This rendered my situation the more singular, as M.and Madam de Francueil still continued to give me the same good reception as before.
I however made the intervals between my visits longer, and I should entirely have ceased calling on them, had not Madam Dupin, by another unexpected caprice, sent to desire I would for a few days take care of her son, who changing his preceptor, remained alone during that interval.
I passed eight days in such torments as nothing but the pleasure of obeying Madam Dupin could render supportable: I would not have undertaken to pass eight other days like them had Madam Dupin given me herself for the recompense.
M.de Francueil conceived a friendship for me, and I studied with him.
We began together a course of chemistry at Rouelles.

That I might be nearer at hand, I left my hotel at Quentin, and went to lodge at the Tennis Court, Rue Verdelet, which leads into the Rue Platiere, where M.
Dupin lived.

There, in consequence of a cold neglected, I contracted an inflammation of the lungs that had liked to have carried me off.

In my younger days I frequently suffered from inflammatory disorders, pleurisies, and especially quinsies, to which I was very subject, and which frequently brought me near enough to death to familiarize me to its image.
During my convalescence I had leisure to reflect upon my situation, and to lament my timidity, weakness and indolence; these, notwithstanding the fire with which I found myself inflamed, left me to languish in an inactivity of mind, continually on the verge of misery.

The evening preceding the day on which I was taken ill, I went to an opera by Royer; the name I have forgotten.