At Orleans we abode but one day; the next, leaving our mad Captain behind us, I arrived at Paris, rejoiced that, after so many disasters and accidents in a tedious peregrination, I was gotten so near home, and here I resolved to rest myself before I went further.
It was now October, and the only time that in my whole life that I spent most idly, tempted from my more profitable recesses; but I soon recovered my better resolutions and fell to my study, learning the High Dutch and Spanish tongues, and now and then refreshing my dancing, and such exercises as I had long omitted, and which are not in much reputation among the sober Italians.
28th January, 1647. I changed my lodging in the Place de Monsieur de Metz, near the Abbey of St. Germains; and thence, on the 12th of February, to another in Rue Columbier, where I had a very fair apartment, which cost me four pistoles per month. The 18th, I frequented a course of Chemistry, the famous Monsieur Le Febure operating upon most of the nobler processes. March 3d, Monsieur Mercure began to teach me on the lute, though to small perfection.
In May, I fell sick, and had very weak eyes; for which I was four times let bleed.
22d May, 1647. My valet (Herbert) robbed me of clothes and plate, to the value of three score pounds; but, through the diligence of Sir Richard Browne, his Majesty's Resident at the Court of France, and with whose lady and family I had contracted a great friendship (and particularly set my affections on a daughter), I recovered most of them, obtaining of the Judge, with no small difficulty, that the process against the thief should not concern his life, being his first offense.
10th June, 1647. We concluded about my marriage, in order to which I went to St. Germains, where his Majesty, then Prince of Wales, had his court, to desire of Dr. Earle, then one of his chaplains (since Dean of Westminster, Clerk of the Closet, and Bishop of Salisbury), that he would accompany me to Paris, which he did; and, on Thursday, 27th of June, 1647, he married us in Sir Richard Browne's chapel, between the hours of eleven and twelve, some few select friends being present. And this being Corpus Christi feast, was solemnly observed in this country; the streets were sumptuously hung with tapestry, and strewed with flowers.