Christmas Eve in Paris, 1776

​In the winter 1776, Manon Phlippon was 22. She lived alone with her father in Paris on the Quai de l'Horloge, - she had not yet met her husband, Jean-Marie Roland - and she spent much of her time writing in her room, letters or essays in political philosophy.
 
Late on Christmas eve, as the revellers were going home, she wrote a letter to her close friends, Henriette and Sophie Cannet.

Aristocratic supper.

​As my letter is dated one o'clock in the morning, you may imagine that I am enjoying the greatest calm. Not at all! The carriages are as loud as if they were possessed. The agitation, the racket reminds me of the crowds coming out of the theatre at night. All the Paris mistresses, the fashionable young men, the pretty friars, etc. have been to dine in town and are currently traveling home, livened up by champagne, a few verses and fine epigrams, and with all the enthusiasm of people flying to a secret meeting.
 
I came to my room at eleven and made an extract of an interesting work by a Genevan on the English Constitution, which is a curious monument for observant eyes. But right now I need to follow my libertine streak, which tells me to write with no object, beating around the bush, whimsically letting all my fantasies and mad ideas take the lead for a quarter of an hour. This small relaxation which friendship makes so delicious, will be good for my health. For the last few days, I have not been eating - I have forgotten how. Everything I take is sour or bitter, my eyes are heavy, my imagination ferments, I am enveloped by melancholy. Unless there is some sort of a revolution, I will be ill soon. I tried to stop myself from staying up late, but the more I give in to sleep, the more it demands. It is the releasing of effort that harms me. Work, concentration, the consuming zeal they produce, tighten the spring of my existence and ease the movement of the machine. My heart must be satisfied or my mind exercised - unfortunately, the former is often impossible.