project to take from me the governesses, had
used the greatest efforts to make Duclos enter into their views; but this
he refused to do with disdain. It was not until sometime afterwards that
I learned from him what had passed between them on the subject; but I
learned at the time from Theresa enough to perceive there was some secret
design, and that they wished to dispose of me, if not against my own
consent, at least without my knowledge, or had an intention of making
these two persons serve as instruments of some project they had in view.
This was far from upright conduct. The opposition of Duclos is a
convincing proof of it. They who think proper may believe it to be
friendship.

This pretended friendship was as fatal to me at home as it was abroad.
The long and frequent conversations with Madam le Vasseur, for, several
years past, had made a sensible change in this woman's behavior to me,
and the change was far from being in my favor. What was the subject of
these singular conversations? Why such a profound mystery? Was the
conversation of that old woman agreeable enough to take her into favor,
and of sufficient importance to make of it so great a secret? During the
two or three years these colloquies had, from time to time, been
continued, they had appeared to me ridiculous; but when I thought of them
again, they began to astonish me. This astonishment would have been
carried to inquietude had I then known what the old creature was
preparing for me.

Notwithstanding the pretended zeal for my welfare of which Grimm made
such a public boast, difficult to reconcile with the airs he gave himself
when we were together, I heard nothing of him from any quarter the least
to my advantage, and his feigned commiseration tended less to do me
service than to render me contemptible. He deprived me as much as he
possibly could of the resource I found in the employment I had chosen,
by decrying me as a bad copyist. I confess he spoke the truth; but in
this case it was not for him to do it. He proved himself in earnest by
employing another copyist, and prevailing upon everybody he could, by
whom I was engaged, to do the same. His intention might have been
supposed to be that of reducing me to a dependence upon him and his
credit for a subsistence, and to cut off the latter until I was brought
to that degree of distress.

All things considered, my reason imposed silence upon my former
prejudice, which still pleaded