1792. memoirs of Ahbe Blanchet, 3 



his sentiments ; " I am impatient to ease my secret 

 pains in pouring them into yoUr heart : My health 

 gets worse and worse, and I am so horribly low that 

 life is become bitter to me ; such as I am, it is necef- 

 sary to suppbrt it ; but are others obliged to do it ? 

 I lose myself; I am always in my perplexities ; I 

 do not know how I fhall get out of them ; if religion 

 did not comfort me, I believe I ftiould go mad." 

 When one recollects that it is the author of ^o many 

 charming verses and tales who thus exprefses him- 

 self, that it is a man who was so much sought af- 

 ter, particularly for the sweetnefs 'of his temper, 

 and the good humour of his wit, one must admit 

 that the human heart will contain many contrari- 



ties. 



In order to avoid being carried away by different 

 pafsions, he proposed to himself a plan, conformable 

 to his principles, from which nothing could turn 

 him. He gave himself up intirely to the educating 

 young persons, and resolved, in spite of his aversion 

 to any kind of constraint, to do for others what had 

 .been done so generously for himself. He had not 

 'the trouble of hunting after pupils, they were before 

 liand with him. His old masters watched over him 

 without his knowledge ; the fathers Brumoy, Bou- 

 geant, Castel, and the ingenious Grefset, whom he 

 had loved more than the rest, had procured him a 

 sort of reputation. Besides M. Bouvart, who was 

 already celebrated, (for the first steps of this great 

 physician were those of a giant,) and M. de Gennes 

 who was a man of letters, as well as a famous advo- 

 cate, both countrymea a»d friends of the Abbt Elan.- 



