Thursday, 26th.

“Sir:  I received the book you had the goodness to send me, and which I have read with much pleasure.  I have always experienced the same sentiment in reading all the works which have come from your pen.  Receive my thanks for the whole.  I should have returned you these in person had my affairs permitted me to remain any time in your neighborhood; but I was not this year long at the Chevrette.  M. and Madam Dupin come there on Sunday to dinner.  I expect M. de Saint Lambert, M. de Francueil, and Madam d’Houdetot will be of the party; you will do me much pleasure by making one also.  All the persons who are to dine with me, desire, and will, as well as myself, be delighted to pass with you a part of the day.  I have the honor to be with the most perfect consideration,” etc.

This letter made my heart beat violently; after having for a year past been the subject of conversation of all Paris, the idea of presenting myself as a spectacle before Madam d’Houdetot, made me tremble, and I had much difficulty to find sufficient courage to support that ceremony.  Yet as she and Saint Lambert were desirous of it, and Madam d’Epinay spoke in the name of her guests without naming one whom I should not be glad to see, I did not think I should expose myself accepting a dinner to which I was in some degree invited by all the persons who with myself were to partake of it.  I therefore promised to go:  on Sunday the weather was bad, and Madam D’Epinay sent me her carriage.

My arrival caused a sensation.  I never met a better reception.  An observer would have thought the whole company felt how much I stood in need of encouragement.  None but French hearts are susceptible of this kind of delicacy.  However, I found more people than I expected to see.  Amongst others the Comte d’ Houdetot, whom I did not know, and his sister Madam de Blainville, without whose company I should have been as well pleased.  She had the year before came several times to Eaubonne, and her sister-in-law had left her in our solitary walks to wait until she thought proper to suffer her to join us.  She had harbored a resentment against me, which during this dinner she gratified at her ease.  The presence of the Comte d’ Houdetot and Saint Lambert did not give me the laugh on my side, and it may be judged that a man embarrassed in the most common conversations was not very brilliant in that which then took place.  I never suffered so much, appeared so awkward, or received more unexpected mortifications.  As soon as we had risen from table, I withdrew from that wicked woman; I had the pleasure of seeing Saint Lambert and Madam de’Houdetot approach me, and we conversed together a part of the afternoon, upon things very indifferent it is true, but with the same familiarity as before my involuntary error.  This friendly attention was not lost upon my heart, and could Saint Lambert have read what passed there, he certainly would have been satisfied with it.  I can safely assert that although on my arrival the presence of Madam d’Houdetot gave me the most violent palpitations, on returning from the house I scarcely thought of her; my mind was entirely taken up with Saint Lambert.