e full of excellent
commentaries, which gave me an inclination to the mathematics. This book
remained among those of Madam de Warrens, and I have since lamented that
I did not preserve it. To these I added five or six memorials in
manuscript, and a printed one, composed by the famous Micheli Ducret, a
man of considerable talents, being both learned and enlightened, but too
much, perhaps, inclined to sedition, for which he was cruelly treated by
the magistrates of Geneva, and lately died in the fortress of Arberg,
where he had been confined many years, for being, as it was said,
concerned in the conspiracy of Berne.

This memorial was a judicious critique on the extensive but ridiculous
plan of fortification, which had been adopted at Geneva, though censured
by every person of judgment in the art, who was unacquainted with the
secret motives of the council, in the execution of this magnificent
enterprise. Monsieur de Micheli, who had been excluded from the
committee of fortification for having condemned this plan, thought that,
as a citizen, and a member of the two hundred, he might give his advice,
at large, and therefore, did so in this memorial, which he was imprudent
enough to have printed, though he never published it, having only those
copies struck off which were meant for the two hundred, and which were
all intercepted at the post-house by order of the Senate.

[The grand council of Geneva in December, 1728, pronounced this
paper highly disrespectful to the councils, and injurious to the
committee of fortification.]

I found this memorial among my uncle's papers, with the answer he had
been ordered to make to it, and took both. This was soon after I had
left my place at the survey, and I yet remained on good terms with the
Counsellor de Coccelli, who had the management of it. Some time after,
the director of the custom-house entreated me to stand godfather to his
child, with Madam Coccelli, who was to be godmother: proud of being
placed on such terms of equality with the counsellor, I wished to assume
importance, and show myself worthy of that honor.

Full of this idea, I thought I could do nothing better than show him
Micheli's memorial, which was really a scarce piece, and would prove I
was connected with people of consequence in Geneva, who were intrusted
with the secrets of the state, yet by a kind of reserve which I should
find it difficult to account for, I did not show him my uncle's