He was obliged to be
dragged to the Hotel de Castries where he worthily played his part,
abandoned to the most mortal affliction. There, he every morning
went into the garden to weep at his ease, holding before his eyes
his handkerchief moistened with tears, as long as he was in sight of
the hotel, but at the turning of a certain alley, people, of whom he
little thought, saw him instantly put his handkerchief in his pocket
and take out of it a book. This observation, which was repeatedly
made, soon became public in Paris, and was almost as soon forgotten. I
myself had forgotten it; a circumstance in which I was concerned
brought it to my recollection. I was at the point of death in my
bed, in the Rue de Grenelle, Grimm was in the country; he came one
morning, quite out of breath, to see me, saying, he had arrived in
town that very instant; and a moment afterwards I learned he had
arrived the evening before, and had been seen at the theater.
I heard many things of the same kind; but an observation which I was
surprised not to have made sooner, struck me more than everything
else. I had given to Grimm all my friends without exception, they were
become his. I was so inseparable from him, that I should have had some
difficulty in continuing to visit at a house where he was not
received. Madam de Crequi was the only person who refused to admit him
into her company, and whom for that reason I have seldom since seen.
Grimm on his part made himself other friends, as well by his own
means, as by those of the Comte de Friese.
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