as but little
similarity between their taste and mine. They were the children of
Melchisedec, of whom neither the country nor the family was known, no
more than, in all probability, the real name. They were Jansenists, and
passed for priests in disguise, perhaps on account of their ridiculous
manner of wearing long swords, to which they appeared to have been
fastened. The prodigious mystery in all their proceedings gave them the
appearance of the heads of a party, and I never had the least doubt of
their being the authors of the 'Gazette Ecclesiastique'. The one, tall,
smooth-tongued, and sharping, was named Ferrand; the other, short, squat,
a sneerer, and punctilious, was a M. Minard. They called each other
cousin. They lodged at Paris with D'Alembert, in the house of his nurse
named Madam Rousseau, and had taken at Montmorency a little apartment to
pass the summers there. They did everything for themselves, and had
neither a servant nor runner; each had his turn weekly to purchase
provisions, do the business of the kitchen, and sweep the house. They
managed tolerably well, and we sometimes ate with each other. I know not
for what reason they gave themselves any concern about me: for my part,
my only motive for beginning an acquaintance with them was their playing
at chess, and to make a poor little party I suffered four hours' fatigue.
As they thrust themselves into all companies, and wished to intermeddle
in everything, Theresa called them the gossips, and by this name they
were long known at Montmorency.

Such, with my host M. Mathas, who was a good man, were my principal
country acquaintance. I still had a sufficient number at Paris to live
there agreeably whenever I chose it, out of the sphere of men of letters,
amongst whom Duclos, was the only friend I reckoned: for De Levre was
still too young, and although, after having been a witness to the
manoeuvres of the philosophical tribe against me, he had withdrawn from
it, at least I thought so, I could not yet forget the facility with which
he made himself the mouthpiece of all the people of that description.

In the first place I had my old and respectable friend Roguin. This was
a good old-fashioned friend for whom I was not indebted to my writings
but to myself, and whom for that reason I have always preserved. I had
the good Lenieps, my countryman, and his daughter, then alive, Madam
Lambert. I had a young Genevese, named Coindet, a good creature,