this public, and dares not
lay his conspiracy open.

[Since this was written he has made the dangerous step with the
fullest and most inconceivable success. I am of opinion it was
Tronchin who inspired him with courage, and supplied him with the
means.]

But he has found the easy means of accompanying it with power, and this
power has the disposal of me. Thus supported he advances with less
danger. The agents of power piquing themselves but little on
uprightness, and still less on candor, he has no longer the indiscretion
of an honest man to fear. His safety is in my being enveloped in an
impenetrable obscurity, and in concealing from me his conspiracy, well
knowing that with whatever art he may have formed it, I could by a single
glance of the eye discover the whole. His great address consists in
appearing to favor whilst he defames me, and in giving to his perfidy an
air of generosity.

I felt the first effects of this system by the secret accusations of the
Coterie Holbachiens without its being possible for me to know in what the
accusations consisted, or to form a probable conjecture as to the nature
of them. De Leyre informed me in his letters that heinous things were
attributed to me. Diderot more mysteriously told me the same thing, and
when I came to an explanation with both, the whole was reduced to the
heads of accusation of which I have already spoken. I perceived a
gradual increase of coolness in the letters from Madam d'Houdetot. This
I could not attribute to Saint Lambert; he continued to write to me with
the same friendship, and came to see me after his return. It was also
impossible to think myself the cause of it, as we had separated well
satisfied with each other, and nothing since that time had happened on my
part, except my departure from the Hermitage, of which she felt the
necessity. Therefore, not knowing whence this coolness, which she
refused to acknowledge, although my heart was not to be deceived, could
proceed, I was uneasy upon every account. I knew she greatly favored her
sister-in-law and Grimm, in consequence of their connections with Saint
Lambert; and I was afraid of their machinations. This agitation opened
my wounds, and rendered my correspondence so disagreeable as quite to
disgust her with it. I saw, as at a distance, a thousand cruel
circumstances, without discovering anything distinctly. I was in a
situation the most insupportable to a man who