“I was at the Theatre Francais last night,” I said, “and saw Athalie.”

“It is the masterpiece of Racine; Voltaire, has been wrong in accusing me of having criticized that tragedy, and in attributing to me an epigram, the author of which has never been known, and which ends with two very poor lines: 

     “Pour avoir fait pis qu’Esther,
     Comment diable as-to pu faire”

I have been told that M. de Fontenelle had been the tender friend of Madame du Tencin, that M. d’Alembert was the offspring of their intimacy, and that Le Rond had only been his foster-father.  I knew d’Alembert at Madame de Graffigny’s.  That great philosopher had the talent of never appearing to be a learned man when he was in the company of amiable persons who had no pretension to learning or the sciences, and he always seemed to endow with intelligence those who conversed with him.

When I went to Paris for the second time, after my escape from The Leads of Venice, I was delighted at the idea of seeing again the amiable, venerable Fontenelle, but he died a fortnight after my arrival, at the beginning of the year 1757.

When I paid my third visit to Paris with the intention of ending my days in that capital, I reckoned upon the friendship of M. d’Alembert, but he died, like Fontenelle, a fortnight after my arrival, towards the end of 1783.  Now I feel that I have seen Paris and France for the last time.  The popular effervescence has disgusted me, and I am too old to hope to see the end of it.

Count de Looz, Polish ambassador at the French court, invited me in 1751 to translate into Italian a French opera susceptible of great transformations, and of having a grand ballet annexed to the subject of the opera itself.  I chose ‘Zoroastre’, by M. de Cahusac.  I had to adapt words to the music of the choruses, always a difficult task.  The music remained very beautiful, of course, but my Italian poetry was very poor.  In spite of that the generous sovereign sent me a splendid gold snuff-box, and I thus contrived at the same time to please my mother very highly.

It was about that time that Mdlle.  Vesian arrived in Paris with her brother.  She was quite young, well educated, beautiful, most amiable, and a novice; her brother accompanied her.  Her father, formerly an officer in the French army, had died at Parma, his native city.  Left an orphan without any means of support, she followed the advice given by her friends; she sold the furniture left by her father, with the intention of going to Versailles to obtain from the justice and from the generosity of the king a small pension to enable her to live.  As she got out of the diligence, she took a coach, and desired to be taken to some hotel close by the Italian Theatre; by the greatest chance she was brought to the Hotel de Bourgogne, where I was then staying myself.

In the morning I was told that there were two young Italians, brother and sister, who did not appear very wealthy, in the next room to mine.  Italians, young, poor and newly arrived, my curiosity was excited.  I went to the door of their room, I knocked, and a young man came to open it in his shirt.