been continued and
increased the bilious humor which the sight of public disorders had given
me; whilst seeing nothing around me in my retirement but gay and pleasing
objects, my heart was wholly abandoned to sentiments which were amiable.

I remark here with pleasure the course of the last peaceful moments that
were left me. The spring succeeding to this winter, which had been so
calm, developed the germ of the misfortunes I have yet to describe; in
the tissue of which, alike interval, wherein I had leisure to respite,
will not be found.

I think however, I recollect, that during this interval of peace, and in
the bosom of my solitude, I was not quite undisturbed by the Holbachiens.
Diderot stirred me up some strife, and I am much deceived if it was not
in the course of this winter that the 'Fils Naturel'--[Natural Son]--of
which I shall soon have occasion to speak, made its appearance.
Independently of the causes which left me but few papers relative to that
period, those even which I have been able to preserve are not very exact
with respect to dates. Diderot never dated his letters--Madam d'Epinay
and Madam d' Houdetot seldom dated theirs except the day of the week, and
De Leyre mostly confined himself to the same rules. When I was desirous
of putting these letters in order I was obliged to supply what was
wanting by guessing at dates, so uncertain that I cannot depend upon
them. Unable therefore to fix with certainty the beginning of these
quarrels, I prefer relating in one subsequent article everything I can
recollect concerning them.

The return of spring had increased my amorous delirium, and in my
melancholy, occasioned by the excess of my transports, I had composed for
the last parts of Eloisa several letters, wherein evident marks of the
rapture in which I wrote them are found. Amongst others I may quote
those from the Elysium, and the excursion upon the lake, which, if my
memory does not deceive me, are at the end of the fourth part. Whoever,
in reading these letters, does not feel his heart soften and melt into
the tenderness by which they were dictated, ought to lay down the book:
nature has refused him the means of judging of sentiment.

Precisely at the same time I received a second unforeseen visit from
Madam d'Houdetot, in the absence of her husband, who was captain of the
Gendarmarie, and of her lover, who was also in the service. She had come
to Eaubonne, in the middle of the Valley of Mont