by whom it was patronized.  He came from the house of M. Baille to see me whilst ‘Emilius’ was in the press; he spoke to me concerning it; I read to him the ‘Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’, to which he listened attentively and, as it seemed to me with pleasure.  When I had finished he said:  “What! citizen, this is a part of a work now printing in Paris?”—­“Yes,” answered I, and it ought to be printed at the Louvre by order of the king.”—­I confess it,” replied he; “but pray do not mention to anybody your having read to me this fragment.”

This striking manner of expressing himself surprised without alarming me.  I knew Duclos was intimate with M. de Malesherbes, and I could not conceive how it was possible he should think so differently from him upon the same subject.

I had lived at Montmorency for the last four years without ever having had there one day of good health.  Although the air is excellent, the water is bad, and this may possibly be one of the causes which contributed to increase my habitual complaints.  Towards the end of the autumn of 1767, I fell quite ill, and passed the whole winter in suffering almost without intermission.  The physical ill, augmented by a thousand inquietudes, rendered these terrible.  For some time past my mind had been disturbed by melancholy forebodings without my knowing to what these directly tended.  I received anonymous letters of an extraordinary nature, and others, that were signed, much of the same import.  I received one from a counsellor of the parliament of Paris, who, dissatisfied with the present constitution of things, and foreseeing nothing but disagreeable events, consulted me upon the choice of an asylum at Geneva or in Switzerland, to retire to with his family.  An other was brought me from M. de -----, ‘president a mortier’ of the parliament of -----, who proposed to me to draw up for this Parliament, which was then at variance with the court, memoirs and remonstrances, and offering to furnish me with all the documents and materials necessary for that purpose.

When I suffer I am subject to ill humor.  This was the case when I received these letters, and my answers to them, in which I flatly refused everything that was asked of me, bore strong marks of the effect they had had upon my mind.  I do not however reproach myself with this refusal, as the letters might be so many snares laid by my enemies,

[I knew, for instance, the President de----- to be connected with
the Encyclopedists and the Holbachiens]

and what was required of me was contrary to the principles from which I was less willing than ever to swerve.  But having it within my power to refuse with politeness I did it with rudeness, and in this consists my error.