n, 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 have made sooner, struck me more than anything else.
I had given to Grimm all my friends without exception, they were become
his. I was so inseparable from him, that I should have had some
difficulty in continuing to visit at a house where he was not received.
Madam de Crequi was the only person who refused to admit him into her
company, and whom for that reason I have seldom since seen. Grimm on his
part made himself other friends, as well by his own means, as by those of
the Comte de Friese. Of all these not one of them ever became my friend:
he never said a word to induce me even to become acquainted with them,
and not one of those I sometimes met at his apartments ever showed me the
least good will; the Comte de Friese, in whose house he lived, and with
whom it consequently would have been agreeable to me to form some
connection, not excepted, nor the Comte de Schomberg, his relation, with
whom Grimm was still more intimate.

Add to this, my own friends, whom I made his, and who were all tenderly
attached to me before this acquaintance, were no longer so the moment it
was made. He never gave me one of his. I gave him all mine, and these
he has taken from me. If these be the effects of friendship, what are
those of enmity?

Diderot himself told me several times at the beginning that Grimm in whom
I had so much confidence, was not my friend. He changed his language the
moment he was no longer so himself.

The manner in which I had disposed of my children wanted not the
concurrence of any person. Yet I informed some of my friends of it,
solely to make it known to them, and that I might not in their eyes
appear better than I was. These friends were three in number: Diderot,
Grimm, and Madam d'Epinay. Duclos, the most worthy of my confidence, was
the only real friend whom I did not inform of it. He nevertheless knew
what I had done. By whom?