I will not say to what a degree, in order
to torment me, they torment themselves. I am at their mercy, they have
unbounded power, and make of it what use they please. There is but one
thing in which I set them at defiance: which is in tormenting
themselves about me, to force me to give myself the least trouble
about them.
The day after my departure I had so perfectly forgotten what had
passed, the parliament, Madam de Pompadour, M. de Choiseul, Grimm, and
D'Alembert, with their conspiracies, that, had not it been for the
necessary precautions during the journey I should have thought no more
of them. The remembrance of one thing which supplied the place of
all these was what I had read the evening before my departure. I
recollect, also, the pastorals of Gessner, which his translator Hubert
had sent me a little time before. These two ideas occurred to me so
strongly, and were connected in such a manner in my mind, that I was
determined to endeavor to unite them by treating after the manner of
Gessner the subject of the Levite of Ephraim. His pastoral and
simple style appeared to me but little fitted to so horrid a
subject, and it was not to be presumed the situation I was then in
would furnish me with such ideas as would enliven it. However, I
attempted the thing, solely to amuse myself in my cabriolet, and
without the least hope of success. I had no sooner begun than I was
astonished at the liveliness of my ideas, and the facility with
which I expressed them.
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