"I will no longer continue the copies of Madam d'Houdetot.If it be not agreeable to her to keep that she has, she may send it me back and I will return her money.If she keeps it, she must still send for the rest of her paper and the money; and at the same time I beg she will return me the prospectus which she has in her possession.
Adieu, sir."
Courage under misfortune irritates the hearts of cowards, but it is pleasing to generous minds.This note seemed to make Saint Lambert reflect with himself and to regret his having been so violent;but too haughty in his turn to make open advances, he seized and perhaps prepared, the opportunity of palliating what he had done.
A fortnight afterwards I received from Madam d'Epinay the following letter (Packet B, No.10):
Thursday, 26th.
"SIR: I received the book you had the goodness to send me, and which I have read with much pleasure.I have always experienced the same sentiment in reading all the works which have come from your pen.
Receive my thanks for the whole.I should have returned you these in person had my affairs permitted me to remain any time in your neighborhood; but I was not this year long at the Chevrette.M.and Madam Dupin came here on Sunday to dinner.I expect M.de Saint Lambert, M.de Francueil, and Madam d'Houdetot will be of the party;you will do me much pleasure by ****** one also.All the persons who are to dine with me, desire, and will, as well as myself, be delighted to pass with you a part of the day.I have the honor to be with the most perfect consideration," etc.
This letter made my heart beat violently: after having for a year past been the subject of conversation of all Paris, the idea of presenting myself as a spectacle before Madam d'Houdetot, made me tremble, and I had much difficulty to find sufficient courage to support that ceremony.Yet as she and Saint Lambert were desirous of it, and Madam d'Epinay spoke in the name of her guests without naming one whom I should not be glad to see, I did not think Ishould expose myself accepting a dinner to which I was in some degree invited by all the persons who with myself were to partake of it.I therefore promised to go: on Sunday the weather was bad, and Madam d'Epinay sent me her carriage.
My arrival caused a sensation.I never met a better reception.An observer would have thought the whole company felt how much I stood in need of encouragement.None but French hearts are susceptible of this kind of delicacy.However, I found more people than I expected to see.Amongst others the Comte d'Houdetot, whom I did not know, and his sister Madam de Blainville, without whose company I should have been as well pleased.She had the year before come several times to Eaubonne, and her sister-in-law had left her in our solitary walks to wait until she thought proper to suffer her to join us.She had harbored a resentment against me, which during this dinner she gratified at her ease.The presence of the Comte d'Houdetot and Saint Lambert did not give me the laugh on my side, and it may be judged that a man embarrassed in the most common conversations was not very brilliant in that which then took place.I never suffered so much, appeared so awkward, or received more unexpected mortifications.
As soon as we had risen from table, I withdrew from that wicked woman;I had the pleasure of seeing Saint Lambert and Madam d'Houdetot approach me, and we conversed together a part of the afternoon, upon things very indifferent it is true, but with the same familiarity as before my involuntary error.This friendly attention was not lost upon my heart, and could Saint Lambert have read what passed there, he certainly would have been satisfied with it.I can safely assert that although on my arrival the presence of Madam d'Houdetot gave me the most violent palpitations, on returning from the house Iscarcely thought of her; my mind was entirely taken up with Saint Lambert.
Notwithstanding the malignant sarcasms of Madam de Blainville, the dinner was of great service to me, and I congratulated myself upon not having refused the invitation.I not only discovered that the intrigues of Grimm and the Holbachiens had not deprived me of my old acquaintance,* but, what flattered me still more, that Madam d'Houdetot and Saint Lambert were less changed than I had imagined, and I at length understood that his keeping her at a distance from me proceeded more from jealousy than from disesteem.This was a consolation to me, and calmed my mind.Certain of not being an object of contempt in the eyes of persons whom I esteemed, I worked upon my own heart with greater courage and success.If I did not quite extinguish in it a guilty and an unhappy passion, I at least so well regulated the remains of it that they have never since that moment led me into the most trifling error.The copies of Madam d'Houdetot, which she prevailed upon me to take again, and my works, which I continued to send her as soon as they appeared, produced me from her a few notes and messages, indifferent but obliging.She did still more, as will hereafter appear, and the reciprocal conduct of her lover and myself, after our intercourse had ceased may serve as an example of the manner in which persons of honor separate when it is no longer agreeable to them to associate with each other.
* Such in the simplicity of my heart was my opinion when I wrote these confessions.
Another advantage this dinner procured me was its being spoken of in Paris, where it served as a refutation of the rumor spread by my enemies, that I had quarreled with every person who partook of it, and especially with M.d'Epinay.When I left the Hermitage I had written him a very polite letter of thanks, to which he answered not less politely, and mutual civilities had continued, as well between us as between me and M.de la Lalive, his brother-in-law, who even came to see me at Montmorency, and sent me some of his engravings.Excepting the two sisters-in-law of Madam d'Houdetot, I have never been on bad terms with any person of the family.