impatient to
make my escape and run to regain my groves. When ready to depart for the
enchanted world, I saw arrive wretched mortals who came to detain me upon
earth, I could neither conceal nor moderate my vexation; and no longer
master of myself, I gave them so uncivil a reception, that it might
justly be termed brutal. This tended to confirm my reputation as a
misanthrope, from the very cause which, could the world have read my
heart, should have acquired me one of a nature directly opposite.

In the midst of my exultation I was pulled down like a paper kite, and
restored to my proper place by means of a smart attack of my disorder.
I recurred to the only means that had before given me relief, and thus
made a truce with my angelic amours; for besides that it seldom happens
that a man is amorous when he suffers, my imagination, which is animated
in the country and beneath the shade of trees, languishes and becomes
extinguished in a chamber, and under the joists of a ceiling. I
frequently regretted that there existed no dryads; it would certainly
have been amongst these that I should have fixed my attachment.

Other domestic broils came at the same time to increase my chagrin.
Madam le Vasseur, while making me the finest compliments in the world,
alienated from me her daughter as much as she possibly could. I received
letters from my late neighborhood, informing me that the good old lady
had secretly contracted several debts in the name of Theresa, to whom
these became known, but of which she had never mentioned to me a word.
The debts to be paid hurt me much less than the secret that had been made
of them. How could she, for whom I had never had a secret, have one from
me? Is it possible to dissimulate with persons whom we love? The
'Coterie Holbachique', who found I never made a journey to Paris, began
seriously to be afraid I was happy and satisfied in the country, and
madman enough to reside there.

Hence the cabals by which attempts were made to recall me indirectly to
the city. Diderot, who did not immediately wish to show himself, began
by detaching from me De Leyre, whom I had brought acquainted with him,
and who received and transmitted to me the impressions Diderot chose to
give without suspecting to what end they were directed.

Everything seemed to concur in withdrawing me from my charming and mad
reverie. I was not recovered from the late attack I had when I received
the copy of the poem on the