I felt the first effects of this system by the secret accusations of the Coterie Holbachiens without its being possible for me to know in what the accusations consisted, or to form a probable conjecture as to the nature of them.  De Leyre informed me in his letters that heinous things were attributed to me.  Diderot more mysteriously told me the same thing, and when I came to an explanation with both, the whole was reduced to the heads of accusation of which I have already spoken.  I perceived a gradual increase of coolness in the letters from Madam d’Houdetot.  This I could not attribute to Saint Lambert; he continued to write to me with the same friendship, and came to see me after his return.  It was also impossible to think myself the cause of it, as we had separated well satisfied with each other, and nothing since that time had happened on my part, except my departure from the Hermitage, of which she felt the necessity.  Therefore, not knowing whence this coolness, which she refused to acknowledge, although my heart was not to be deceived, could proceed, I was uneasy upon every account.  I knew she greatly favored her sister-in-law and Grimm, in consequence of their connections with Saint Lambert; and I was afraid of their machinations.  This agitation opened my wounds, and rendered my correspondence so disagreeable as quite to disgust her with it.  I saw, as at a distance, a thousand cruel circumstances, without discovering anything distinctly.  I was in a situation the most insupportable to a man whose imagination is easily heated.  Had I been quite retired from the world, and known nothing of the matter I should have become more calm; but my heart still clung to attachments, by means of which my enemies had great advantages over me; and the feeble rays which penetrated my asylum conveyed to me nothing more than a knowledge of the blackness of the mysteries which were concealed from my eyes.

I should have sunk, I have not a doubt of it, under these torments, too cruel and insupportable to my open disposition, which, by the impossibility of concealing my sentiments, makes me fear everything from those concealed from me, if fortunately objects sufficiently interesting to my heart to divert it from others with which, in spite of myself, my imagination was filled, had not presented themselves.  In the last visit Diderot paid me, at the Hermitage, he had spoken of the article ‘Geneva’, which D’Alembert had inserted in the ‘Encyclopedie’; he had informed me that this article, concerted with people of the first consideration, had for object the establishment of a theatre at Geneva, that measures had been taken accordingly, and that the establishment would soon take place.  As Diderot seemed to think all this very proper, and did not doubt of the success of the measure, and as I had besides to speak to him upon too many other subjects to touch upon that article, I made him no answer:  but scandalized at these preparatives to corruption and licentiousness in my