her daughter attempted to alienate her affections
from me. One of the means she employed was to call her family to her
aid. I had begged Theresa not to invite any of her relations to the
Hermitage, and she had promised me she would not. These were sent for in
my absence, without consulting her, and she was afterwards prevailed upon
to promise not to say anything of the matter. After the first step was
taken all the rest were easy. When once we make a secret of anything to
the person we love, we soon make little scruple of doing it in
everything; the moment I was at the Chevrette the Hermitage was full of
people who sufficiently amused themselves. A mother has always great
power over a daughter of a mild disposition; yet notwithstanding all the
old woman could do, she was never able to prevail upon Theresa to enter
into her views, nor to persuade her to join in the league against me.
For her part, she resolved upon doing it forever, and seeing on one side
her daughter and myself, who were in a situation to live, and that was
all; on the other, Diderot, Grimm, D' Holbach and Madam d'Epinay, who
promised great things, and gave some little ones, she could not conceive
it was possible to be in the wrong with the wife of a farmer-general and
baron. Had I been more clear sighted, I should from this moment have
perceived I nourished a serpent in my bosom. But my blind confidence,
which nothing had yet diminished, was such that I could not imagine she
wished to injure the person she ought to love. Though I saw numerous
conspiracies formed on every side, all I complain of was the tyranny of
persons who called themselves my friends, and who, as it seemed, would
force me to be happy in the manner they should point out, and not in that
I had chosen for myself.

Although Theresa refused to join in the confederacy with her mother, she
afterwards kept her secret. For this her motive was commendable,
although I will not determine whether she did it well or ill. Two women,
who have secrets between them, love to prattle together; this attracted
them towards each other, and Theresa, by dividing herself, sometimes let
me feel I was alone; for I could no longer consider as a society that
which we all three formed.

I now felt the neglect I had been guilty of during the first years of our
connection, in not taking advantage of the docility with which her love
inspired her, to improve her talents and give her knowledge, which, by