I clearly understood that, not withstanding all Trublet could say, Formey had not found the letter printed, and that the first impression of it came from himself.  I knew him to be an impudent pilferer, who, without ceremony, made himself a revenue by the works of others.  Although he had not yet had the incredible effrontery to take from a book already published the name of the author, to put his own in the place of it, and to sell the book for his own profit.

     [In this manner he afterwards appropriated to himself Emilius.]

But by what means had this manuscript fallen into his hands?  That was a question not easy to resolve, but by which I had the weakness to be embarrassed.  Although Voltaire was excessively honored by the letter, as in fact, notwithstanding his rude proceedings, he would have had a right to complain had I had it printed without his consent, I resolved to write to him upon the subject.  The second letter was as follows, to which he returned no answer, and giving greater scope to his brutality, he feigned to be irritated to fury.

Montmorency, 17th June, 1760.

“I did not think, sir, I should ever have occasion to correspond with you.  But learning the letter I wrote to you in 1756 had been printed at Berlin, I owe you an account of my conduct in that respect, and will fulfil this duty with truth and simplicity.

“The letter having really been addressed to you was not intended to be printed.  I communicated the contents of it, on certain conditions, to three persons, to whom the right of friendship did not permit me to refuse anything of the kind, and whom the same rights still less permitted to abuse my confidence by betraying their promise.  These persons are Madam de Chenonceaux, daughter-in-law to Madam Dupin, the Comtesse d’Houdetot, and a German of the name of Grimm.  Madam de Chenonceaux was desirous the letter should be printed, and asked my consent.  I told her that depended upon yours.  This was asked of you which you refused, and the matter dropped.

“However, the Abbe Trublet, with whom I have not the least connection, has just written to me from a motive of the most polite attention that having received the papers of the journal of M. Formey, he found in them this same letter with an advertisement, dated on the 23d of October, 1759, in which the editor states that he had a few weeks before found it in the shops of the booksellers of Berlin, and, as it is one of those loose sheets which shortly disappear, he thought proper to give it a place in his journal.

“This, sir, is all I know of the matter.  It is certain the letter had not until lately been heard of at Paris.  It is also as certain that the copy, either in manuscript or print, fallen into the hands of M. de Formey, could never have reached them except by your means (which is not probable) or of those of one of the three persons I have mentioned.  Finally, it is well known the two ladies are incapable of such a perfidy.  I cannot, in my retirement learn more relative to the affair.  You have a correspondence by means of which you may, if you think it worth the trouble, go back to the source and verify the fact.