watch after all my friends, soon introduced himself in my name to the
house of Madam de Verdelin, and, unknown to me, shortly became there more
familiar than myself. This Coindet was an extraordinary man. He
presented himself in my name in the houses of all my acquaintance, gained
a footing in them, and eat there without ceremony. Transported with zeal
to do me service, he never mentioned my name without his eyes being
suffused with tears; but, when he came to see me, he kept the most
profound silence on the subject of all these connections, and especially
on that in which he knew I must be interested. Instead of telling me
what he had heard, said, or seen, relative to my affairs, he waited for
my speaking to him, and even interrogated me. He never knew anything of
what passed in Paris, except that which I told him: finally, although
everybody spoke to me of him, he never once spoke to me of any person; he
was secret and mysterious with his friend only; but I will for the
present leave Coindet and Madam de Verdelin, and return to them at a
proper time.
Sometime after my return to Mont Louis, La Tour, the painter, came to see
me, and brought with him my portrait in crayons, which a few years before
he had exhibited at the salon. He wished to give me this portrait, which
I did not choose to accept. But Madam d'Epinay, who had given me hers,
and would have had this, prevailed upon me to ask him for it. He had
taken some time to retouch the features. In the interval happened my
rupture with Madam d'Epinay; I returned her her portrait; and giving her
mine being no longer in question, I put it into my chamber, in the
castle. M. de Luxembourg saw it there, and found it a good one; I
offered it him, he accepted it, and I sent it to the castle. He and his
lady comprehended I should be very glad to have theirs. They had them
taken in miniature by a very skilful hand, set in a box of rock crystal,
mounted with gold, and in a very handsome manner, with which I was
delighted, made me a present of both. Madam de Luxenbourg would never
consent that her portrait should be on the upper part of the box. She
had reproached me several times with loving M. de Luxembourg better than
I did her; I had not denied it because it was true. By this manner of
placing her portrait she showed very politely, but very clearly, she had
not forgotten the preference.
Much about this time I was guilty of a folly which did not contribute to
preserve me to her good graces. Although I had no knowledge of M. de
Silhoutte, and was not much disposed to like him, I had a great opinion
of his administration. When he began to let his hand fall rather heavily
upon financiers, I perceived he did not begin his operation in a
favorable moment, but he had my warmest wishes for his success; and as
soon as I heard he was displaced I wrote to him, in my intrepid, heedless
manner, the following letter, which I certainly do not undertake to
justify.
MONTMORENCY, 2d December, 1759.
"Vouchsafe, sir, to receive the homage of a solitary man, who is not
known to you, but who esteems you for your talents, respects you for your
administration, and who did you the honor to believe you would not long
remain in it. Unable to save the State, except at the expense of the
capital by which it has been ruined, you have braved the clamors of the
gainers of money. When I saw you crush these wretches, I envied you your
place; and at seeing you quit it without departing from your system,
I admire you. Be satisfied with yourself, sir; the step you have taken
will leave you an honor you will long enjoy without a competitor. The
malediction of knaves is the glory of an honest man."
Madam de Luxembourg, who knew I had written this letter, spoke to me of
it when she came into the country at Easter. I showed it to her and she
was desirous of a copy; this I gave her, but when I did it I did not know
she was interested in under-farms, and the displacing of M. de Silhoutte.
By my numerous follies any person would have imagined I wilfully
endeavored to bring on myself the hatred of an amiable woman who had
power, and to whom, in truth, I daily became more attached, and was far
from wishing to occasion her displeasure, although by my awkward manner
of proceeding, I did everything proper for that purpose. I think it
superfluous to remark here, that it is to her the history of the opiate
of M. Tronchin, of which I have spoken in the first part of my memoirs,
relates; the other lady was Madam de Mirepoix. They have never mentioned
to me the circumstance, nor has either of them, in the least, seemed to
have preserved a remembrance of it; but to presume that Madam de
Luxembourg can possibly have forgotten it appears to me very difficult,
and would still remain so, even were the subsequent events entirely
unknown. For my part, I fell into a deceitful security relative to the
effects of my stupid mistakes, by an internal evidence of my not having
taken any step with an intention to offend; as if a woman could ever
forgive what I had done, although she might be certain the will had not
the least part in the matter.
Although she seemed not to see or feel anything, and that I did not
immediately find either her warmth of friendship diminished or the least
change in her manner, the continuation and even increase of a too well
founded foreboding made me incessantly tremble, lest disgust should
succeed to infatuation. Was it possible for me to expect in a lady of
such high rank, a constancy proof against my want of address to support
it? I was unable to conceal from her this secret foreboding, which made
me uneasy, and rendered me still more disagreeable. This will be judged
of by the following letter, which contains a very singular prediction.
N. B. This letter, without date in my rough copy, was written in
October, 1760, at latest.
"How cruel is your goodness? Why disturb the peace of a solitary mortal
who had renounced the pleasures of life, that he might no longer suffer
the fatigues of them. I have passed my days in vainly searching for
solid attachments. I have not been able to form any in the ranks to
which I was equal; is it in yours that I ought to seek for them? Neither
ambition nor interest can tempt me: I am not vain, but little fearful; I
can resist everything except caresses. Why do you both attack me by a
weakness which I must overcome, because in the distance by which we are
separated, the over-flowings of susceptible hearts cannot bring mine near
to you? Will gratitude be sufficient for a heart which knows not two
manners of bestowing its affections, and feels itself incapable of
everything except friendship? Of friendship, madam la marechale! Ah!
there is my misfortune! It is good in you and the marechal to make use
of this expression; but I am mad when I take you at your word. You amuse
yourselves, and I become attached; and the end of this prepares for me
new regrets. How I do hate all your titles, and pity you on account of
your being obliged to bear them? You seem to me to be so worthy of
tasting the charms of private life! Why do not you reside at Clarens?
I would go there in search of happiness; but the castle of Montmorency,
and the Hotel de Luxembourg! Is it in these places Jean Jacques ought to
be seen? Is it there a friend to equality ought to carry the affections
of a sensible heart, and who thus paying the esteem in which he is held,
thinks he returns as much as he receives? You are good and susceptible
also: this I know and have seen; I am sorry I was not sooner convinced of
it; but in the rank you hold, in the manner of living, nothing can make a
lasting impression; a succession of new objects efface each other so that
not one of them remains. You will forget me, madam, after having made it
impossible for me to imitate, you. You have done a great deal to make me
unhappy, to be inexcusable."
I joined with her the marechal, to render the compliment less severe; for
I was moreover so sure of him, that I never had a doubt in my mind of the
continuation of his friendship. Nothing that intimidated me in madam la
marechale, ever for a moment extended to him. I never have had the least
mistrust relative to his character, which I knew to be feeble, but
constant. I no more feared a coldness on his part than I expected from
him an heroic attachment. The simplicity and familiarity of our manners
with each other proved how far dependence was reciprocal. We were both
always right: I shall ever honor and hold dear the memory of this worthy
man, and, notwithstanding everything that was done to detach him from me,
I am as certain of his having died my friend as if I had been present in
his last moments.
At the second journey to Montmorency, in the year 1760, the reading of
Eloisa being finished, I had recourse to that of Emilius, to support
myself in the good graces of Madam de Luxembourg; but this, whether the
subject was less to her taste; or that so much reading at length fatigued
her, did not succeed so well. However, as she reproached me with
suffering myself to be the dupe of booksellers, she wished me to leave to
her care the printing the work, that I might reap from it a greater
advantage. I consented to her doing it, on the express condition of its
not being printed in France, on which we had along dispute; I affirming
that it was impossible to obtain, and even imprudent to solicit, a tacit
permission; and being unwilling to permit the impression upon any other
terms in the kingdom; she, that the censor could not make the least
difficulty, according to the system government had adopted. She found
means to make M. de Malesherbes enter into her views. He wrote to me on
the subject a long letter with his own hand, to prove the profession of
faith of the Savoyard vicar to be a composition which must everywhere
gain the approbation of its readers and that of the court, as things were
then circumstanced. I was surprised to see this magistrate, always so
prudent, become so smooth in the business, as the printing of a book was
by that alone legal, I had no longer any objection to make to that of the
work. Yet, by an extraordinary scruple, I still required it should be
printed in Holland, and by the bookseller Neaulme, whom, not satisfied
with indicating him, I informed of my wishes, consenting the edition
should be brought out for the profit of a French bookseller, and that as
soon as it was ready it should be sold at Paris, or wherever else it
might be thought proper, as with this I had no manner of concern. This
is exactly what was agreed upon between Madam de Luxembourg and myself,
after which I gave her my manuscript.
Madam de Luxembourg was this time accompanied by her granddaughter
Mademoiselle de Boufflers, now Duchess of Lauzun. Her name was Amelia.
She was a charming girl. She really had a maiden beauty, mildness and
timidity. Nothing could be more lovely than her person, nothing more
chaste and tender than the sentiments she inspired. She was, besides,
still a child under eleven years of age. Madam de Luxembourg, who
thought her too timid, used every endeavor to animate her. She permitted
me several times to give her a kiss, which I did with my usual
awkwardness. Instead of saying flattering things to her, as any other
person would have done, I remained silent and disconcerted, and I know
not which of the two, the little girl or myself, was most ashamed.
I met her one day alone in the staircase of the little castle. She had
been to see Theresa, with whom her governess still was. Not knowing what
else to say, I proposed to her a kiss, which, in the innocence of her
heart, she did not refuse; having in the morning received one from me by
order of her grandmother, and in her presence. The next day, while
reading Emilius by the side of the bed of Madam de Luxembourg, I came to
a passage in which I justly censure that which I had done the preceding
evening. She thought the reflection extremely just, and said some very
sensible things upon the subject which made me blush. How was I enraged
at my incredible stupidity, which has frequently given me the appearance
of guilt when I was nothing more than a fool and embarrassed!
A stupidity, which in a man known to be endowed with some wit, is
considered as a false excuse. I can safely swear that in this kiss, as
well as in the others, the heart and thoughts of Mademoiselle Amelia were
not more pure than my own, and that if I could have avoided meeting her I
should have done it; not that I had not great pleasure in seeing her, but
from the embarrassment of not finding a word proper to say. Whence comes
it that even a child can intimidate a man, whom the power of kings has
never inspired with fear? What is to be done? How, without presence of
mind, am I to act? If I strive to speak to the persons I meet,
I certainly say some stupid thing to them; if I remain silent, I am a
misanthrope, an unsociable animal, a bear. Total imbecility would have
been more favorable to me; but the talents which I have failed to improve
in the world have become the instruments of my destruction, and of that
of the talents I possessed.
At the latter end of this journey, Madam de Luxembourg did a good action
in which I had some share. Diderot having very imprudently offended the
Princess of Robeck, daughter of M. de Luxembourg, Palissot, whom she
protected, took up the quarrel, and revenged her by the comedy of 'The
Philosophers', in which I was ridiculed, and Diderot very roughly
handled. The author treated me with more gentleness, less, I am of
opinion, on account of the obligation he was under to me, than from the
fear of displeasing the father of his protectress, by whom he knew I was
beloved. The bookseller Duchesne, with whom I was not at that time
acquainted, sent me the comedy when it was printed, and this I suspect
was by the order of Palissot, who, perhaps, thought I should have a
pleasure in seeing a man with whom I was no longer connected defamed.
He was greatly deceived. When I broke with Diderot, whom I thought less
ill-natured than weak and indiscreet, I still always preserved for his
person an attachment, an esteem even, and a respect for our ancient
friendship, which I know was for a long time as sincere on his part as on
mine. The case was quite different with Grimm; a man false by nature,
who never loved me, who is not even capable of friendship, and a person
who, without the least subject of complaint, and solely to satisfy his
gloomy jealousy, became, under the mask of friendship, my most cruel
calumniator. This man is to me a cipher; the other will always be my old
friend.
My very bowels yearned at the sight of this odious piece: the reading of
it was insupportable to me, and, without going through the whole, I
returned the copy to Duchesne with the following letter:
MONTMORENCY, 21st, May, 1760.
"In casting my eyes over the piece you sent me, I trembled at seeing
myself well spoken of in it. I do not accept the horrid present. I am
persuaded that in sending it me, you did not intend an insult; but you do
not know, or have forgotten, that I have the honor to be the friend of a
respectable man, who is shamefully defamed and calumniated in this
libel."
Duchense showed the letter. Diderot, upon whom it ought to have had an
effect quite contrary, was vexed at it. His pride could not forgive me
the superiority of a generous action, and I was informed his wife
everywhere inveighed against me with a bitterness with which I was not in
the least affected, as I knew she was known to everybody to be a noisy
babbler.
Diderot in his turn found an avenger in the Abbe Morrellet, who wrote
against Palissot a little work, imitated from the 'Petit Prophete',
and entitled the Vision. In this production he very imprudently offended
Madam de Robeck, whose friends got him sent to the Bastile; though she,
not naturally vindictive, and at that time in a dying state, I am certain
had nothing to do with the affair.
D'Alembert, who was very intimately connected with Morrellet, wrote me a
letter, desiring I would beg of Madam de Luxembourg to solicit his
liberty, promising her in return encomiums in the 'Encyclopedie';
my answer to this letter was as follows:
"I did not wait the receipt of your letter before I expressed to Madam de
Luxembourg the pain the confinement of the Abbe Morrellet gave me. She
knows my concern, and shall be made acquainted with yours, and her
knowing that the abbe is a man of merit will be sufficient to make her
interest herself in his behalf. However, although she and the marechal
honor me with a benevolence which is my greatest consolation, and that
the name of your friend be to them a recommendation in favor of the Abbe
Morrellet, I know not how far, on this occasion, it may be proper for
them to employ the credit attached to the rank they hold, and the
consideration due to their persons. I am not even convinced that the
vengeance in question relates to the Princess Robeck so much as you seem
to imagine; and were this even the case, we must not suppose that the
pleasure of vengeance belongs to philosophers exclusively, and that when
they choose to become women, women will become philosophers.
"I will communicate to you whatever Madam de Luxembourg may say to me
after having shown her your letter. In the meantime, I think I know her
well enough to assure you that, should she have the pleasure of
contributing to the enlargement of the Abbe Morrellet, she will not
accept the tribute of acknowledgment you promise her in the Encyclopedie,
although she might think herself honored by it, because she does not do
good in the expectation of praise, but from the dictates of her heart."
I made every effort to excite the zeal and commiseration of Madam de
Luxembourg in favor of the poor captive, and succeeded to my wishes.
She went to Versailles on purpose to speak to M. de St. Florentin, and
this journey shortened the residence at Montmorency, which the marechal
was obliged to quit at the same time to go to Rouen, whither the king
sent him as governor of Normandy, on account of the motions of the
parliament, which government wished to keep within bounds. Madam de
Luxembourg wrote me the following letter the day after her departure:
VERSAILLES, Wednesday.
"M. de Luxembourg set off yesterday morning at six o'clock. I do not yet
know that I shall follow him. I wait until he writes to me, as he is not
yet certain of the stay it will be necessary for him to make. I have
seen M. de St. Florentin, who is as favorably disposed as possible
towards the Abbe Morrellet; but he finds some obstacles to his wishes
which however, he is in hopes of removing the first time he has to do
business with the king, which will be next week. I have also desired as
a favor that he might not be exiled, because this was intended; he was to
be sent to Nancy. This, sir, is what I have been able to obtain; but I
promise you I will not let M. de St. Florentin rest until the affair is
terminated in the manner you desire. Let me now express to you how sorry
I am on account of my being obliged to leave you so soon, of which I
flatter myself you have not the least doubt. I love you with all my
heart, and shall do so for my whole life."
A few days afterwards I received the following note from D'Alembert,
which gave me real joy.
August 1st.
"Thanks to your cares, my dear philosopher, the abbe has left the
Bastile, and his imprisonment will have no other consequence. He is
setting off for the country, and, as well as myself, returns you a
thousand thanks and compliments. 'Vale et me ama'."
The abbe also wrote to me a few days afterwards a letter of thanks, which
did not, in my opinion, seem to breathe a certain effusion of the heart,
and in which he seemed in some measure to extenuate the service I had
rendered him. Some time afterwards, I found that he and D'Alembert had,
to a certain degree, I will not say supplanted, but succeeded me in the
good graces of Madam de Luxembourg, and that I Had lost in them all they
had gained. However, I am far from suspecting the Abbe Morrellet of
having contributed to my disgrace; I have too much esteem for him to
harbor any such suspicion. With respect to D'Alembert, I shall at
present leave him out of the question, and hereafter say of him what may
seem necessary.
I had, at the same time, another affair which occasioned the last letter
I wrote to Voltaire; a letter against which he vehemently exclaimed, as
an abominable insult, although he never showed it to any person. I will
here supply the want of that which he refused to do.
The Abbe Trublet, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, but whom I had
but seldom seen, wrote to me on the 13th of June, 1760, informing me that
M. Formey, his friend and correspondent, had printed in his journal my
letter to Voltaire upon the disaster at Lisbon. The abbe wished to know
how the letter came to be printed, and in his jesuitical manner, asked me
my opinion, without giving me his own on the necessity of reprinting it.
As I most sovereignly hate this kind of artifice and strategem, I
returned such thanks as were proper, but in a manner so reserved as to
make him feel it, although this did not prevent him from wheedling me in
two or three other letters until he had gathered all he wished to know.
I clearly understood that, not withstanding all Trublet could say, Formey
had not found the letter printed, and that the first impression of it
came from himself. I knew him to be an impudent pilferer, who, without
ceremony, made himself a revenue by the works of others. Although he had
not yet had the incredible effrontery to take from a book already
published the name of the author, to put his own in the place of it, and
to sell the book for his own profit.
[In this manner he afterwards appropriated to himself Emilius.]
But by what means had this manuscript fallen into his hands? That was a
question not easy to resolve, but by which I had the weakness to be
embarrassed. Although Voltaire was excessively honored by the letter,
as in fact, notwithstanding his rude proceedings, he would have had a
right to complain had I had it printed without his consent, I resolved to
write to him upon the subject. The second letter was as follows, to
which he returned no answer, and giving greater scope to his brutality,
he feigned to be irritated to fury.
MONTMORENCY, 17th June, 1760.
"I did not think, sir, I should ever have occasion to correspond with
you. But learning the letter I wrote to you in 1756 had been printed at
Berlin, I owe you an account of my conduct in that respect, and will
fulfil this duty with truth and simplicity.
"The letter having really been addressed to you was not intended to be
printed. I communicated the contents of it, on certain conditions, to
three persons, to whom the right of friendship did not permit me to
refuse anything of the kind, and whom the same rights still less
permitted to abuse my confidence by betraying their promise. These
persons are Madam de Chenonceaux, daughter-in-law to Madam Dupin, the
Comtesse d'Houdetot, and a German of the name of Grimm. Madam de
Chenonceaux was desirous the letter should be printed, and asked my
consent. I told her that depended upon yours. This was asked of you
which you refused, and the matter dropped.
"However, the Abbe Trublet, with whom I have not the least connection,
has just written to me from a motive of the most polite attention that
having received the papers of the journal of M. Formey, he found in them
this same letter with an advertisement, dated on the 23d of October,
1759, in which the editor states that he had a few weeks before found it
in the shops of the booksellers of Berlin, and, as it is one of those
loose sheets which shortly disappear, he thought proper to give it a
place in his journal.
"This, sir, is all I know of the matter. It is certain the letter had
not until lately been heard of at Paris. It is also as certain that the
copy, either in manuscript or print, fallen into the hands of M. de
Formey, could never have reached them except by your means (which is not
probable) or of those of one of the three persons I have mentioned.
Finally, it is well known the two ladies are incapable of such a perfidy.
I cannot, in my retirement learn more relative to the affair. You have a
correspondence by means of which you may, if you think it worth the
trouble, go back to the source and verify the fact.