ingle article; that the sole
duty of man is to follow all the inclinations of his heart. This
morality, when I heard it mentioned, gave me great matter of reflection,
although I at first considered it solely as a play of wit. But I soon
perceived it was a principle really the rule of his conduct, and of which
I afterwards had, at my own expense, but too many convincing proofs.
It is the interior doctrine Diderot has so frequently intimated to me,
but which I never heard him explain.

I remember having several years before been frequently told that Grimm
was false, that he had nothing more than the appearance of sentiment,
and particularly that he did not love me. I recollected several little
anecdotes which I had heard of him by M. de Francueil and Madam de
Chenonceaux, neither of whom esteemed him, and to whom he must have been
known, as Madam de Chenonceaux was daughter to Madam de Rochechouart,
the intimate friend of the late Comte de Friese, and that M. de
Francueil, at that time very intimate with the Viscount de Polignac,
had lived a good deal at the Palais Royal precisely when Grimm began to
introduce himself there. All Paris heard of his despair after the death
of the Comte de Friese. It was necessary to support the reputation he
had acquired after the rigors of Mademoiselle Fel, and of which I, more
than any other person, should have seen the imposture, had I been less
blind. He was obliged to be dragged to the Hotel de Castries where he
worthily played his part, abandoned to the most mortal affliction.
There, he every morning went into the garden to weep at his ease, holding
before his eyes his handkerchief moistened with tears, as long as he was
in sight of the hotel, but at the turning of a certain alley, people, of
whom he little thought, saw him instantly put his handkerchief in his
pocket and take out of it a book. This observation, which was repeatedly
made, soon became public in Paris, and was almost as soon forgotten.
I myself had forgotten it; a circumstance in which I was concerned
brought it to my recollection. I was at the point of death in my bed,
in the Rue de Grenelle, Grimm was in the country; he came one morning,
quite out of breath, to see me, saying, he had arrived in town that very
instant; and a moment afterwards I learned he had arrived the evening
before, and had been seen at the theatre.

I heard many things of the same kind; but an observation, which I was
surprised not to hav