that I am replying very stiifly, very stupidly, to the details
into which your friendship and confidence made you enter ;
but what can I do ? Nothing comes to me ; my soul is a
desert, my head as empty as a lantern. All that I say, all
that I hear, is utterly indifferent to me ; I can say to-day, like
the man who was blamed ^for not killing himself, since he
was so detached from life, " I do not kill myself because it
is all the same to me whether I live or die." That is not
quite true with me, however, for I suffer, and death would be
a relief ; but I have no energy.
To compensate for the flatness and dryness of my letter of last night, it occurs to me to send you two little folios of Vol- taire and the " Eulogy on La Fontaine," which I have read with as much pleasure as I should have had in listening to them. Notice that I do not praise to exaggeration, therefore you are free to have your own opinion and to think detestable what I thought good. An edict is to be issued within a few days on the domestic commerce in grains ; it will state its causes : that is a new system, and it seems to me it will certainly please the multitude; but knaves and partisans will still find something to criticise.
It was said yesterday that the archbishopric of Cambrai would be given to Cardinal de Bernis and that the Due de La Eochefoucauld would go as ambassador to Eome. Perhaps the Abb^ de Véry may be first appointed, but only to get him made a cardinal and prepare the way for M. de La Rochefoucauld; that was the talk of yesterday at my fireside, and if I were to name to you the persons present you would see that if that news does not become true, it was at least not absurd. The Chevalier de Chastellux, whom I often see, but always on the run, has no
