mine, in the embrace at our first meeting. Since Madam
d'Epinay was the only person offended, at least in form, I thought it was
not for me to strive to bring about an eclaircissement for which she
herself did not seem anxious, and I returned as I had come; continuing,
besides, to live with her upon the same footing as before, I soon almost
entirely forgot the quarrel, and foolishly believed she had done the
same, because she seemed not to remember what had passed.

This, it will soon appear, was not the only vexation caused me by
weakness; but I had others not less disagreeable which I had not brought
upon myself. The only cause of these was a desire of forcing me from my
solitude, by means of tormenting me. These originated from Diderot and the
d'Holbachiens.

[That is to take from it the old woman who was wanted in the
conspiracy. It is astonishing that, during this long quarrel,
my stupid confidence presented me from comprehending that it was
not me but her whom they wanted in Paris.]

Since I had resided at the Hermitage, Diderot incessantly
harrassed me, either himself or by means of De Leyre, and I soon
perceived from the pleasantries of the latter upon my ramblings in the
groves, with what pleasure he had travestied the hermit into the gallant
shepherd. But this was not the question in my quarrels with Diderot; the
cause of these were more serious. After the publication of Fils Naturel
he had sent me a copy of it, which I had read with the interest and
attention I ever bestowed on the works of a friend. In reading the kind
of poem annexed to it, I was surprised and rather grieved to find in it,
amongst several things, disobliging but supportable against men in
solitude, this bitter and severe sentence without the least softening:
'Il n'y a que le mechant qui fail feul.'--[The wicked only is alone.]
--This sentence is equivocal, and seems to present a double meaning; the
one true, the other false, since it is impossible that a man who is
determined to remain alone can do the least harm to anybody, and
consequently he cannot be wicked. The sentence in itself therefore
required an interpretation; the more so from an author who, when he sent
it to the press, had a friend retired from the world. It appeared to me
shocking and uncivil, either to have forgotten that solitary friend, or,
in remembering him, not to have made from the general maxim the honorable
and just exception which he