I felt the first effects of this system by the secret accusations of the Coterie Holbachique without its being possible for me to know in what the accusations consisted, or to form a probable conjecture as to the nature of them.De Leyre informed me in His letters that heinous things were attributed to me.Diderot more mysteriously told me the same thing, and when I came to an explanation with both, the whole was reduced to the heads of accusation of which I have already spoken.Iperceived a gradual increase of coolness in the letters from Madam d'Houdetot.This I could not attribute to Saint Lambert; he continued to write to me with the same friendship, and came to see me after his return.It was also impossible to think myself the cause of it, as we had separated well satisfied with each other, and nothing since that time had happened on my part, except my departure from the Hermitage, of which she felt the necessity.Therefore, not knowing whence this coolness, which she refused to acknowledge, although my heart was not to be deceived, could proceed, I was uneasy upon every account.I knew she greatly favored her sister-in-law and Grimm, in consequence of their connections with Saint Lambert; and I was afraid of their machinations.This agitation opened my wounds, and rendered my correspondence so disagreeable as quite to disgust her with it.I saw, as at a distance, a thousand cruel circumstances, without discovering anything distinctly.I was in a situation the most insupportable to a man whose imagination is easily heated.Had I been quite retired from the world, and known nothing of the matter, I should have become more calm; but my heart still clung to attachments, by means of which my enemies had great advantages over me; and the feeble rays which penetrated my asylum conveyed to me nothing more than a knowledge of the blackness of the mysteries which were concealed from my eyes.
I should have sunk, I have not a doubt of it, under these torments, too cruel and insupportable to my open disposition, which, by the impossibility of concealing my sentiments, makes me fear everything from those concealed from me, if fortunately objects sufficiently interesting to my heart to divert it from others with which, in spite of myself, my imagination was filled, had not presented themselves.In the last visit Diderot paid me, at the Hermitage, he had spoken of the article Geneva, which D'Alembert had inserted in the Encyclopedie; he had informed me that this article, concerted with people of the first consideration, had for object the establishment of a theater at Geneva, that measures had been taken accordingly, and that the establishment would soon take place.As Diderot seemed to think all this very proper, and did not doubt of the success of the measure, and as I had besides to speak to him upon too many other subjects to touch upon that article, I made him no answer; but scandalized at these preparatives to corruption and licentiousness in my country, I waited with impatience for the volume of the Encyclopedie, in which the article was inserted, to see whether or not it would be possible to give an answer which might ward off the blow.I received the volume soon after my establishment at Mont Louis, and found the articles to be written with much art and address, and worthy of the pen whence it proceeded.This, however, did not abate my desire to answer it, and notwithstanding the dejection of spirits I then labored under, my griefs and pains, the severity of the season, and the inconvenience of my new abode, in which I had not yet had time to arrange myself, I set to work with a zeal which surmounted every obstacle.
In a severe winter, in the month of February, and in the situation Ihave described, I went every day, morning and evening, to pass a couple of hours in an open alcove which was at the bottom of the garden in which my habitation stood.This alcove, which terminated an alley of a terrace, looked upon the valley and the pond of Montmorency, and presented to me, as the closing point of a prospect, the plain but respectable castle of St.Gratien, the retreat of the virtuous Catinat.It was in this place, then, exposed to freezing cold, that without being sheltered from the wind and snow, and having no other fire than that in my heart, I composed, in the space of three weeks, my letter to D'Alembert on theaters.It was in this, for my Eloisa was not then half written, that I found charms in philosophical labor.Until then virtuous indignation had been a substitute to Apollo, tenderness and a gentleness of mind now became so.The injustice I had been witness to had irritated me, that of which I became the object rendered me melancholy; and this melancholy without bitterness was that of a heart too tender and affectionate, and which, deceived by those in whom it had confided, was obliged to remain concentered.Full of that which had befallen me, and still affected by so many violent emotions, my heart added the sentiment of its sufferings to the ideas with which a meditation on my subject had inspired me: what I wrote bore evident marks of this mixture.Without perceiving it I described the situation I was then in, gave portraits of Grimm, Madam d'Epinay, Madam d'Houdetot, Saint Lambert and myself.What delicious tears did I shed as I wrote.
Alas! in these descriptions there are proofs but too evident that love, the fatal love of which I made such efforts to cure myself, still remained in my heart.With all this there was a certain sentiment of tenderness relative to myself: I thought I was dying, and imagined I bid the public my last adieu.Far from fearing death, Ijoyfully saw it approach; but I felt some regret at leaving my fellow creatures without their having perceived my real merit, and being convinced how much I should have deserved their esteem had they known me better.These are the secret causes of the singular manner in which this work, opposite to that of the work by which it was preceded,* is written.
