This enterprise was difficult, because it was necessary to palliate the iniquity in the eyes of those of whose assistance he stood in need.  He had honest men to deceive, to alienate from me the good opinion of everybody, and to deprive me of all my friends.  What say I?  He had to cut off all communication with me, that not a single word of truth might reach my ears.  Had a single man of generosity come and said to me, “You assume the appearance of virtue, yet this is the manner in which you are treated, and these the circumstances by which you are judged:  what have you to say?” truth would have triumphed and Grimm have been undone.  Of this he was fully convinced; but he had examined his own heart and estimated men according to their merit.  I am sorry, for the honor of humanity, that he judged with so much truth.

In these dark and crooked paths his steps to be the more sure were necessarily slow.  He has for twelve years pursued his plan and the most difficult part of the execution of it is still to come; this is to deceive the public entirely.  He is afraid of this public, and dares not lay his conspiracy open.

[Since this was written he has made the dangerous step with the fullest and most inconceivable success.  I am of opinion it was Tronchin who inspired him with courage, and supplied him with the means.]

But he has found the easy means of accompanying it with power, and this power has the disposal of me.  Thus supported he advances with less danger.  The agents of power piquing themselves but little on uprightness, and still less on candor, he has no longer the indiscretion of an honest man to fear.  His safety is in my being enveloped in an impenetrable obscurity, and in concealing from me his conspiracy, well knowing that with whatever art he may have formed it, I could by a single glance of the eye discover the whole.  His great address consists in appearing to favor whilst he defames me, and in giving to his perfidy an air of generosity.

I felt the first effects of this system by the secret accusations of the Coterie Holbachiens without its being possible for me to know in what the accusations consisted, or to form a probable conjecture as to the nature of them.  De Leyre informed me in his letters that heinous things were attributed to me.  Diderot more mysteriously told me the same thing, and when I came to an explanation with both, the whole was reduced to the heads of accusation of which I have already spoken.  I perceived a gradual increase of coolness in the letters from Madam d’Houdetot.  This I could not attribute to Saint Lambert; he continued to write to me with the same friendship, and came to see me after his return.  It was also impossible to think myself the cause of it, as we had separated well satisfied with each other, and nothing since that time had happened on my part, except my departure from the Hermitage, of which she felt the necessity.