254 MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON".

Lave been very dangerous indeed to have for an enemy. As
soon as this matter of the constitution was in the wind, he
came to me to talk about it. I did not disguise my opinion
from him, nor did he disguise in any way from me the unscru-
pulous means he meant to employ in order to get this bull
accepted by the clergy. Indeed, he was so free with me,
showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I was, as
it were, transformed with astonishment and fright. I never
could comprehend this openness in a man so false, so arti-
ficial, so profound, or see in what manner it could be useful to
him.

One day he came to me by appointment, with a copy of the
constitution in his hand in order that we might thoroughly
discuss it. I was at Versailles. In order to understand what
I am going to relate, I must give some account of my apart-
ments there. Let me say, then, that I had a little back
cabinet, leading out of another cabinet, but so arranged that
you would not have thought it was there. It received no light
except from the outer cabinet, its own windows being boarded
up. In this back cabinet I had a bureau, some chairs, books,
and all I needed; my friends called it "my shop," and in truth
it did not ill resemble one.

Father Tellier came at the hour he had fixed. As chance
would have it, M. le Due and Madame la Duchesse de Berry
had invited themselves to a collation with Madame de Saint-
Simon that morning. I knew that when they arrived I should
no longer be master of my chamber or of my cabinet. I told
Father Tellier this, and he was much vexed. He begged me
so hard to find some place where we might be inaccessible to
the company, that at last, pressed by him to excess, I said I
knew of only one expedient by which we might become free:
and I told him that he must dismiss his vatble (as the brother
who always accompanies a monk is called), and that then, fur-
nished with candles, we would go and shut ourselves up in my
back cabinet, where we could neither be seen nor heard, if
we took care not to speak loud when anybody approached.
He thought the expedient admirable, dismissed his companion,