infamous.

I never had been so embarrassed in my whole life as I then was; but my
resolution was taken. I swore, let what would happen, not to sleep at
the Hermitage on the night of that day week. I began to prepare for
sending away my effects, resolving to leave them in the open field rather
than not give up the key in the course of the week: for I was determined
everything should be done before a letter could be written to Geneva, and
an answer to it received. I never felt myself so inspired with courage:
I had recovered all my strength. Honor and indignation, upon which Madam
d'Epinay had not calculated, contributed to restore me to vigor. Fortune
aided my audacity. M. Mathas, fiscal procurer, heard of my
embarrasament. He sent to offer me a little house he had in his garden
of Mont Louis, at Montmorency. I accepted it with eagerness and
gratitude. The bargain was soon concluded: I immediately sent to
purchase a little furniture to add to that we already had. My effects
I had carted away with a deal of trouble, and a great expense:
notwithstanding the ice and snow my removal was completed in a couple of
days, and on the fifteenth of December I gave up the keys of the
Hermitage, after having paid the wages of the gardener, not being able to
pay my rent.

With respect to Madam le Vasseur, I told her we must part; her daughter
attempted to make me renounce my resolution, but I was inflexible.
I sent her off, to Paris in a carriage of the messenger with all the
furniture and effects she and her daughter had in common. I gave her
some money, and engaged to pay her lodging with her children, or
elsewhere to provide for her subsistence as much as it should be possible
for me to do it, and never to let her want bread as long as I should have
it myself.

Finally the day after my arrival at Mont Louis, I wrote to Madam d'Epinay
the following letter:

MONTMORENCY, 17th December 1757.

"Nothing, madam, is so natural and necessary as to leave your house the
moment you no longer approve of my remaining there. Upon you refusing
your consent to my passing the rest of the winter at the Hermitage I
quitted it on the fifteenth of December. My destiny was to enter it in
spite of myself and to leave it the same. I thank you for the residence
you prevailed upon me to make there, and I would thank you still more had
I paid for it less dear. You are right in believing me unhappy; nobod