His rage will give him the time and
strength which friendship refuses him, and it will be the first time
in his life he ever came upon the day he had appointed.
"He will neglect nothing to come and repeat to me verbally the
injuries with which he loads me in his letters; I will endure them all
with patience. He will return to Paris to be ill again; and, according
to custom, I shall be a very hateful man. What is to be done? Endure
it all.
"But do not you admire the wisdom of the man who would absolutely
come to Saint Denis in a hackney-coach to dine there, bring me home in
a hackney-coach, and whose finances, eight days afterwards, obliges
him to come to the Hermitage on foot? It is not possible, to speak his
own language, that this should be the style of sincerity. But were
this the case, strange changes of fortune must have happened in the
course of a week.
"I join in your affliction for the illness of madam, your mother,
but you will perceive your grief is not equal to mine. We suffer
less by seeing the persons we love ill than when they are unjust and
cruel.
"Adieu, my good friend, I shall never again mention to you this
unhappy affair. You speak of going to Paris with an unconcern,
which, at any other time, would give me pleasure."
I wrote to Diderot, telling him what I had done, relative to Madam
le Vasseur, upon the proposal of Madam d'Epinay herself; and Madam
le Vasseur having, as it may be imagined, chosen to remain at the
Hermitage, where she enjoyed a good state of health, always had
company, and lived very agreeably, Diderot, not knowing what else to
attribute to me as a crime, construed my precaution into one, and
discovered another in Madam le Vasseur continuing to reside at the
Hermitage, although this was by her own choice; and though her going
to Paris had depended, and still depended upon herself, where she
would continue to receive the same succors from me as I gave to her in
my house.
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