The next morning I flew to M.the Abbe, who did not receive me as a servant, but made me sit by his fireside, and questioned me with great affability.

He soon found that my education, which had attempted many things, had completed none; but observing that I understood something of Latin, he undertook to teach me more, and appointed me to attend him every morning.

Thus, by one of the whimsicalities which have marked the whole course of my life, at once above and below my natural situation, I was pupil and footman in the same house: and though in servitude, had a preceptor whose birth entitled him to supply that place only to the children of kings.
The Abbe de Gauvon was a younger son, and designed by his family for a bishopric, for which reason his studies had been pursued, further than is usual with people of quality.

He had been sent to the university of Sienna, where he had resided some years, and from whence he had brought a good portion of cruscantism, designing to be that at Turin which the Abbe de Dangeau was formerly at Paris.

Being disgusted with theology, he gave in to the belle-lettres, which is very frequent in Italy, with those who have entered the career of prelacy.