After abandoning myself for a few days to this rural delirium, I
began to arrange my papers, and regulate my occupations. I set
apart, as I had always done, my mornings to copying, and my afternoons
to walking, provided with my little paper book and a pencil, for never
having been able to write and think at my ease except sub dio, I had
no inclination to depart from this method, and I was persuaded the
forest of Montmorency, which was almost at my door, would in future be
my closet and study. I had several works begun; these I cast my eye
over. My mind was indeed fertile in great projects, but in the noise
of the city the execution of them had gone on but slowly. I proposed
to myself to use more diligence when I should be less interrupted. I
am of opinion I have sufficiently fulfilled this intention; and for
a man frequently ill, often at La Chevrette, at Epinay, at Eaubonne,
at the castle of Montmorency, at other times interrupted by the
indolent and curious, and always employed half the day in copying,
if what I produced during the six years I passed at the Hermitage
and at Montmorency be considered, I am persuaded it will appear that
if, in this interval, I lost my time, it was not in idleness.
Of the different works I had upon the stocks, that I had longest
resolved in my mind, which was most to my taste, to which I destined a
certain portion of my life, and which, in my opinion, was to confirm
the reputation I had acquired, was my Institutions Politiques.
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