This reigned in all the works I had written at Paris; but
in the first I wrote in the country not the least appearance of it was
to be found. To persons who knew how to distinguish, this remark was
decisive. They perceived I was returned to my element.
Yet the same work, notwithstanding all the mildness it breathed,
made me by a mistake of my own and my usual ill-luck, another enemy
amongst men of letters. I had become acquainted with Marmontel at
the house of M. de la Popliniere, and this acquaintance had been
continued at that of the baron. Marmontel at that time wrote the
Mercure de France. As I had too much pride to send my works to the
authors of periodical publications, and wishing to send him this
without his imagining it was in consequence of that title, or being
desirous he should speak of it in the Mercure, I wrote upon the book
that it was not for the author of the Mercure, but for M. Marmontel. I
thought I paid him a fine compliment; he mistook it for a cruel
offense, and became my irreconcilable enemy. He wrote against the
letter with politeness, it is true, but with a bitterness easily
perceptible, and since that time has never lost an opportunity of
injuring me in society, and of indirectly ill-treating me in his
works. Such difficulty is there in managing the irritable self-love of
men of letters, and so careful ought every person to be not to leave
anything equivocal in the compliments they pay them.
Having nothing more to disturb me, I took advantage of my leisure
and independence to continue my literary pursuits with more coherence.
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