y an extreme desire to have
an explanation with you, after the receipt of a letter which M. the duc
d'Aiguillon wrote to me last year. This nobleman, nephew of a gentleman,
as celebrated for the name he bears as by his own reputation, and who
has been my friend for more than sixty years, has communicated to me
the pain which had been caused you by a certain piece of poetry, of
my writing as was stated, and in which my style was recognised. Alas!
madame, ever since the most foolish desire in the world has excited me
to commit a great deal of idle trash to paper, not a month, a week, nay,
even a day passes in which I am not accused and convicted of some
great enormity; that is to say, the malicious author of all sorts of
turpitudes and extravagancies. Eh! _mon Dieu_, the entire life-time of
ten men would not be sufficient to write all with which I am charged,
to my unutterable despair in this world, and to my eternal damnation in
that which is to come.

"It is no doubt, much to die in final impenitence; altho' hell may
contain all the honest men of antiquity and a great portion of those of
our times; and paradise would not be much to hope for if we must find
ourselves face to face with messieurs Freron, Nonatte, Patouillet,
Abraham Chauneix, and other saints cut out of the same cloth. But how
much more severe would it be to sustain your anger! The hatred of the
Graces brings down misfortune on men of letters; and when he embroils
himself with Venus and the Muses he is a lost being; as, for instance,
M. Dorat, who incessantly slanders his mistresses, and writes nothing
but puerilities.

"I have been very cautious, in my long career, how I committed such a
fault. If perchance I have lightly assailed the common cry of scribblers
or pendants who were worthless, I have never ceased to burn incense on
the altars of the ladies; them I have always sung when I--could not do
otherwise. Independently, madame, of the profound respect I bear all
your sex I profess a particular regard towards all those who approach
our sovereign, and whom he invests with his confidence: in this I
prove myself no less a faithful subject than a gallant Frenchman; and
I venerate the God I serve in his constant friendships as I would do in
his caprices. Thus I was far from outraging and insulting you still
more grievously by composing a hateful work which I detest with my whole
heart, and which makes me shed tears of blood when I think that people
did no