So many successive vexations overwhelmed me to such a degree as to leave me but little power over my mind.Receiving no answer from Saint Lambert, neglected by Madam d'Houdetot, and no longer daring to open my heart to any person, I began to be afraid that by making friendship my idol, I should sacrifice my whole life to chimeras.After putting all those with whom I had been acquainted to the test, there remained but two who had preserved my esteem, and in whom my heart could confide: Duclos, of whom since my retreat to the Hermitage I had lost sight, and Saint Lambert.I thought the only means of repairing the wrongs I had done the latter, was to open myself to him without reserve, and resolved to confess to him everything by which his mistress should not be exposed.I have no doubt but this was another snare of my passion to keep me nearer to her person; but I should certainly have had no reserve with her lover, entirely submitting to his direction, and carrying sincerity as far as it was possible to do it.I was upon the point of writing to him a second letter, to which I was certain he would have returned an answer, when I learned the melancholy cause of his silence relative to the first.He had been unable to support until the end the fatigues of the campaign.Madam d'Epinay informed me he had had an attack of the palsy, and Madam d'Houdetot, ill from affliction, wrote me two or three days afterwards from Paris, that he was going to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the benefit of the waters.I will not say this melancholy circumstance afflicted me as it did her; but I am of opinion my grief of heart was painful as her tears.The pain of knowing him to be in such a state, increased by the fear least inquietude should have contributed to occasion it, affected me more than anything that had yet happened, and I felt most cruelly a want of fortitude, which in my estimation was necessary to enable me to support so many misfortunes.Happily this generous friend did not long leave me so overwhelmed with affliction; he did not forget me, notwithstanding his attack; and I soon learned from himself that I had ill judged his sentiments, and been too much alarmed for his situation.It is now time I should come to the grand revolution of my destiny, to the catastrophe which has divided my life in two parts so different from each other, and, from a very trifling cause, produced such terrible effects.
One day, little thinking of what was to happen, Madam d'Epinay sent for me to the Chevrette.The moment I saw her I perceived in her eyes and whole countenance an appearance of uneasiness, which struck me the more, as this was not customary, nobody knowing better than she did how to govern her features and their movements."My friend," said she to me, "I am immediately going to set off for Geneva; my chest is in a bad state, and my health so deranged that Imust go and consult Tronchin." I was the more astonished at this resolution so suddenly taken, and at the beginning of the bad season of the year, as thirty-six hours before she had not, when I left her, so much as thought of it.I asked her who she would take with her.She said her son and M.de Linant; and afterwards carelessly added, "And you, bear, will not you go also?" As I did not think she spoke seriously, knowing that at the season of the year I was scarcely in a situation to go to my chamber, I joked upon the utility of the company, of one sick person to another.She herself had not seemed to make the proposition seriously, and here the matter dropped.The rest of our conversation ran upon the necessary preparations for her journey, about which she immediately gave orders, being determined to set off within a fortnight.She lost nothing by my refusal, having prevailed upon her husband to accompany her.
A few days afterwards I received from Diderot the note I am going to transcribe.This note, simply doubled up, so that the contents were easily read, was addressed to me at Madam d'Epinay's, and sent to M.
de Linant, tutor to the son, and confidant to the mother.
NOTE FROM DIDEROT.
Packet A, No.52.
"I am naturally disposed to love you, and am born to give you trouble.I am informed Madam d'Epinay is going to Geneva, and do not hear you are to accompany her.My friend, you are satisfied with Madam d'Epinay, you must go with her; if dissatisfied you ought still less to hesitate.Do you find the weight of the obligations you are under to her uneasy to you? This is an opportunity of discharging a part of them, and relieving your mind.Do you ever expect another opportunity like the present one, of giving her proofs of your gratitude? She is going to a country where she will be quite a stranger.She is ill, and will stand in need of amusement and dissipation.The winter season too! Consider, my friend.Your ill state of health may be a much greater objection than I think it is;but are you now more indisposed than you were a month ago, or than you will be at the beginning of spring? Will you three months hence be in a situation to perform the journey more at your ease than at present? For my part I cannot but observe to you that were I unable to bear the shaking of the carriage I would take my staff and follow her.
Have you no fears lest your conduct should be misinterpreted? You will be suspected of ingratitude or of a secret motive.I well know that let you do as you will you will have in your favor the testimony of your conscience, but will this alone be sufficient, and is it permitted to neglect to a certain degree that which is necessary to acquire the approbation of others? What I now write, my good friend, is to acquit myself of what I think I owe to us both.Should my letter displease you, throw it into the fire and let it be forgotten.Isalute, love, and embrace you."
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