. They, who in a letter which it hath pleased them to
attribute to me, have made me say I never laughed but twice in my life,
did not know me at this period, nor in my younger days; for if they had,
the idea could never have entered into their heads.

The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse; I learned
it had gained the premium at Dijon. This news awakened all the ideas
which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
fermentation of my heart of that first leaven of heroism and virtue which
my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy. Nothing
now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to
fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior circumstances;
although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation at first prevented
me from conducting myself according to these principles, and from
suddenly quarreling with the maxims of the age in which I lived, I from
that moment took a decided resolution to do it.--[And of this I purposely
delayed the execution, that irritated by contradiction f it might be
rendered triumphant.]

While I was philosophizing upon the duties of man, an event happened
which made me better reflect upon my own. Theresa became pregnant for
the third time. Too sincere with myself, too haughty in my mind to
contradict my principles by my actions, I began to examine the
destination of my children, and my connections with the mother, according
to the laws of nature, justice, and reason, and those of that religion,
pure, holy, and eternal, like its author, which men have polluted while
they pretended to purify it, and which by their formularies they have
reduced to a religion of words, since the difficulty of prescribing
impossibilities is but trifling to those by whom they are not practised.

If I deceived myself in my conclusions, nothing can be more astonishing
than the security with which I depended upon them. Were I one of those
men unfortunately born deaf to the voice of nature, in whom no sentiment
of justice or humanity ever took the least root, this obduracy would be
natural. But that warmth of heart, strong sensibility, and facility of
forming attachments; the force with which they subdue me; my cruel
sufferings when obliged to break them; the innate benevolence I cherished
towards my fellow-creatures; the ardent love I bear to great virtues, to
truth and justice, the horror in which I hold evil of e