although on my own account I might
be disinterested, I ought not to be so on that of Madam Vasseur and her
daughter; that it was my duty to seize every means of providing for their
subsistence; and that as, after all, it could not be said I had refused
the pension, he maintained I ought, since the king seemed disposed to
grant it to me, to solicit and obtain it by one means or another.
Although I was obliged to him for his good wishes, I could not relish his
maxims, which produced a warm dispute, the first I ever had with him.
All our disputes were of this kind, he prescribing to me what he
pretended I ought to do, and I defending myself because I was of a
different opinion.

It was late when we parted. I would have taken him to supper at Madam d'
Epinay's, but he refused to go; and, notwithstanding all the efforts
which at different times the desire of uniting those I love induced me to
make, to prevail upon him to see her, even that of conducting her to his
door which he kept shut against us, he constantly refused to do it, and
never spoke of her but with the utmost contempt. It was not until after
I had quarrelled with both that they became acquainted and that he began
to speak honorably of her.

From this time Diderot and Grimm seemed to have undertaken to alienate
from me the governesses, by giving them to understand that if they were
not in easy circumstances the fault was my own, and that they never would
be so with me. They endeavored to prevail on them to leave me, promising
them the privilege for retailing salt, a snuff shop, and I know not what
other advantages by means of the influence of Madam d' Epinay. They
likewise wished to gain over Duclos and d'Holback, but the former
constantly refused their proposals. I had at the time some intimation of
what was going forward, but I was not fully acquainted with the whole
until long afterwards; and I frequently had reason to lament the effects
of the blind and indiscreet zeal of my friends, who, in my ill state of
health, striving to reduce me to the most melancholy solitude,
endeavored, as they imagined, to render me happy by the means which, of
all others, were the most proper to make me miserable.

In the carnival following the conclusion of the year 1753, the Devin was
performed at Paris, and in this interval I had sufficient time to compose
the overture and divertissement. This divertissement, such as it stands
engraved, was to be in action from the be