be.”  It is rather curious that so strange a missive as this, instead of provoking Madame d’Epinay to anger, was answered by a warmer and more affectionate letter than the first.  To this Rousseau replied with increased vehemence, charged with dark and mysteriously worded suspicion.  Still Madame d’Epinay remained willing to receive him.  He began to repent of his imprudent haste, because it would certainly end by compromising Madame d’Houdetot, and because, moreover, he had no proof after all that his suspicions had any foundation.  He went instantly to the house of Madame d’Epinay; at his approach she threw herself on his neck and melted into tears.  This unexpected reception from so old a friend moved him extremely; he too wept abundantly.  She showed no curiosity as to the precise nature of his suspicions or their origin, and the quarrel came to an end.[300]

Grimm’s turn followed.  Though they had been friends for many years, there had long been a certain stiffness in their friendship.  Their characters were in fact profoundly antipathetic.  Rousseau we know,—­sensuous, impulsive, extravagant, with little sense of the difference between reality and dreams.  Grimm was exactly the opposite; judicious, collected, self-seeking, coldly upright.  He was a German (born at Ratisbon), and in Paris was first a reader to the Duke of Saxe Gotha, with very scanty salary.  He made his way, partly through the friendship of Rousseau, into the society of the Parisian men of letters, rapidly acquired a perfect mastery of the French language, and with the inspiring help of Diderot, became an excellent critic.  After being secretary to sundry high people, he became the literary correspondent of various German sovereigns, keeping them informed of what was happening in the world of art and letters, just as an ambassador keeps his government informed of what happens in politics.  The sobriety, impartiality, and discrimination of his criticism make one think highly of his literary judgment; he had the courage, or shall we say he preserved enough of the German, to defend both Homer and Shakespeare against the unhappy strictures of Voltaire.[301] This is not all, however; his criticism is conceived in a tone which impresses us with the writer’s integrity.  And to this internal evidence we have to add the external corroboration that in the latter part of his life he filled various official posts, which implied a peculiar confidence in his probity on the part of those who appointed him.  At the present moment (1756-57), he was acting as secretary to Marshal d’Estrees, commander of the French army in Westphalia at the outset of the Seven Years’ War.  He was an able and helpful man, in spite of his having a rough manner, powdering his face, and being so monstrously scented as to earn the name of the musk-bear.  He had that firmness and positivity which are not always beautiful, but of which there is probably too little rather than too much in the world, certainly in the France of his time, and of