I became bold,
haughty, intrepid, with a confidence the more firm, as it was
simple, and resided in my soul rather than in my manner. The
contempt with which my profound meditations had inspired me for the
manners, maxims and prejudices of the age in which I lived, rendered
me proof against the raillery of those by whom they were possessed,
and I crushed their little pleasantries with a sentence, as I would
have crushed an insect with my fingers. What a change! All Paris
repeated the severe and acute sarcasms of the same man who, two
years before, and ten years afterwards, knew not how to find what he
had to say, nor the word he ought to employ. Let the situation in
the world the most contrary to my natural disposition be sought after,
and this will be found. Let one of the short moments of my life in
which I became another man, and ceased to be myself, be recollected,
this also will be found in the time of which I speak; but, instead
of continuing only six days, or six weeks, it lasted almost six years,
and would perhaps still continue, but for the particular circumstances
which caused it to cease, and restored me to nature, above which I had
wished to soar.
The beginning of this change took place as soon as I had quitted
Paris, and the sight of the vices of that city no longer kept up the
indignation with which it had inspired me. I no sooner had lost
sight of men than I ceased to despise them, and once removed from
those who designed me evil, my hatred against them no longer
existed.
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