She asked me for her letters; these I returned her with a fidelity of which she did me the insult to doubt for a moment.

This doubt was another wound given to my heart, with which she must have been so well acquainted.  She did me justice, but not immediately:  I understood that an examination of the packet I had sent her, made her perceive her error; I saw she reproached herself with it, by which I was a gainer of something.  She could not take back her letters without returning me mine.  She told me she had burnt them:  of this I dared to doubt in my turn, and I confess I doubt of it at this moment.  No, such letters as mine to her were, are never thrown into the fire.  Those of Eloisa have been found ardent.

Heavens! what would have been said of these!  No, No, she who can inspire a like passion, will never have the courage to burn the proofs of it.  But I am not afraid of her having made a bad use of them:  of this I do not think her capable; and besides I had taken proper measures to prevent it.  The foolish, but strong apprehension of raillery, had made me begin this correspondence in a manner to secure my letters from all communication.  I carried the familiarity I permitted myself with her in my intoxication so far as to speak to her in the singular number:  but what theeing and thouing! she certainly could not be offended with it.  Yet she several times complained, but this was always useless:  her complaints had no other effect than that of awakening my fears, and I besides could not suffer myself to lose ground.  If these letters be not yet destroyed, and should they ever be made public, the world will see in what manner I have loved.

The grief caused me by the coldness of Madam d’Houdetot, and the certainty of not having merited it, made me take the singular resolution to complain of it to Saint Lambert himself.  While waiting the effect of the letter I wrote to him, I sought dissipations to which I ought sooner to have had recourse.  Fetes were given at the Chevrette for which I composed music.  The pleasure of honoring myself in the eyes of Madam d’Houdetot by a talent she loved, warmed my imagination, and another object still contributed to give it animation, this was the desire the author of the ‘Devin du Villaqe’ had of showing he understood music; for I had perceived some persons had, for a considerable time past, endeavored to render this doubtful, at least with respect to composition.  My beginning at Paris, the ordeal through which I had several times passed there, both at the house of M. Dupin and that of M. de la Popliniere; the quantity of music I had composed during fourteen years in the midst of the most celebrated masters and before their eyes:—­finally, the opera of the ‘Muses Gallantes’, and that even of the ‘Devin’; a motet I had composed for Mademoiselle Fel, and which she had sung at the spiritual concert; the frequent conferences I had had upon this fine art with the