ce of all these
was what I had read the evening before my departure. I recollect, also,
the pastorals of Gessner, which his translator Hubert had sent me a
little time before. These two ideas occurred to me so strongly, and were
connected in such a manner in my mind, that I was determined to endeavor
to unite them by treating after the manner of Gessner, the subject of the
Levite of Ephraim. His pastoral and simple style appeared to me but
little fitted to so horrid a subject, and it was not to be presumed the
situation I was then in would furnish me with such ideas as would enliven
it. However, I attempted the thing, solely to amuse myself in my
cabriolet, and without the least hope of success. I had no sooner begun
than I was astonished at the liveliness of my ideas, and the facility
with which I expressed them. In three days I composed the first three
cantos of the little poem I finished at Motiers, and I am certain of not
having done anything in my life in which there is a more interesting
mildness of manners, a greater brilliancy of coloring, more simple
delineations, greater exactness of proportion, or more antique simplicity
in general, notwithstanding the horror of the subject which in itself is
abominable, so that besides every other merit I had still that of a
difficulty conquered. If the Levite of Ephraim be not the best of my
works, it will ever be that most esteemed. I have never read, nor shall
I ever read it again without feeling interiorly the applause of a heart
without acrimony, which, far from being embittered by misfortunes, is
susceptible of consolation in the midst of them, and finds within itself
a resource by which they are counterbalanced. Assemble the great
philosophers, so superior in their books to adversity which they do not
suffer, place them in a situation similar to mine, and, in the first
moments of the indignation of their injured honor, give them a like work
to compose, and it will be seen in what manner they will acquit
themselves of the task.

When I set of from Montmorency to go into Switzerland, I had resolved to
stop at Yverdon, at the house of my old friend Roguin, who had several
years before retired to that place, and had invited me to go and see him.
I was told Lyons was not the direct road, for which reason I avoided
going through it. But I was obliged to pass through Besancon, a
fortified town, and consequently subject to the same inconvenience. I
took it into my