To this I answered, that my notes rendered the ideas so clear, that to learn music by means of the ordinary characters, time would be gained by beginning with mine.

To prove this by experience, I taught music gratis to a young American lady, Mademoiselle des Roulins, with whom M.
Roguin had brought me acquainted.

In three months she read every kind of music, by means of my notation, and sung at sight better than I did myself, any piece that was not too difficult.

This success was convincing, but not known; any other person would have filled the journals with the detail, but with some talents for discovering useful things, I never have possessed that of setting them off to advantage.
Thus was my airy castle again overthrown; but this time I was thirty years of age, and in Paris, where it is impossible to live for a trifle.
The resolution I took upon this occasion will astonish none but those by whom the first part of these memoirs has not been read with attention.
I had just made great and fruitless efforts, and was in need of relaxation.

Instead of sinking with despair I gave myself up quietly to my indolence and to the care of Providence; and the better to wait for its assistance with patience, I lay down a frugal plan for the slow expenditure of a few louis, which still remained in my possession, regulating the expense of my supine pleasures without retrenching it; going to the coffee-house but every other day, and to the theatre but twice a week.