Failing in this attempt they endeavored to obtain by a scruple the effect which complaisance had not produced, and construed into a crime my keeping the old woman at a distance from the succors of which, at her age, she might be in need.  They did not recollect that she, and many other old people, whose lives were prolonged by the air of the country, might obtain these succors at Montmorency, near to which I lived; as if there were no old people, except in Paris, and that it was impossible for them to live in any other place.  Madam le Vasseur who eat a great deal, and with extreme voracity, was subject to overflowings of bile and to strong diarrhoeas, which lasted several days, and served her instead of clysters.  At Paris she neither did nor took anything for them, but left nature to itself.  She observed the same rule at the Hermitage, knowing it was the best thing she could do.  No matter, since there were not in the country either physicians or apothecaries, keeping her there must, no doubt, be with the desire of putting an end to her existence, although she was in perfect health.  Diderot should have determined at what age, under pain of being punished for homicide, it is no longer permitted to let old people remain out of Paris.

This was one of the atrocious accusations from which he did not except me in his remark; that none but the wicked were alone:  and the meaning of his pathetic exclamation with the et cetera, which he had benignantly added:  A woman of eighty years of age, etc.

I thought the best answer that could be given to this reproach would be from Madam le Vasseur herself.  I desired her to write freely and naturally her sentiments to Madam d’Epinay.  To relieve her from all constraint I would not see her letter.  I showed her that which I am going to transcribe.  I wrote it to Madam d’Epinay upon the subject of an answer I wish to return to a letter still more severe from Diderot, and which she had prevented me from sending.

Thursday.

“My good friend.  Madam le Vasseur is to write to you:  I have desired her to tell you sincerely what she thinks.  To remove from her all constraint, I have intimated to her that I will not see what she writes, and I beg of you not to communicate to me any part of the contents of her letter.

“I will not send my letter because you do not choose I should; but, feeling myself grievously offended, it would be baseness and falsehood, of either of which it is impossible for me to be guilty, to acknowledge myself in the wrong.  Holy writ commands him to whom a blow is given, to turn the other cheek, but not to ask pardon.  Do you remember the man in comedy who exclaims, while he is giving another blows with his staff, ‘This is the part of a philosopher!’

“Do not flatter yourself that he will be prevented from coming by the bad weather we now have.  His rage will give him the time and strength which friendship refuses him, and it will be the first time in his life he ever came upon the day he had appointed.