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 a 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.
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