my own father proves one of the very cruelest of my persecutors; no person feels pity for me! You alone, in this abode of suffering and shame, you alone exhibit compassion for the most wretched of mankind!" He advised me not to appear in the street until I had recovered a little from my affliction. "Do not stop me," said I, as I went out; "we shall meet again sooner than you imagine: get ready your darkest dungeon, for I shall shortly become its tenant."

In fact, my first idea was nothing less than to make away with the two GMs and the lieutenant general of police, and then to attack the hospital, sword in hand, assisted by all whom I could enlist in my cause. Even my father's life was hardly respected, so just appeared my feelings of vengeance; for the porter had informed me that he and GM- were jointly the authors of my ruin.

But when I had advanced some paces into the street, and the fresh air had cooled my excitement, I gradually viewed matters in a more rational mood. The death of our enemies could be of little use to Manon; and the obvious effect of such violence would be to deprive me of all other chance of serving her. Besides, could I ever bring myself to be a cowardly assassin? By what other means could I accomplish my revenge? I set all my ingenuity and all my efforts at work to procure the deliverance of Manon, leaving everything else to be considered hereafter when I had succeeded in this first and paramount object.

I had very little money left; money, however, was an indispensable basis for all my operations. I only knew three persons from whom I had any right to ask pecuniary assistance, M. de T, Tiberge, and my father. There appeared little chance of obtaining any from the two latter, and I was really ashamed again to importune M. de T. But it is not in desperate emergencies that one stands upon points of ceremony.