As soon as the news or my having received an order to quit my asylum was
circulated, I received a great number of visits from the neighborhood,
and especially from the Bernois, who came with the most detestable
falsehood to flatter and soothe me, protesting that my persecutors had
seized the moment of the vacation of the senate to obtain and send me the
order, which, said they, had excited the indignation of the two hundred.
Some of these comforters came from the city of Bienne, a little free
state within that of Berne, and amongst others a young man of the name of
Wildremet whose family was of the first rank, and had the greatest credit
in that city. Wildremet strongly solicited me in the name of his
fellow-citizens to choose my retreat amongst them, assuring me that they
were anxiously desirous of it, and that they would think it an honor and
their duty to make me forget the persecutions I had suffered; that with
them I had nothing to fear from the influence of the Bernois, that
Bienne was a free city, governed by its own laws, and that the citizens
were unanimously resolved not to hearken to any solicitation which
should be unfavorable to me.

Wildremet perceiving all he could say to be ineffectual, brought to his
aid several other persons, as well from Bienne and the environs as from
Berne; even, and amongst others, the same Kirkeberguer, of whom I have
spoken, who, after my retreat to Switzerland had endeavored to obtain my
esteem, and by his talents and principles had interested me in his favor.
But I received much less expected and more weighty solicitations from M.
Barthes, secretary to the embassy from France, who came with Wildremet to
see me, exhorted me to accept his invitation, and surprised me by the
lively and tender concern he seemed to feel for my situation. I did not
know M. Barthes; however I perceived in what he said the warmth and zeal
of friendship, and that he had it at heart to persuade me to fix my