. 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.

The two letters of which I have just spoken will be found amongst my
papers. The letter from the chancellor did not absolutely surprise me,
because I agreed with him in opinion, and with many others, that the
declining constitution of France threatened an approaching destruction.
The disasters of an unsuccessful war, all of which proceeded from a fault
in the governm