Suppose that, for the execution of the conspiracy of which I was the
object, my absence was absolutely necessary, everything tending to
that effect could not have happened otherwise than it did; but if
without suffering myself to be alarmed by the nocturnal embassy of
Madam de Luxembourg, I had continued to hold out, and, instead of
remaining at the castle, had returned to my bed and quietly slept
until morning, should I have equally had an order of arrest made out
against me? This is a great question upon which the solution of many
others depends, and for the examination of it, the hour of the
comminatory decree of arrest, and that of the real decree may be
remarked to advantage. A rude but sensible example of the importance
of the least detail in the exposition of facts, of which the secret
causes are sought for to discover them by induction.
BOOK XII
[1762]
HERE commences the work of darkness, in which I have for the last
eight years been enveloped, though it has not by any means been
possible for me to penetrate the dreadful obscurity. In the abyss of
evil into which I am plunged, I feel the blows reach me, without
perceiving the hand by which they are directed or the means it
employs. Shame and misfortune seem of themselves to fall upon me. When
in the affliction of my heart I suffer a groan to escape me, I have
the appearance of a man who complains without reason, and the
authors of my ruin have the inconceivable art of rendering the public,
unknown to itself, or without its perceiving the effects of it,
accomplice in their conspiracy.
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