, the dinner
was of great service to me, and I congratulated myself upon not having
refused the invitation. I not only discovered that the intrigues of
Grimm and the Holbachiens had not deprived me of my old acquaintance,
but, what flattered me still more, that Madam d'Houdetot and Saint
Lambert were less changed than I had imagined, and I at length understood
that his keeping her at a distance from me proceeded more from jealousy
than from disesteem.

[Such is the simplicity of my heart was my opinion when I wrote
these confessions.]

This was a consolation to me, and calmed my mind. Certain of not being
an object of contempt in the eyes of persons whom I esteemed, I worked
upon my own heart with greater courage and success. If I did not quite
extinguish in it a guilty and an unhappy passion, I at least so well
regulated the remains of it that they have never since that moment led
me into the most trifling error. The copies of Madam d' Houdetot, which
she prevailed upon me to take again, and my works, which I continued to
send her as soon as they appeared, produced me from her a few notes and
messages, indifferent but obliging. She did still more, as will
hereafter appear, and the reciprocal conduct of her lover and myself,
after our intercourse had ceased, may serve as an example of the manner
in which persons of honor separate when it is no longer agreeable to
them to associate with each other.

Another advantage this dinner procured me was its being spoken of in
Paris, where it served as a refutation of the rumor spread by my enemies,
that I had quarrelled with every person who partook of it, and especially
with M. d'Epinay. When I left the Hermitage I had written him a very
polite letter of thanks, to which he answered not less politely, and
mutual civilities had continued, as well between us as between me and M.
de la Lalive, his brother-in-law, who even came to see me at Montmorency,
and sent me some of his engravings. Excepting the two sisters-in-law of
Madam d'Houdetot, I have never been on bad terms with any person of the
family.

My letter to D'Alembert had great success. All my works had been very
well received, but this was more favorable to me. It taught the public
to guard against the insinuations of the Coterie Holbachique. When I
went to the Hermitage, this Coterie predicted with its usual sufficiency,
that I should not remain there three months. When I had stayed there
twenty m