The Confessions

  The second day of my stay he absolutely insisted on taking me to supper at M. d’Holbach’s. We differed very widely; for I wanted even to break the agreement about the manuscript on chemistry, as I hated to be under any obligation to that man. Diderot won every time. He swore that d’Holbach loved me with all his heart and that I must forgive him his manner, which was the same to everybody and from which his friends suffered worse than anyone else. He put it to me that to refuse the profit from this manuscript after having accepted it two years before was to offer an undeserved affront to the donor, and that my refusal might even be misconstrued as a covert reproach to him for having delayed so long in completing the bargain. ‘I see Holbach every day,’ he added, ‘and know the nature of his heart better than you. If you had any reason to be dissatisfied with it, do you think your friend capable of advising you to behave unworthily?’ In short, with my usual weakness I allowed myself to be overruled and we went to sup with the Baron, who received me in his usual manner. But his wife greeted me coldly and almost insultingly. I could no longer recognize the charming Caroline who had shown herself so well disposed towards me as a girl. I had seemed to detect long before that time that I was no longer viewed with so favourable an eye at the house of Aine since Grimm had become a frequent visitor there.

  Whilst I was in Paris, Saint-Lambert returned on leave. As I did not know this I did not see him till I had gone back to the country, first at La Chevrette and then at the Hermitage, where he came with Mme d’Houdetot to ask me to dinner. It can be imagined how gladly I welcomed them! But I was even more delighted to see the good understanding between them. I was so pleased not to have disturbed their happiness that I felt happy myself; and I can swear that throughout my mad infatuation, but especially at that moment, even if I could have stolen Mme d’Houdetot from him I should never have wished to do so. I should not even have felt tempted to try. I found her so lovable in her love for Saint-Lambert that I could hardly imagine her being so if she had loved me; and far from wishing to interfere with their union, all that I most truly desired from her, throughout my delirium, was that she should allow herself to be loved. In short, however violent the passion with which I burned for her, I found it as sweet to be her confidant as to be the object of her love, and never for one moment looked on her lover as my rival, but always as my friend. It may be suggested that this was not really love. Very well, then, it was something more.

  As for Saint-Lambert, he behaved like an honest and intelligent man. As I was the only guilty party I alone was punished, but he was merciful. He treated me sternly yet in a friendly manner, and I saw that I had lost some measure of his esteem, but none of his friendship. I consoled myself with the knowledge that the former would be much easier to recover than the latter, and that he was far too sensible to confuse an involuntary and transient weakness with a defect in character. If I were partly to blame for all that had transpired, it was to a very slight extent. Was it I who had sought out his mistress? Was it not he who had sent her to me? Was it not she who had come to seek me? Could I avoid receiving her? What could I do? They alone had done the mischief, and it was I who had suffered by it. In my place he would have acted much as I did, perhaps worse. For however faithful, however estimable Mme d’Houdetot might be, she was after all a woman; he was away, opportunities were frequent, temptations were severe, and it would have been very difficult for her always to defend herself with equal success against a more persistent lover. It undoubtedly said much for her and for me that in such a situation we should have imposed limits on ourselves which we never allowed ourselves to infringe.

  Although at the bottom of my heart I could adduce sufficiently honourable evidence in my favour, appearances were so much against me that the invincible feeling of shame which always dominated me made me appear like a guilty person in his presence, and he often took an unfair advantage of this in order to humiliate me. A single incident will illustrate our mutual relationship. I read him, after dinner, the letter I had written the previous year to Voltaire, of which he, Saint-Lambert, had heard some mention. He went to sleep as I read it and I, who was once so proud and now looked so stupid, dared not break off but continued to read as he continued to snore. Such were my humiliations, and such was his vengeance; but he was too generous ever to exercise it except when we three were alone.

  After his departure I found Mme d’Houdetot much changed in her attitude to me. I was as surprised as if I had had no reason to anticipate it, and I was more affected than I ought to have been, which caused me much suffering. It was as if everything which I expected to cure me only drove more deeply into my heart the arrow, which in the end I broke off rather than pulled out.

  I had made up my mind to conquer myself entirely, and to leave nothing undone that might transform my insane passion into a pure and lasting friendship. To this end I had made the finest plans in the world, for the execution of which I needed Mme d’Houdetot’s assistance. When I tried to speak to her I found her distracted and embarrassed. I felt that she no longer took any pleasure in my company; and I clearly perceived that something had occurred about which she did not wish to speak. What it was I have never learned. I could obtain no explanation of this change, and it tortured me. She asked me to return her letters, and I gave them all back to her with a scrupulousness which she did me the insult of for a moment doubting. This aspersion was another unexpected wound to my heart, as she must have known so well. She did me justice, but not immediately. I realized that on examining the packet I had returned to her she had felt conscious of having done me a wrong. I saw that she even reproached herself for it, and I regained a little ground by this. She could not take back her letters without returning me mine. She told me that she had burnt them. I ventured to doubt her in my turn, and I admit that I still do. No, letters like that are never put in the fire. Those in Julie have been considered ardent. Heavens, then, what would have been said of these? No, never would one capable of inspiring such a passion have had the courage to burn the proofs of it. But I am not afraid either that she has ever made ill use of them. I do not think her capable of that, and besides I had taken precautions against it. A foolish but lively fear of ridicule had made me begin our correspondence on a note which secured my letters from being passed on to others. I carried the familiarity that I had assumed in my intoxication to the extent of addressing her in the second person singular, but in such a delicate way that she certainly could not have been hurt by it. However, she did complain of it several times, but in vain; her protests only reawoke my fears, and besides I could not make up my mind to draw back. If these letters are still in existence and one day see the light, the world will know how I have loved.*

  The pain caused me by Mme d’Houdetot’s cooling off, and my certainty that I had not deserved it, made me resort to the singular measure of complaining to Saint-Lambert himself. While waiting for the results of the letter I had written to him on this subject, I plunged into distractions which I ought to have looked for earlier. There were some festivities at La Chevrette, for which I wrote the music. I was excited by the pleasure of displaying before Mme d’Houdetot a talent which she admired, and another circumstance too helped to stir my imagination. This was the desire to show that the author of The Village Soothsayer was a skilled musician. For I had been conscious for a long time that someone was striving in secret to call this into question, at least so far as the art of composition was concerned. My first appearance in Paris, and the tests to which I had been subjected on different occasions, both at M. Dupin’s and at M. de la Popelinićre’s; the quantity of music which I had composed over fourteen years in the company of the most famous artists, and beneath their very eyes; then my opera The Gallant Muses, also The Soothsayer, and a motet which I had composed for Mlle Fel and which she had sung at the sacred concert; all the discussion I had had on the noble art with the greatest masters; everything seemed to combine to prevent or dispel any such doubt. It existed nevertheless, even at La Chevrette, and I saw that M.
d’Épinay was not exempt from it. Without appearing to be conscious of this, I undertook to compose a motet for him for the dedication of the chapel of La Chevrette, and I asked him to provide me with a text of his choosing. He commissioned de Linant, his son’s tutor, to provide it. De Linant arranged some words that suited the subject, and a week after I received them the motet was finished. On this occasion annoyance was my inspiration, and never did richer music flow from my pen. The text begins with the words: Ecce sedes hic Tonantis,* and the grandeur of the opening is in keeping with them, while all the rest of the motet is so beautiful and melodious that everyone was struck by it. I had composed it for a large orchestra, and d’Épinay got together the best symphonic players. Mme Bruna, an Italian artist, sang the motet, and was well accompanied. So successful was the work that it was subsequently played at a sacred concert, where despite underground cabals and indifferent execution it was twice received with equal applause. For M. d’Épinay’s birthday I devised the idea of a kind of performance, half play, half pantomime, which Mme d’Épinay composed and for which I also wrote the music. When Grimm arrived he heard of my musical successes. An hour afterwards they had ceased to be spoken of; but at least no more doubts were thrown, so far as I know, on my knowledge of composition.

  No sooner was Grimm at La Chevrette, where already I was not too happy, than he succeeded in making my stay there unbearable by such conceited behaviour as I had never seen in anyone before, behaviour which defied the imagination. On the day before his arrival I was moved from the favoured room that I occupied next to Mme d’Épinay’s, and it was got ready for M. Grimm. I was given another, more remote one. ‘Well,’ I said with a laugh to my hostess, ‘this is the way newcomers turn the old inhabitants out.’ She seemed embarrassed; and I understood the reason for this better that very evening, when I learnt that there was a secret door from her room to the one I was leaving, which she had seen no reason to point out to me. Her affair with Grimm was concealed from nobody, either in her house or out of it, not even from her husband. However, far from confessing it to me, her confidant in secrets much more vital to her, and one on whom she could safely rely, she always stoutly denied it. I understood that this reserve was due to Grimm, to whom I had entrusted all my secrets but who did not want me to be privy to any of his.

  Whatever prejudices my old feelings, which were not quite dead, and the man’s real merits excited in me in his favour, they were not proof against the deliberate efforts he made to destroy them. He greeted me in the style of the Count de Tuffière,* and scarcely condescended to return my bow; he did not address a single word to me and soon cured me of addressing any to him by absolutely failing to reply. He took precedence everywhere, and always seized the best place, without ever paying attention to me. I could have stood that if he had not behaved with such revolting affectation. But this can be judged by a single incident from among a thousand. One evening when Mme d’Épinay felt a little unwell she asked to have supper in her room, and went up to eat it beside the fire. She invited me to come up with her, and I did so. Grimm followed us. The little table was already laid, but there were only two places. The meal was served and Mme d’Épinay sat down on one side of the fire. M. Grimm took an armchair, settled himself on the other side, drew up the little table between them, unfolded his napkin, and set about his meal without addressing a single word to me. Mme d’Épinay blushed and, to compel him to atone for his rudeness, offered me her own seat. He said nothing, and did not look at me. Not being able to get near the fire, I began to walk up and down the room, until a place should be laid for me. He let me take my supper off the edge of the table away from the fire, without offering me the least apology, although I was his senior and in poor health, and although I was an older friend of the house than he, having in fact introduced him there, whereas as the lady’s favourite he should really have done me the honours. All his behaviour to me conformed fairly well to this sample. He did not exactly treat me as his inferior; he looked on me as a nonentity. I found it difficult to recognize the former tutor who, at the Prince of Saxe-Gotha’s, felt honoured by a glance from me. I found it still harder to reconcile his rigid silence and his insulting airs with the tender friendship which he boasted of feeling for me in the company of anyone whom he knew to be my friend. It is true that he hardly gave any sign of it except to pity me for my lack of wealth, for which I did not pity myself, or to deplore my sad fate, with which I was contented, or to lament that I so abruptly refused the kindnesses which he said he had tried to do me. This was his way of exciting admiration for his loving generosity, and blame for my ungrateful misanthropy. And so he insensibly accustomed everyone to the idea that the relationship between a protector, such as he, and a poor wretch, like myself, consisted all of kindnesses on one side and obligations on the other, without visualizing, even as a remote possibility, that it could be a friendship between equals. For my part, I have wondered in vain in what way I could be under an obligation to this new patron. I had lent him money, he never lent me any; I had looked after him in his illness, he hardly paid me a visit when I was sick; I had introduced him to all my friends, and he had never introduced me to any of his; I had sung his praises as loud as I could, but if he praised me it was less publicly and in another manner. Never did he do, or even offer to do me a service of any kind. How then could he be my Maecenas? How was I his protégé? That was more than I could understand, and it still is.

  It is true that he was arrogant with everyone, more or less, but he was not so brutally so with anyone except myself. I remember that once Saint-Lambert almost threw a plate at his head, when he more or less gave him the lie at table by saying rudely: ‘That is not true.’ Not only was his tone naturally sarcastic, but he had also an upstart’s conceit, and, finally, he made himself absurd by his continuous insolence. Mixing with the great had tempted him into assuming airs that one only finds in the least intelligent of them. He never summoned his valet except with a ‘Heh!’, as if the great man had so many servants that he did not know who was on duty. If he sent him to make purchases he threw the money on the floor instead of putting it into his hand. In fact he completely forgot that the valet was a man, and treated him with such complete contempt that the poor fellow, who was a very good lad that Mme d’Épinay had given him, left his service for no other reason but the impossibility of putting up with such treatment. He was the La Fleur to this new Man of Conceit*

  Though he was as fatuous as he was vain, with his huge dull eyes and his flabby face, he fancied himself with the ladies; and since his comedy with Mlle Fels he passed with several of them for a man of deep feelings. This had made him a fashionable figure, and had given him a fancy for womanish beautification. He began to play the beau. His toilet became an important business. Everyone knew that he made up, and I, who would not believe it, began to be convinced not only by the improvement in his complexion and by finding some pots of cosmetic on his dressing-table, but because on going into his room one morning I discovered him brushing his nails with a little brush made for the purpose, a job he proudly continued to do in my presence. I concluded that a man who spends two hours every morning polishing his nails may well spend a few moments filling the wrinkles in his skin with make-up. The excellent Gauffecourt, who was anything but a fool, laughingly nicknamed him Tirante the White.*

  All these were merely absurdities, but most antipathetic to my nature. And in the end they made me suspicious of him. I found it difficult to believe that a man whose head was turned in this way could keep his heart in the right place. He prided himself on nothing so much as his sensitiveness and strength of feeling. How could this be consonant with faults which are peculiar to little minds? How could the vigorous and repeated flights which any sensitive heart must take outside itself leave him time to be continuously occupied with so many little cares for his own little person? Why, good Heavens, a man who feels his heart burning with that celestial fire seeks to breathe it forth, and to show his inner self. He would wish to show hi
s heart upon his face; that is the only sort of cosmetics he would think of.

  I remembered the summary of his moral code which Mme d’Épinay had repeated to me, and which she had adopted from him. It consisted of one single article, to the effect that the sole duty of man is to follow all the inclinations of his heart. This code, when I heard of it, gave me intense food for thought, although I only took it for a joke at the time. But I soon saw that this principle was actually his rule of conduct, and I had only too convincing a proof of it in the sequel, to my own cost. This is the secret doctrine of which Diderot spoke to me so often without, however, ever explaining it.

  I remembered the frequent warnings I had received some years ago, that the man was false, that he merely affected to have feelings, and that really he did not like me at all. I called to mind several little anecdotes to illustrate this, which had been told me by M. de Francueil and Mme de Chenonceaux, neither of whom had any opinion of him, and both of whom must have known him, since Mme de Chenonceaux was the daughter of Mme de Rochechouart, an intimate friend of the late Count de Friése, and M. de Francueil was on very close terms with the Viscount de Polignac, and had lived a great deal at the Palais-Royal just at the moment when Grimm was beginning to work his way in. All Paris was aware of his despair after the death of the Count de Friése. It was a question of preserving the reputation he had acquired after his cruel treatment by Mlle de Fel, a bit of charlatanism that I should have seen through better than anyone else if I had been less dazzled at the time. They had to carry him off to the Hôtel de Castries, where he worthily sustained his part and gave himself over to the most mortal grief. There, every morning, he would go out into the garden to weep to his heart’s content, holding his tear-soaked handkerchief in front of his eyes so long as he could be seen from the hotel. But when he came to the corner of a certain little street, certain people whom he had not noticed would see him suddenly stuff his handkerchief into his pocket and take out a book. He was observed to do this on several occasions, and the story soon went round Paris, but it was immediately forgotten. I had forgotten it myself, but an incident that concerned me reminded me of it. I was in my bed in the Rue de Grenelle and at death’s door. He was in the country. One morning he came to visit me, quite out of breath, saying that he had only that moment arrived in town. A few minutes later I learned that he had come up the afternoon before, and that he had been seen at the theatre that same night.