Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/267

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to work to contrive ways and means for supplying his emergencies, and concealing it.


Knowing as he did, that if the Marquis of Montmorenci was without a son, he should, as his heir, gain what credit he required, he could not look upon the young Philippe but with eyes of envy and malignancy—as upon a person who prevented his being extricated from his difficulties. Philippe, however, was of a delicate constitution; and he indulged a hope, that if he once entered the world without the watchful eye of a parent over him, he might be led into such courses as would eventually destroy his health, and terminate his existence: it was a hope derived from a self-experience of the dangerous situation in which a young man of rank and fashion stands when unacquainted with the world, and unguarded by any friend. As a means of poisoning his mind, he had often wished to get Lafroy into his service; he knew of no person better calculated for sowing the seeds of vice, and leading the un-