I wanted to depart from the Hermitage, and I should have done so. But I am told that I must remain here till spring, and since my friends wish it I shall stay till spring, if you agree.
Once this letter was written and despatched my only thought was to live quietly at the Hermitage, looking after my health, trying to recover some strength, and making preparations for leaving in the spring without a fuss and without proclaiming a quarrel. But this was not what M. Grimm and Mme d’Épinay were counting on, as will be seen in a moment.
Some days later I had at last the pleasure of that visit from Diderot which he had so often promised and so often failed to pay me. It could not have been more opportune. He was my oldest friend; he was almost the only friend I had left, and under these circumstances the pleasure I felt on seeing him can be imagined. My heart was full, and I poured it out to him. I enlightened him upon a number of facts that had been kept from him, or had been disguised or invented. I told him as much as I had a right to tell him about all that had happened. I did not attempt to hide from him what he knew only too well – that a mad and unhappy passion had been the cause of my undoing. But I did not admit that Mme d’Houdetot knew of it or, anyhow, that I had declared it to her. I told him of Mme d’Épinay’s mean endeavours to get possession of the very innocent letters her sister-in-law had written to me. I wished him to learn the details from the mouths of the persons she had attempted to suborn. Thérèse gave him an exact account. But imagine my feelings when her mother’s turn came, and I heard her declare and affirm that she had no knowledge of anything of the sort! Those were her words, and she never budged from them. Not four days before she had repeated the tale to me, and now she contradicted me to my face in front of my friend! This seemed to me conclusive, and at that moment I was vividly aware of my foolishness in having kept such a woman with me for so long. I did not launch out into invectives against her; I hardly vouchsafed her a few contemptuous words. I felt the debt I owed to her daughter, whose unwavering honesty formed such a contrast to her mother’s despicable cowardice. But from that time my mind was made up in regard to the old woman, and I only waited for the moment when I could carry out my resolve.
The moment came sooner than I had expected. On 10 December I received a reply to my last letter to Mme d’Épinay. Here are its contents (Packet B, No. 11):
Geneva, 1 December 1757
After having shown you for many years every possible evidence of friendship and sympathy, I have nothing left for you but pity. You are a very unhappy man. I hope that your conscience is as quiet as mine. The peace of your future life will depend on its being so. Since you wanted to leave the Hermitage, and should have done so, I am surprised that your friends prevented you. For my part I never consult mine over matters of duty, and I have nothing more to say to you about yours.
A dismissal so unforeseen yet in such precise terms did not leave me a moment’s hesitation. It was necessary to depart immediately, whatever the weather, just as I was, even if I had to sleep in the woods and on the snow that then covered the ground, and whatever Mme d’Houdetot might say or do. For I was willing to do anything to please her, short of incurring disgrace.
I found myself in the most terrible embarrassment that I have ever known in my life. But my mind was made up. I vowed that, whatever happened, I would not sleep at the Hermitage a week that day. I set about removing my possessions, resolved to leave them in the open fields rather than not surrender the keys on the eighth day; for I was particularly anxious that all should be over before a letter could be sent to Geneva and a reply received. I felt more courage in me than ever in my life. All my strength had come back. Honour and indignation, on which Mme d’Épinay had not reckoned, restored it to me. Fortune aided my boldness. M. Mathas, the Prince of Condé’s prosecuting attorney, heard of my plight, and made me the offer of a little house of his, on his Mont-Louis estate at Montmorency. I accepted eagerly and with gratitude. The bargain was soon concluded; and I hastily bought a little furniture to supplement what we had already, so that Thérèse and I might have a bed to sleep on. I got my possessions transported on a cart with great trouble and at great expense; and despite the ice and snow my moving was completed in two days. On 15 December I surrendered the keys of the Hermitage, after having paid the gardener’s wages, though unable to pay my rent.
As for Mme Le Vasseur, I informed her that we must now separate. Her daughter tried to shake me but I was inflexible. I sent her off to Paris in the post cart with all the furniture and possessions owned by her and her daughter in common. I gave her some money, and I promised to pay her lodging with her children or elsewhere, to provide for her keep for so long as I could, and never to leave her short of bread while I had any myself.
Finally, on the day after my arrival at Mont-Louis, I wrote the following letter to Mme d’Épinay:
Montmorency, 17 December 1757
Nothing could be simpler or more necessary, Madame, than to move out of your house when you no longer approve of my remaining there. On your refusing me permission to spend the rest of the winter at the Hermitage I departed, on the 15th of December. It has been my fate both to go there and to leave against my own wishes. I thank you for the stay which you persuaded me to make there, and my thanks would be greater if I had not paid so dearly for it. Indeed you are right in saying that I am unhappy; no one on earth can know better than you the extent of my unhappiness. For if it is a misfortune to blunder in the choice of one’s friends, it is an equally painful one to awaken from so pleasant a dream.
Such is the true account of my stay at the Hermitage and of the reasons which led me to depart. I have not been able to cut this tale short, for it has been important to trace it in exact detail, this period in my life having had an influence upon the future which will extend to my dying day.
BOOK TEN
1758 Unwonted energy derived from a momentary agitation had enabled me to leave the Hermitage, but it deserted me once I was gone. No sooner was I established in my new home than violent and frequent attacks of my urinary retention were complicated by the fresh disability of a rupture, which had been bothering me for some time without my knowing what it was. Soon I was subject to bouts of great pain. My old friend Doctor Thierry came to see me and informed me of my condition. Probes, catheters, bandages, all the paraphernalia for the infirmities of age, collected around me, rudely informed me that one cannot have a young heart with impunity, once the body is no longer young. The fine weather did not restore my strength, and I spent the whole year 1758 in a state of exhaustion that made me think I was coming to the end of my career. I saw my last days draw near almost with eagerness. Cured of the vain dreams of friendship, detached from everything that had made me love life, now I could no longer see anything to make it even pleasant; all I could see was illness and suffering which deprived me of all enjoyment. I longed for the moment of freedom when I should escape from my enemies. But let us return to the sequence of events.
It seems that my departure for Montmorency disconcerted Mme d’Épinay. Probably she had not expected it. My sad condition, the severity of the weather, and my complete desertion by my friends, taken all together, led Grimm and her to believe that if they were to drive me to the last extremity they would reduce me to beg for mercy, and to descend to the lowest humiliations in order to be left in the refuge which honour required me to leave. I changed home so suddenly, however, that they had no time to forestall that move; and they had no alternative except to play double or quits, and either ruin me completely or attempt to bring me back. Grimm was for the former, but I think that Mme d’Epinay would have preferred the latter. I am judging by her reply to my last letter, in which she considerably softened the tone of her previous notes, and seemed to open the door for a reconciliation. Her long delay in answering – she kept me waiting a whole month – sufficiently indicates her difficulties in finding suitable phraseology, and the deliberation which it must have cost her. She could not make any further advances without committing
herself. But after her earlier letters and my abrupt departure from her house, one cannot help being struck by the care she took not to allow a single impolite word to slip into that letter. I will copy the whole of it, so that the reader may judge.
(Packet B, No. 23)
Geneva, 17 January 1758
Sir, I did not receive your letter of December 17th till yesterday. It was sent to me in a box with various other things which has been all this time on the way. I will only answer your postscript. The letter itself I do not clearly understand, and if we were in the position to discuss it I should be glad to attribute all that has happened to a misunderstanding. But to return to the postscript. You may remember, sir, our agreeing that the wages for the gardener at the Hermitage should be paid through you in order to make him feel that you were his master, and to avoid the ridiculous and unseemly scenes created by his predecessor. The proof of this is that his first quarter’s wages were sent to you. Furthermore I arranged with you a few days before I left that you should be reimbursed for the money you had advanced him. I know that you made some difficulty at first. But it was at my request that you made these advances, and it was natural that I should repay them. On this we agreed. Cahouet informs me that you have refused to accept the money. There is surely some muddle about this, and I have given orders that it shall be offered you again. I cannot see why you should want to pay my gardener despite our agreement, and beyond the time of your residence at the Hermitage. I feel sure, sir, that you will recollect what I have the honour to remind you of, and will not refuse to be repaid for the advance you so kindly made on my behalf.
Being no longer able to trust Mme d’Épinay after all that had happened, I did not wish to renew my relations with her. So I did not reply to that letter, and our correspondence ended there. Seeing that I had made up my mind, she did the same; and adopting the viewpoint of Grimm and the Holbach clique, she added her efforts to theirs in an endeavour to sink me completely. Whilst they worked in Paris, she worked at Geneva; and Grimm, who was to join her there later, completed what she had begun. Tronchin, whom they had no difficulty in winning over, gave them powerful support, and became the most remorseless of my persecutors, without my ever having given him the least cause for complaint, any more than I had to Grimm. All three together secretly sowed the seed in Geneva, the harvest of which was seen four years later.
They had greater difficulty in Paris, where I was better known and where people’s hearts were less prone to hatred, and therefore less easily infected by it. In order to place their blows more scientifically they began to spread the story that it was I who had broken with them. (See Deleyre’s letter, Packet B, No. 30.) From there, still under the pretence of being my friends, they cunningly put about their malicious accusations in the form of complaints against the injustice of their friend. People were thus put off their guard, and became more inclined to listen to them and blame me. The secret accusations of treachery and ingratitude were spread more cautiously, and were for that reason even more effective. I knew that they charged me with heinous crimes, but I never could learn what they alleged them to be. All that I could deduce from public rumour was that they could be reduced to these four capital offences: (1) my retirement to the country; (2) my love for Mme d’Houdetot; (3) my refusal to accompany Mme d’Épinay to Geneva; (4) my leaving the Hermitage. If they added any other grievances they took such careful precautions that it has been quite impossible for me ever to learn in what they consisted.
It is from this time that I think I can date the formation of a system, subsequently adopted by those who control my destiny with such rapid and progressive success that it would seem a miracle to anyone who does not know how easily anything can establish itself that favours the malignity of man. I must try to explain in a few words so much of these deep and dark schemes as is visible to my eyes.
Though my name was already famous and known throughout Europe, I had preserved the simplicity of my early tastes. My mortal hatred for everything that went by the name of party, faction, or cabal had kept me free and independent, without any bonds but the affections of my heart. Alone, a foreigner, isolated, without family or backing, holding to nothing but my principles and my duties, I fearlessly followed the paths of uprightness, neither flattering nor favouring anyone at the expense of justice and truth. Besides, having spent the last two years in solitary retirement without receiving any news, out of touch with worldly affairs, and with no knowledge or curiosity about anything, I lived, although only twelve miles from Paris, as deeply sundered from the capital by my own lack of interest as I was by sea from the isle of Tinian.*
Grimm, Diderot, d’Holbach, on the other hand, at the heart of the whirlpool, moved freely in the fashionable world and divided almost all its circles between them. When they acted together they could make themselves heard by everybody: great men, wits, men of letters, lawyers, and women. It must already be clear what an advantage that position gives to three men united against a fourth placed as I was. It is true that Diderot and d’Holbach were not – at least I cannot believe that they were – men to weave dark plots: Diderot had not the malice,* nor d’Holbach the brains; but that made them a more effective combination. Grimm alone formed a plan in his head, and revealed so much of it to the other two as they needed to see in order to play their part in its execution. The influence he had gained over them made this co-operation easy, and the total effect corresponded to the superiority of his talents.
It was thanks to this superiority of his talents that, seeing the advantage which he could derive from our respective positions, he formed the plan of utterly destroying my reputation, and endowing me with an entirely opposite one, yet without compromising himself. His first move was to raise all around me an atmosphere of darkness which I should be unable to penetrate, in order to throw light on his manoeuvrings and unmask him.
This enterprise was difficult. For it was necessary to hide its full iniquity from the eyes of those who were to take part in it. It was necessary to deceive decent people, to alienate everyone from me, and not to leave me a single friend, small or great. Indeed he must prevent so much as one word of truth from reaching me. If just one generous man had come to me and said: ‘You are behaving virtuously, but look how you are being treated, and this is the evidence on which you are being judged. What have you to say?’ Truth would have triumphed and Grimm would have been lost. He knew it; but he had sounded his own heart and did not rate men above their true value. I am sorry, for the honour of humanity, that his calculations were so accurate.
In these underground workings his steps had to be slow to be sure. He has been pursuing his plan for twelve years, and the most difficult part is still to do – to deceive the entire public. There are scill eyes who have watched him more closely than he thinks. He is afraid of this and dare not expose his machinations to the light.† But he has found a very simple way of bringing his power to bear, and that power has settled me. With this to support him, he is now advancing with less danger. Since the satellites of power generally set very little store by uprightness and even less by plain speaking, he has hardly anything to fear from any indiscretion by some honest man. What is most important to him is that I shall be surrounded by impenetrable darkness and that his machinations shall always be concealed from me. For he is well aware that however artfully he may have woven the skein it will never stand up to my gaze. His great skill lies in his appearing to humour me while all the time maligning me, and thus giving his perfidy the appearance of generosity.
I felt the first effects of this system through the secret accusations of the Holbach clique, although I could not possibly find out or even guess what the nature of these accusations was. Deleyre told me in his letters that I was being charged with disgraceful actions; and Diderot repeated the same thing in a more mysterious way. But when I entered into discussions with them both, the whole thing boiled down to the four heads of charges already noted. I felt a gradual cooling off in Mme d’Houdetot’s letters. I co
uld not attribute this chilliness to Saint-Lambert, who continued to write to me in as friendly a way as ever, and who even came to see me on his return. I could not attribute the cause to myself either, for we had parted on very good terms and, for my part, I had done absolutely nothing since then except leave the Hermitage, which she had herself considered a necessary step. Not knowing, therefore, what to make of this growing coolness, I was thoroughly upset. I knew that she was extremely careful to humour her sister-in-law and Grimm because of their relations with Saint-Lambert, and I was afraid of their machinations. These fears reopened my wounds, and made our correspondence so tempestuous that she grew tired of it. I glimpsed a thousand cruel possibilities, but could make nothing out distinctly. I was in the most unbearable position for a man whose imagination is easily set working. If I had been entirely isolated, if I had known nothing at all, I should have grown calmer. But my heart clung still to attachments which gave my enemies countless holds upon me; and the feeble rays that penetrated to my retreat served only to show me the darkness of the mysteries which were hidden from me.
These most cruel torments were too much for my free and open nature, which entirely prevents my concealing my own feelings, but at the same time makes me fear the worst from those which are concealed from me. Indeed I should have succumbed, I have no doubt, had not other matters arisen sufficiently interesting to stir my feelings and give them a healthy diversion from the subjects with which I was unwillingly obsessed. On his last visit to me at the Hermitage, Diderot had told me about the article on Geneva, which d’Alembert had put in the Encyclopaedia.