They contained certain atrocious and false statements against my father, who so severely resented the calumny, that he seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin of the book, "The author has told a lie." Not content with this, he went to the bookseller, whom he discovered with some difficulty, for the book was not sold publicly at first.

He asked to see all the copies of the work, prayed, promised, threatened, and at last succeeded in obtaining them.

Then he took a pen and wrote in all of them the same marginal note.

The astonishment of the bookseller may be imagined.

He was not long in letting M.de la Rochefoucauld know what had happened to his books: it may well be believed that he also was astonished.