I returned to my closet with an increased pleasure, and, without constraint, gave that turn to my descriptions which most flattered my imagination.
At present my head and memory are become so weak as to render me almost incapable of every kind of application: my present undertaking is the result of constraint, and a heart full of sorrow.

I have nothing to treat of but misfortunes, treacheries, perfidies, and circumstances equally afflicting.

I would give the world, could I bury in the obscurity of time, every thing I have to say, and which, in spite of myself, I am obliged to relate.

I am, at the same time, under the necessity of being mysterious and subtle, of endeavoring to impose and of descending to things the most foreign to my nature.

The ceiling under which I write has eyes; the walls of my chamber have ears.