de
Voltaire, I clearly saw how right the duke was in advising me to
read the letter myself before I showed it to my august protector. I
could not read it until the next day, and found it conceived in the
following terms:--
"MADAME LA COMTESSE:--I feel myself urged by an extreme desire
to have an explanation with you, after the receipt of a letter
which M. the duc d'Aiguillon wrote to me last year. This nobleman,
nephew of a gentleman, as celebrated for the name he bears as by
his own reputation, and who has been my friend for more than
sixty years, has communicated to me the pain which had been caused
you by a certain piece of poetry, of my writing as was stated,
and in which my style was recognised. Alas! madame, ever since
the most foolish desire in the world has excited me to commit a
great deal of idle trash to paper, not a month, a week, nay, even a
day passes in which I am not accused and convicted of some great
enormity; that is to say, the malicious author of all sorts of
turpitudes and extravagancies. Eh!
, the entire
life-time of ten men would not be sufficient to write all with
which I am charged, to my unutterable despair in this world, and
to my eternal damnation in that which is to come.
"It is no doubt, much to die in final impenitence; altho' hell may
contain all the honest men of antiquity and a great portion of those
of our times; and paradise would not be much to hope for if we
must find ourselves face to face with messieurs Freron, Nonatte,
Patouillet, Abraham Chauneix, and other saints cut out of the same
cloth.
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