Much about the same time I received a visit I little expected, although it was from a very old acquaintance.  My friend Venture, accompanied by another man, came upon me one morning by surprise.  What a change did I discover in his person!  Instead of his former gracefulness, he appeared sottish and vulgar, which made me extremely reserved with him.  My eyes deceived me, or either debauchery had stupefied his mind, or all his first splendor was the effect of his youth, which was past.  I saw him almost with indifference, and we parted rather coolly.  But when he was gone, the remembrance of our former connection so strongly called to my recollection that of my younger days, so charmingly, so prudently dedicated to that angelic woman (Madam de Warrens) who was not much less changed than himself; the little anecdotes of that happy time, the romantic day of Toune passed with so much innocence and enjoyment between those two charming girls, from whom a kiss of the hand was the only favor, and which, notwithstanding its being so trifling, had left me such lively, affecting and lasting regrets; and the ravishing delirium of a young heart, which I had just felt in all its force, and of which I thought the season forever past for me.  The tender remembrance of these delightful circumstances made me shed tears over my faded youth and its transports for ever lost to me.  Ah! how many tears should I have shed over their tardy and fatal return had I foreseen the evils I had yet to suffer from them.

Before I left Paris, I enjoyed during the winter which preceded my retreat, a pleasure after my own heart, and of which I tasted in all its purity.  Palissot, academician of Nancy, known by a few dramatic compositions, had just had one of them performed at Luneville before the King of Poland.  He perhaps thought to make his court by representing in his piece a man who had dared to enter into a literary dispute with the king.  Stanislaus, who was generous, and did not like satire, was filled with indignation at the author’s daring to be personal in his presence.  The Comte de Tressan, by order of the prince, wrote to M. d’Alembert, as well as to myself, to inform me that it was the intention of his majesty to have Palissot expelled his academy.  My answer was a strong solicitation in favor of Palissot, begging M. de Tressan to intercede with the king in his behalf.  His pardon was granted, and M. de Tressan, when he communicated to me the information in the name of the monarch, added that the whole of what had passed should be inserted in the register of the academy.  I replied that this was less granting a pardon than perpetuating a punishment.  At length, after repeated solicitations, I obtained a promise, that nothing relative to the affair should be inserted in the register, and that no public trace should remain of it.  The promise was accompanied, as well on the part of the king as on that of M. de Tressan, with assurance of esteem and respect, with which I was extremely flattered; and I felt on this occasion that the esteem of men who are themselves worthy of it, produced in the mind a sentiment infinitely more noble and pleasing than that of vanity.  I have transcribed into my collection the letters of M. de Tressan, with my answers to them:  and the original of the former will be found amongst my other papers.