I could scarcely recognize the same Grimm, who, to the house of the Prince de Saxe-Gotha, thought himself honored when I cast my eyes upon him.I had still more difficulty in reconciling this profound silence and insulting haughtiness with the tender friendship he possessed for me to those whom he knew to be real friends.It is true the only proofs he gave of it was pitying my wretched fortune, of which I did not complain; compassionating my sad fate, with which Iwas satisfied; and lamenting to see me obstinately refuse the benevolent services, he said, he wished to render me.Thus was it he artfully made the world admire his affectionate generosity, blame my ungrateful misanthropy, and insensibly accustomed people to imagine there was nothing more between a protector like him and a wretch like myself, than a connection founded upon benefactions on one part and obligations on the other, without once thinking of a friendship between equals.For my part, I have vainly sought to discover in what I was under an obligation to this new protector.I had lent him money, he had never lent me any; I had attended him in his illness, he scarcely came to see me in mine; I had given him all my friends, he never had given me any of his; I had said everything I could in his favor, and if ever he has spoken of me it has been less publicly and in another manner.He has never either rendered or offered me the least service of any kind.How, therefore, was he my Mecaenas? In what manner was I protected by him? This was incomprehensible to me, and still remains so.
It is true he was more or less arrogant with everybody, but I was the only person with whom he was brutally so.I remember Saint Lambert once ready to throw a plate at his head, upon his, in some measure, giving him the lie at table by vulgarly saying, "That is not true."With his naturally imperious manner he had the self-sufficiency of an upstart, and became ridiculous by being extravagantly impertinent.An intercourse with the great had so far intoxicated him that he gave himself airs which none but the contemptible part of them ever assume.He never called his lackey but by "Eh!" as if amongst the number of his servants my lord had not known which was in waiting.When he sent him to buy anything, he threw the money upon the ground instead of putting it into his hand.In short, entirely forgetting he was a man, he treated him with such shocking contempt, and so cruel a disdain in everything, that the poor lad, a very good creature, whom Madam d'Epinay had recommended, quitted his service without any other complaint than that of the impossibility of enduring such treatment.This was the La Fleur of this new presuming upstart.
All these things were nothing more than ridiculous, but quite opposite to my character, they contributed to render him suspicious to me.I could easily imagine that a man whose head was so much deranged could not have a heart well placed.He piqued himself upon nothing so much as upon sentiments.How could this agree with defects which are peculiar to little minds? How can the continued overflowings of a susceptible heart suffer it to be incessantly employed in so many little cares relative to the person? He who feels his heart inflamed with this celestial fire strives to diffuse it, and wishes to show what he internally is.He would wish to place his heart in his countenance, and thinks not of other paint for his cheeks.
I remember the summary of his morality which Madam d'Epinay had mentioned to me and adopted.This consisted in one single article;that the sole duty of man is to follow all the inclinations of his heart.This morality, when I heard it mentioned, gave me great matter of reflection, although I at first considered it solely as a play of wit.But I soon perceived it was a principle really the rule of his conduct, and of which I afterwards had, at my own expense, but too many convincing proofs.It is the interior doctrine Diderot has so frequently intimated to me, but which I never heard him explain.
I remember having several years before been frequently told that Grimm was false, that he had nothing more than the appearance of sentiment, and particularly that he did love me.I recollected several little anecdotes which I had heard of him by M.de Francueil and Madam de Chenonceaux, neither of whom esteemed him, and to whom he must have been known, as Madam de Chenonceaux was daughter to Madam de Rochechouart, the intimate friend of the late Comte de Friese, and that M.de Francueil, at that time very intimate with the Viscount de Polignac, had lived a good deal at the Palais-Royal precisely when Grimm began to introduce himself there.All Paris heard of his despair after the death of the Comte de Friese.It was necessary to support the reputation he had acquired after the rigors of Mademoiselle Fel, and of which I, more than any other person, should have seen the imposture, had I been less blind.He was obliged to be dragged to the Hotel de Castries where he worthily played his part, abandoned to the most mortal affliction.There, he every morning went into the garden to weep at his ease, holding before his eyes his handkerchief moistened with tears, as long as he was in sight of the hotel, but at the turning of a certain alley, people, of whom he little thought, saw him instantly put his handkerchief in his pocket and take out of it a book.This observation, which was repeatedly made, soon became public in Paris, and was almost as soon forgotten.Imyself had forgotten it; a circumstance in which I was concerned brought it to my recollection.I was at the point of death in my bed, in the Rue de Grenelle, Grimm was in the country; he came one morning, quite out of breath, to see me, saying, he had arrived in town that very instant; and a moment afterwards I learned he had arrived the evening before, and had been seen at the theater.