Penury, doubtless, cured
him in a measure, and poverty, the porter of the gates of heaven, warned
him to look forward beyond a life he had so shamefully misused. But it
was only a temporary repentance; and when he left the religious house,
he again rushed furiously into every kind of dissipation.
At length, utterly reduced to the last extremities, he bethought himself
of his colonelcy in Spain, and determined to set out to join his
regiment. The following letter from a friend who accompanied him will
best show what circumstances he was in:--
'Paris, June 1, 1729.
'Dear Sir,--I am just returned from the Gates of Death, to return you
Thanks for your last kind Letter of Accusations, which I am persuaded
was intended as a seasonable Help to my Recollection, at a Time that it
was necessary for me to send an Inquisitor General into my Conscience,
to examine and settle all the Abuses that ever were committed in that
little Court of Equity; but I assure you, your long Letter did not lay
so much my Faults as my Misfortunes before me, which believe me, dear
----, have fallen as heavy and as thick upon me as the Shower of Hail
upon us two in E---- Forest, and has left me much at a Loss which way to
turn myself.
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