Gauffecourt, with whom I was at that time extremely intimate,
being on account of his employment obliged to go to Geneva, proposed
to me the journey, to which I consented. The state of my health was
such as to require the cares of the governess; it was therefore
decided she should accompany us, and that her mother should remain
in the house. After thus having made our arrangements, we set off on
the first of June, 1754.
This was the period when at the age of forty-two, I for the first
time in my life felt a diminution of my natural confidence, to which I
had abandoned myself without reserve or inconvenience. We had a
private carriage, in which with the same horses we traveled very
slowly. I frequently got out and walked. We had scarcely performed
half our journey when Theresa showed the greatest uneasiness at
being left in the carriage with Gauffecourt, and when, notwithstanding
her remonstrances, I would get out as usual, she insisted upon doing
the same, and walking with me. I chid her for this caprice, and so
strongly opposed it, that at length she found herself obliged to
declare to me the cause whence it proceeded. I thought I was in a
dream; my astonishment was beyond expression, when I learned that my
friend M. de Gauffecourt, upwards of sixty years of age, crippled by
the gout, impotent and exhausted by pleasures, had, since our
departure, incessantly endeavored to corrupt a person who belonged
to his friend, and was no longer young nor handsome, by the most
base and shameful means, such as presenting to her a purse, attempting
to inflame her imagination by the reading of an abominable book, and
by the sight of infamous figures, with which it was filled.
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