Montmorency, 17th December 1757.

“Nothing, madam, is so natural and necessary as to leave your house the moment you no longer approve of my remaining there.  Upon you refusing your consent to my passing the rest of the winter at the Hermitage I quitted it on the fifteenth of December.  My destiny was to enter it in spite of myself and to leave it the same.  I thank you for the residence you prevailed upon me to make there, and I would thank you still more had I paid for it less dear.  You are right in believing me unhappy; nobody upon earth knows better than yourself to what a degree I must be so.  If being deceived in the choice of our friends be a misfortune, it is another not less cruel to recover from so pleasing an error.”

Such is the faithful narrative of my residence at the Hermitage, and of the reasons which obliged me to leave it.  I could not break off the recital, it was necessary to continue it with the greatest exactness; this epoch of my life having had upon the rest of it an influence which will extend to my latest remembrance.