This care, more than friendly, appeared to me so tender, and as if she had stripped herself to clothe me, that in my emotion I repeatedly kissed, shedding tears at the same time, both the note and the petticoat.Theresa thought me mad.It is singular that of all the marks of friendship Madam d'Epinay ever showed me this touched me the most, and that ever since our rupture I have never recollected it without being very sensibly affected.I for a long time preserved her little note, and it would still have been in my possession had not it shared the fate of my other notes received at the same period.
Although my disorder then gave me but little respite in winter, and a part of the interval was employed in seeking relief from pain, this was still upon the whole the season which since my residence in France I had passed with most pleasure and tranquillity.During four or five months, whilst the bad weather sheltered me from the interruptions of importunate visits, I tasted to a greater degree than I had ever yet or have since done, of that equally simple and independent life, the enjoyment of which still made it more desirable to me; without any other company than the two governesses in reality, and the two female cousins in idea.It was then especially that I daily congratulated myself upon the resolution I had had the good sense to take, unmindful of the clamors of my friends, who were vexed at seeing me delivered from their tyranny; and when I heard of the attempt of a madman, when De Leyre and Madam d'Epinay spoke to me in letters of the trouble and agitation which reigned in Paris, how thankful was I to Heaven for having placed me at a distance from all such spectacles of horror and guilt.These would have continued and increased the bilious humor which the sight of public disorders had given me; whilst seeing nothing around me in my retirement but gay and pleasing objects my heart was wholly abandoned to sentiments which were amiable.
I remark here with pleasure the course of the last peaceful moments that were left me.The spring succeeding to this winter, which had been so calm, developed the germ of the misfortunes I have yet to describe; in the tissue of which, a like interval, wherein I had leisure to respite, will not be found.
I think however, I recollect, that during this interval of peace, and in the bosom of my solitude, I was not quite undisturbed by the Holbachiens.Diderot stirred me up some strife, and I am much deceived if it was not in the course of this winter that the Fils Naturel,*of which I shall soon have occasion to speak, made its appearance.
Independently of the causes which left me but few papers relative to that period, those even which I have been able to preserve are not very exact with respect to dates.Diderot never dated his letters.
Madam d'Epinay and Madam d'Houdetot seldom dated theirs, except the day of the week, and De Leyre mostly confined himself to the same rules.When I was desirous of putting these letters in order I was obliged to supply what was wanting by guessing at dates, so uncertain that I cannot depend upon them.Unable therefore to fix with certainty the beginning of these quarrels, I prefer relating in one subsequent article everything I can recollect concerning them.
* Natural Son; a Comedy, by Diderot.
The return of spring had increased my amorous delirium, and in my melancholy, occasioned by the excess of my transports, I had composed for the last parts of Eloisa several letters, wherein evident marks of the rapture in which I wrote them are found.Amongst others Imay quote those from the Elysium, and the excursion upon the lake, which, if my memory does not deceive me, are at the end of the fourth part.Whoever, in reading these letters, does not feel his heart soften and melt into the tenderness by which they were dictated, ought to lay down the book: nature has refused him the means of judging of sentiment.
Precisely at the same time I received a second unforeseen visit from Madam d'Houdetot, in the absence of her husband, who was captain of the Gendarmarie, and of her lover, who was also in the service.She had come to Eaubonne, in the middle of the Valley of Montmorency, where she had taken a pretty house, from thence she made a new excursion to the Hermitage.She came on horseback, and dressed in men's clothes.Although I am not very fond of this kind of masquerade, I was struck with the romantic appearance she made, and, for once, it was with love.As this was the first and only time in all my life, the consequence of which will forever render it terrible to my remembrance, I must take the permission to enter into some particulars on the subject.
