It is in the country men learn how
to love and serve humanity; all they learn in cities is to despise
it."
Such were the singular scruples on which a man of sense had the
folly to attribute to me as a crime my retiring from Paris, and
pretended to prove to me by my own example, that it was not possible
to live out of the capital without becoming a bad man. I cannot at
present conceive how I could be guilty of the folly of answering
him, and of suffering myself to be angry instead of laughing in his
face. However, the decisions of Madam d'Epinay and the clamors of
the Coterie Holbachique had so far operated in her favor, that I was
generally thought to be in the wrong; and the D'Houdetot herself, very
partial to Diderot, insisted upon my going to see him at Paris, and
making all the advances towards an accommodation, which, full and
sincere as it was on my part, was not of long duration. The victorious
argument by which she subdued my heart was, that at that moment
Diderot was in distress. Besides the storm excited against the
Encyclopedie, he had then another violent one to make head against,
relative to his piece, which, notwithstanding the short history he had
printed at the head of it, he was accused of having entirely taken
from Goldoni. Diderot, more wounded by criticisms than Voltaire, was
overwhelmed by them. Madam de Grasigny had been malicious enough to
spread a report that I had broken with him on this account. I
thought it would be just and generous publicly to prove the
contrary, and I went to pass two days, not only with him, but at his
lodgings.
Pages:
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671