lively, affecting and lasting regrets; and the ravishing delirium of a
young heart, which I had just felt in all its force, and of which I
thought the season forever past for me. The tender remembrance of these
delightful circumstances made me shed tears over my faded youth and its
transports for ever lost to me. Ah! how many tears should I have shed
over their tardy and fatal return had I foreseen the evils I had yet to
suffer from them.

Before I left Paris, I enjoyed during the winter which preceded my
retreat, a pleasure after my own heart, and of which I tasted in all its
purity. Palissot, academician of Nancy, known by a few dramatic
compositions, had just had one of them performed at Luneville before the
King of Poland. He perhaps thought to make his court by representing in
his piece a man who had dared to enter into a literary dispute with the
king. Stanislaus, who was generous, and did not like satire, was filled
with indignation at the author's daring to be personal in his presence.
The Comte de Tressan, by order of the prince, wrote to M. d'Alembert, as
well as to myself, to inform me that it was the intention of his majesty
to have Palissot expelled his academy. My answer was a strong
solicitation in favor of Palissot, begging M. de Tressan to intercede
with the king in his behalf. His pardon was granted, and M. de Tressan,
when he communicated to me the information in the name of the monarch,
added that the whole of what had passed should be inserted in the
register of the academy. I replied that this was less granting a pardon
than perpetuating a punishment. At length, after repeated solicitations,
I obtained a promise, that nothing relative to the affair should be
inserted in the register, and that no public trace should remain of it.
The promise was accompanied, as well on the part of the king as on that
of M. de Tressan, with assurance of esteem and respect, with which I was
extremely flattered; and I felt on this occasion that the esteem of men