L'Abbé Prévost

“ Finally, she told me that in order to hide her emotion she had been the last to leave the hall; and that then, consulting only the impulse of her heart, she had yielded to her impetuous longing, and had come straight to the Seminary, with the resolution of there putting an end to her life unless she found me willing to forgive her. Where is the barbarian who would not have been moved by a penitence so deep and touching as this? As for myself, I felt at that moment that I would have sacrificed all the bishoprics in Christendom for Manon's sake. ”

“ If it be true that divine aid at all times supplies a strength equal to that of the passions, thep let it be explained to me by what fatal ascendancy one finds one's self suddenly swept far from the path of duty without feeling one's self capable of the least resistance and without being conscious of the least remorse? ”

“ With a view of enhancing in my eyes the completeness of her sacrifice of B——— for my sake, she determined to act without the least consideration for him.
"I will leave him his furniture," she said, "for it belongs to him; but I shall take with me, as I am entitled to do, all the jewelry and about sixty thousand francs, which I have received from him during the past two years. I have given him no rights over me," she added; "so that we can safely remain in Paris, and take a comfortable house, where we will live happily together." ”