s manuscript fallen into his hands? That was a
question not easy to resolve, but by which I had the weakness to be
embarrassed. Although Voltaire was excessively honored by the letter,
as in fact, notwithstanding his rude proceedings, he would have had a
right to complain had I had it printed without his consent, I resolved to
write to him upon the subject. The second letter was as follows, to
which he returned no answer, and giving greater scope to his brutality,
he feigned to be irritated to fury.

MONTMORENCY, 17th June, 1760.

"I did not think, sir, I should ever have occasion to correspond with
you. But learning the letter I wrote to you in 1756 had been printed at
Berlin, I owe you an account of my conduct in that respect, and will
fulfil this duty with truth and simplicity.

"The letter having really been addressed to you was not intended to be
printed. I communicated the contents of it, on certain conditions, to
three persons, to whom the right of friendship did not permit me to
refuse anything of the kind, and whom the same rights still less
permitted to abuse my confidence by betraying their promise. These
persons are Madam de Chenonceaux, daughter-in-law to Madam Dupin, the
Comtesse d'Houdetot, and a German of the name of Grimm. Madam de
Chenonceaux was desirous the letter should be printed, and asked my
consent. I told her that depended upon yours. This was asked of you
which you refused, and the matter dropped.

"However, the Abbe Trublet, with whom I have not the least connection,
has just written to me from a motive of the most polite attention that
having received the papers of the journal of M. Formey, he found in them
this same letter with an advertisement, dated on the 23d of October,
1759, in which the editor states that he had a few weeks before found it
in the shops of the booksellers of Berlin, and, as it is one of those
loose sheets which shortly disappear, he thought proper to give it a
place in his journal.

"This, sir, is all I know of the matter. It is certain the letter had
not until lately been heard of at Paris. It is also as certain that the
copy, either in manuscript or print, fallen into the hands of M. de
Formey, could never have reached them except by your means (which is not
probable) or of those of one of the three persons I have mentioned.
Finally, it is well known the two ladies are incapable of such a perfidy.
I cannot, in my ret