Notwithstanding the malignant sarcasms of Madam de Blainville, the dinner was of great service to me, and I congratulated myself upon not having refused the invitation.  I not only discovered that the intrigues of Grimm and the Holbachiens had not deprived me of my old acquaintance,

     [Such is the simplicity of my heart was my opinion when I wrote
     these confessions.]

but, what flattered me still more, that Madam d’Houdetot and Saint Lambert were less changed than I had imagined, and I at length understood that his keeping her at a distance from me proceeded more from jealousy than from disesteem.  This was a consolation to me, and calmed my mind.  Certain of not being an object of contempt in the eyes of persons whom I esteemed, I worked upon my own heart with greater courage and success.  If I did not quite extinguish in it a guilty and an unhappy passion, I at least so well regulated the remains of it that they have never since that moment led me into the most trifling error.  The copies of Madam d’ Houdetot, which she prevailed upon me to take again, and my works, which I continued to send her as soon as they appeared, produced me from her a few notes and messages, indifferent but obliging.  She did still more, as will hereafter appear, and the reciprocal conduct of her lover and myself, after our intercourse had ceased, may serve as an example of the manner in which persons of honor separate when it is no longer agreeable to them to associate with each other.

Another advantage this dinner procured me was its being spoken of in Paris, where it served as a refutation of the rumor spread by my enemies, that I had quarrelled with every person who partook of it, and especially with M. d’Epinay.  When I left the Hermitage I had written him a very polite letter of thanks, to which he answered not less politely, and mutual civilities had continued, as well between us as between me and M. de la Lalive, his brother-in-law, who even came to see me at Montmorency, and sent me some of his engravings.  Excepting the two sisters-in-law of Madam d’Houdetot, I have never been on bad terms with any person of the family.

My letter to D’Alembert had great success.  All my works had been very well received, but this was more favorable to me.  It taught the public to guard against the insinuations of the Coterie Holbachique.  When I went to the Hermitage, this Coterie predicted with its usual sufficiency, that I should not remain there three months.  When I had stayed there twenty months, and was obliged to leave it, I still fixed my residence in the country.  The Coterie insisted this was from a motive of pure obstinacy, and that I was weary even to death of my retirement; but that, eaten up with pride, I chose rather to become a victim of my stubbornness than to recover from it and return to Paris.  The letter to D’Alembert breathed a gentleness of mind which every one perceived not to be affected.  Had I been dissatisfied with my retreat, my style and manner would have borne evident marks of my ill-humor.  This reigned in all the works I had written in Paris; but in the first I wrote in the country not the least appearance of it was to be found.  To persons who knew how to distinguish, this remark was decisive.  They perceived I was returned to my element.