these outings, they lie beyond my province. The favorable moment was soon at hand; d'Aucourt's valets, as libertine as their master, never failed to go with him to these parties, and so I found myself almost alone in the house. Full of impatience to put my project into execution, I go straightway to the door of the library, break the thin panel with a blow of my fist, rush to the drawer, find it unlocked as I knew it would be. I remove everything it contains; my prize amounts to not less than three thousand louis. I fill my pockets, rifle other drawers; a splendid jewel case catches my eye, I pick it up, but what was I not to find in the other drawers of that bountiful secretary!… Fortunate d'Aucourt! What great good luck for you that your imprudence was not discovered by anyone else but me; the secretary contained enought to have had him broken on the wheel, Messieurs, that is all I can tell you. Quite apart from the transparent and expressive notes addressed to him by Desprиs and the abbot pertaining to their secret commerce, there was every kind of furniture needed for the performing of those infamies… But I halt myself here; the boundaries you have prescribed to my depositions prevent me from saying more; Desgranges will treat the whole matter. As for myself, the theft once effected, I left at once, shuddering to think of all the dangers I had perhaps been exposing myself to by frequenting the company of such scoundrels. I crossed over to London and, as my sojourn in that city, where for six months I dwelt in the most comfortable style, offers nothing that could be of any outstanding interest to your Lordships, you will permit me to pass quickly over this part of my story. I had maintained contact with no one in Paris but Fournier; however, she advised me of the hue and cry the landowner had raised over this paltry little robbery, and I finally resolved to put an end to this blathering: I took up pen and paper and very coolly informed him that she who had happened upon his money had also discovered other things, and that if he were determined to continue to search for the culprit, I would as bravely as possible endure my fate and very certainly depose, with the same judge who would question me upon what I had done with the contents of the small drawers, a detailed statement of what I had found in the larger ones. Our man fell as silent as a tomb; and as six months later their three-partied debauchery came broadly to light and as they themselves left France for security abroad, I returned to Paris and, must I avow my misbehavior? I returned, Messieurs, as poor as I had been before dispossessing d'Aucourt, and such were my straits I was obliged to put myself back in Madame Fournier's safekeeping. As I was no more than twenty-three at the time, I did not want for adventures; I am going to ignore those exterior to my domain and recount, with your Lordships' indulgent permission, only the ones wherein I know now that you take some interest.
A week after my return, a barrel brimming with shit was placed in the chamber appointed for pleasures. My Adonis arrives; he proves to be a saintly ecclesiastic, but one so habituated to those pleasures, so blase, that he was no longer capable of being stirred save by the excesses I shall describe. I was naked when he entered. For a moment he regards my buttocks, then, after having fingered them rather brutally, he tells me to undress him and help him get into the barrel. I remove his garments, aid him to climb in, the old pig slides down into his element; a hole has been specially bored for the purpose and, fifteen seconds after having immersed himself, his prick, almost stiff, pops through the aperture; he orders me to frig it, covered as it is with filth and horrors. I do as I am told, he ducks his head down into the shit, splashes in shit, swallows shit, shouts, discharges, and, clambering out, trots off to immerse himself in a bath, where I leave him in the hands of two house servants who spend a quarter of an hour scrubbing him clean.
Another one appeared shortly afterward. I had