Luxembourg can possibly have forgotten it appears to me very difficult,
and would still remain so, even were the subsequent events entirely
unknown. For my part, I fell into a deceitful security relative to the
effects of my stupid mistakes, by an internal evidence of my not having
taken any step with an intention to offend; as if a woman could ever
forgive what I had done, although she might be certain the will had not
the least part in the matter.

Although she seemed not to see or feel anything, and that I did not
immediately find either her warmth of friendship diminished or the least
change in her manner, the continuation and even increase of a too well
founded foreboding made me incessantly tremble, lest disgust should
succeed to infatuation. Was it possible for me to expect in a lady of
such high rank, a constancy proof against my want of address to support
it? I was unable to conceal from her this secret foreboding, which made
me uneasy, and rendered me still more disagreeable. This will be judged
of by the following letter, which contains a very singular prediction.

N. B. This letter, without date in my rough copy, was written in
October, 1760, at latest.

"How cruel is your goodness? Why disturb the peace of a solitary mortal
who had renounced the pleasures of life, that he might no longer suffer
the fatigues of them. I have passed my days in vainly searching for
solid attachments. I have not been able to form any in the ranks to
which I was equal; is it in yours that I ought to seek for them? Neither
ambition nor interest can tempt me: I am not vain, but little fearful; I
can resist everything except caresses. Why do you both attack me by a
weakness which I must overcome, because in the distance by which we are
separated, the over-flowings of susceptible hearts cannot bring mine near