This visit had something of the appearance of the beginning of a romance.She lost her way.Her coachman, quitting the road, which turned to the right, attempted to cross straight over from the mill of Clairveaux to the Hermitage: her carriage struck in a quagmire in the bottom of the valley, and she got out and walked the rest of the road.Her delicate shoes were soon worn through; she sank into the dirt, her servants had the greatest difficulty in extricating her, and she at length arrived at the Hermitage in boots, making the place resound with her laughter, in which I most heartily joined.She had to change everything.Theresa provided her with what was necessary, and Iprevailed upon her to forget her dignity and partake of a rustic coalition, with which she seemed highly satisfied.It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so mirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return.She did not however put this project into execution until the next year: but, alas! the delay was not favorable to me in anything.
I passed the autumn in an employment no person would suspect me of undertaking: this was guarding the fruit of M.d'Epinay.The Hermitage was the reservoir of the waters of the park of the Chevrette; there was a garden walled round and planted with espaliers and other trees, which produced M.d'Epinay more fruit than his kitchen-garden at the Chevrette, although three-fourths of it were stolen from him.
That I might not be a guest entirely useless, I took upon myself the direction of the garden and the inspection of the conduct of the gardener.Everything went on well until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it disappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of.The gardener assured me it was the dormice which ate it all.I destroyed a great number of these animals, notwithstanding which the fruit still diminished.I watched the gardener's motions so narrowly, that I found he was the great dormouse.He lodged at Montmorency, whence he came in the night with his wife and children to take away the fruit he had concealed in the daytime, and which he sold in the market at Paris as publicly as if he had brought it from a garden of his own.This wretch whom I loaded with kindness, whose children were clothed by Theresa, and whose father, who was a beggar, I almost supported, robbed us with as much ease as effrontery, not one of the three being sufficiently vigilant to prevent him: and one night he emptied my cellar.
Whilst he seemed to address himself to me only I suffered everything, but being desirous of giving an account of the fruit, Iwas obliged to declare by whom a great part of it had been stolen.
Madam d'Epinay desired me to pay and discharge him, and look out for another; I did so.As this rascal rambled about the Hermitage in the night, armed with a thick club staff with an iron ferrule, and accompanied by other villains like himself, to relieve the governesses from their fears, I made his successor sleep in the house with us; and this not being sufficient to remove their apprehensions, I sent to ask M.d'Epinay for a musket, which I kept in the chamber of the gardener, with a charge not to make use of it except an attempt was made to break open the door or scale the walls of the garden, and to fire nothing but powder, meaning only to frighten the thieves.This was certainly the least precaution a man indisposed could take for the common safety of himself and family, having to pass the winter in the midst of a wood, with two timid women.I also procured a little dog to serve as a sentinel.De Leyre coming to see me about this time, I related to him my situation, and we laughed together at my military apparatus.At his return to Paris he wished to amuse Diderot with the story, and by this means the Coterie d'Holbachique learned that I was seriously resolved to pass the winter at the Hermitage.This perseverance, of which they had not imagined me to be capable, disconcerted them, and, until they could think of some other means of making my residence disagreeable to me, they sent back, by means of Diderot, the same De Leyre, who, though at first he had thought my precautions quite natural, now pretended to discover that they were inconsistent with my principles, and styled them more than ridiculous in his letters, in which he overwhelmed me with pleasantries sufficiently bitter and satirical to offend me had I been the least disposed to take offense.But at that time being full of tender and affectionate sentiments, and not suspectible of any other, I perceived in his biting sarcasms nothing more than a jest, and believed him only jocose when others would have thought him mad.
By my care and vigilance I guarded the garden so well, that, although there had been but little fruit that year the produce was triple that of the preceding years; it is true, I spared no pains to preserve it, and I went so far as to escort what I sent to the Chevrette and to Epinay, and to carry baskets of it myself.The "aunt"and I carried one of these, which was so heavy that we were obliged to rest at every dozen steps, and when we arrived with it we were quite wet with perspiration.
As soon as the bad season began to confine me to the house, I wished to return to my indolent amusements, but this I found impossible.Ihad everywhere two charming female friends before my eyes, their friend, everything by which they were surrounded, the country they inhabited, and the objects created or embellished for them by my imagination.I was no longer myself for a moment, my delirium never left me.After many useless efforts to banish all fictions from my mind, they at length seduced me, and my future endeavors were confined to giving them order and coherence, for the purpose of converting them into a species of novel.
