there agreeably whenever I chose it, out of the sphere of men of letters,
amongst whom Duclos, was the only friend I reckoned: for De Levre was
still too young, and although, after having been a witness to the
manoeuvres of the philosophical tribe against me, he had withdrawn from
it, at least I thought so, I could not yet forget the facility with which
he made himself the mouthpiece of all the people of that description.

In the first place I had my old and respectable friend Roguin. This was
a good old-fashioned friend for whom I was not indebted to my writings
but to myself, and whom for that reason I have always preserved. I had
the good Lenieps, my countryman, and his daughter, then alive, Madam
Lambert. I had a young Genevese, named Coindet, a good creature,
careful, officious, zealous, who came to see me soon after I had gone to
reside at the Hermitage, and, without any other introducer than himself,
had made his way into my good graces. He had a taste for drawing, and
was acquainted with artists. He was of service to me relative to the
engravings of the New Eloisa; he undertook the direction of the drawings
and the plates, and acquitted himself well of the commission.

I had free access to the house of M. Dupin, which, less brilliant than in
the young days of Madam Dupin, was still, by the merit of the heads of
the family, and the choice of company which assembled there, one of the
best houses in Paris. As I had not preferred anybody to them, and had
separated myself from their society to live free and independent, they
had always received me in a friendly manner, and I was always certain of
being well received by Madam Dupin. I might even have counted her
amongst my country neighbors after her establishment at Clichy, to which
place I sometimes went to pass a day or two, and where I should have been
more frequently had Madam Dupin and Madam de Chenonceaux been upon better
terms. But the difficulty of dividing my time in the same house between