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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book
+VIII., by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book VIII.
+
+Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2004 [EBook #3908]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUSSEAU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+(In 12 books)
+
+Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society
+
+London, 1903
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+
+At the end of the preceding book a pause was necessary.  With this begins
+the long chain of my misfortunes deduced from their origin.
+
+Having lived in the two most splendid houses in Paris, I had,
+notwithstanding my candor and modesty, made some acquaintance.  Among
+others at Dupin's, that of the young hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha, and
+of the Baron de Thun, his governor; at the house of M. de la Popliniere,
+that of M. Seguy, friend to the Baron de Thun, and known in the literary
+world by his beautiful edition of Rousseau.  The baron invited M. Seguy
+and myself to go and pass a day or two at Fontenai sous bois, where the
+prince had a house.  As I passed Vincennes, at the sight of the dungeon,
+my feelings were acute; the effect of which the baron perceived on my
+countenance.  At supper the prince mentioned the confinement of Diderot.
+The baron, to hear what I had to say, accused the prisoner of imprudence;
+and I showed not a little of the same in the impetuous manner in which I
+defended him.  This excess of zeal, inspired by the misfortune which had
+befallen my friend, was pardoned, and the conversation immediately
+changed.  There were present two Germans in the service of the prince.
+M. Klupssel, a man of great wit, his chaplain, and who afterwards, having
+supplanted the baron, became his governor.  The other was a young man
+named M. Grimm, who served him as a reader until he could obtain some
+place, and whose indifferent appearance sufficiently proved the pressing
+necessity he was under of immediately finding one.  From this very
+evening Klupssel and I began an acquaintance which soon led to
+friendship.  That with the Sieur Grimm did not make quite so rapid a
+progress; he made but few advances, and was far from having that haughty
+presumption which prosperity afterwards gave him.  The next day at
+dinner, the conversation turned upon music; he spoke well on the subject.
+I was transported with joy when I learned from him he could play an
+accompaniment on the harpsichord.  After dinner was over music was
+introduced, and we amused ourselves the rest of the afternoon on the
+harpischord of the prince.  Thus began that friendship which, at first,
+was so agreeable to me, afterwards so fatal, and of which I shall
+hereafter have so much to say.
+
+At my return to Paris, I learned the agreeable news that Diderot was
+released from the dungeon, and that he had on his parole the castle and
+park of Vincennes for a prison, with permission to see his friends.  How
+painful was it to me not to be able instantly to fly to him!  But I was
+detained two or three days at Madam Dupin's by indispensable business.
+After ages of impatience, I flew to the arms of my friend.  He was not
+alone: D' Alembert and the treasurer of the Sainte Chapelle were with
+him.  As I entered I saw nobody but himself, I made but one step, one
+cry; I riveted my face to his: I pressed him in my arms, without speaking
+to him, except by tears and sighs: I stifled him with my affection and
+joy.  The first thing he did, after quitting my arms, was to turn himself
+towards the ecclesiastic, and say: "You see, sir, how much I am beloved
+by my friends."  My emotion was so great, that it was then impossible for
+me to reflect upon this manner of turning it to advantage; but I have
+since thought that, had I been in the place of Diderot, the idea he
+manifested would not have been the first that would have occurred to me.
+
+I found him much affected by his imprisonment.  The dungeon had made a
+terrible impression upon his mind, and, although he was very agreeably
+situated in the castle, and at liberty to, walk where he pleased in the
+park, which was not inclosed even by a wall, he wanted the society of his
+friends to prevent him from yielding to melancholy.  As I was the person
+most concerned for his sufferings, I imagined I should also be the
+friend, the sight of whom would give him consolation; on which account,
+notwithstanding very pressing occupations, I went every two days at
+farthest, either alone, or accompanied by his wife, to pass the afternoon
+with him.
+
+The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive.  Vincennes is two
+leagues from Paris.  The state of my finances not permitting me to pay
+for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on foot,
+when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive the
+sooner.  The trees by the side of the road, always lopped, according to
+the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and exhausted by
+fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being unable to proceed
+any further.  I thought a book in my hand might make me moderate my pace.
+One day I took the Mercure de France, and as I walked and read, I came to
+the following question proposed by the academy of Dijon, for the premium
+of the ensuing year, 'Has the progress of sciences and arts contributed
+to corrupt or purify morals?'
+
+The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and became
+a different man.  Although I have a lively remembrance of the impression
+it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I communicated it
+to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him.  This is one of
+the singularities of my memory which merits to be remarked.  It serves me
+in proportion to my dependence upon it; the moment I have committed to
+paper that with which it was charged, it forsakes me, and I have no
+sooner written a thing than I had forgotten it entirely.  This
+singularity is the same with respect to music.  Before I learned the use
+of notes I knew a great number of songs; the moment I had made a
+sufficient progress to sing an air set to music, I could not recollect
+any one of them; and, at present, I much doubt whether I should be able
+entirely to go through one of those of which I was the most fond.  All I
+distinctly recollect upon this occasion is, that on my arrival at
+Vincennes, I was in an agitation which approached a delirium.  Diderot
+perceived it; I told him the cause, and read to him the prosopopoeia of
+Fabricius, written with a pencil under a tree.  He encouraged me to
+pursue my ideas, and to become a competitor for the premium.  I did so,
+and from that moment I was ruined.
+
+All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable effect
+of this moment of error.
+
+My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to the
+level of my ideas.  All my little passions were stifled by the enthusiasm
+of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most astonishing, this
+effervescence continued in my mind upwards of five years, to as great a
+degree perhaps as it has ever done in that of any other man.  I composed
+the discourse in a very singular manner, and in that style which I have
+always followed in my other works.  I dedicated to it the hours of the
+night in which sleep deserted me, I meditated in my bed with my eyes
+closed, and in my mind turned over and over again my periods with
+incredible labor and care; the moment they were finished to my
+satisfaction, I deposited them in my memory, until I had an opportunity
+of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and putting on my
+clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my pen I recollected
+but little of what I had composed.  I made Madam le Vasseur my secretary;
+I had lodged her with her daughter, and husband, nearer to myself; and
+she, to save me the expense of a servant, came every morning to make my
+fire, and to do such other little things as were necessary.  As soon as
+she arrived I dictated to her while in bed what I had composed in the
+night, and this method, which for a long time I observed, preserved me
+many things I should otherwise have forgotten.
+
+As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot.  He was
+satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he
+thought necessary to be made.
+
+However, this composition, full of force and fire, absolutely wants logic
+and order; of all the works I ever wrote, this is the weakest in
+reasoning, and the most devoid of number and harmony.  With whatever
+talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily learned.
+
+I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I think,
+to Grimm, with whom, after his going to live with the Comte de Vriese, I
+began to be upon the most intimate footing.  His harpsichord served as a
+rendezvous, and I passed with him at it all the moments I had to spare,
+in singing Italian airs, and barcaroles; sometimes without intermission,
+from morning till night, or rather from night until morning; and when I
+was not to be found at Madam Dupin's, everybody concluded I was with
+Grimm at his apartment, the public walk, or theatre.  I left off going to
+the Comedie Italienne, of which I was free, to go with him, and pay, to
+the Comedie Francoise, of which he was passionately fond.  In short, so
+powerful an attraction connected me with this young man, and I became so
+inseparable from him, that the poor aunt herself was rather neglected,
+that is, I saw her less frequently; for in no moment of my life has my
+attachment to her been diminished.
+
+This impossibility of dividing, in favor of my inclinations, the little
+time I had to myself, renewed more strongly than ever the desire I had
+long entertained of having but one home for Theresa and myself; but the
+embarrassment of her numerous family, and especially the want of money to
+purchase furniture, had hitherto withheld me from accomplishing it.  An
+opportunity to endeavor at it presented itself, and of this I took
+advantage.  M. de Francueil and Madam Dupin, clearly perceiving that
+eight or nine hundred livres a year were unequal to my wants, increased
+of their own accord, my salary to fifty guineas; and Madam Dupin, having
+heard I wished to furnish myself lodgings, assisted me with some articles
+for that purpose.  With this furniture and that Theresa already had, we
+made one common stock, and, having an apartment in the Hotel de
+Languedoc, Rue de Grevelle St, Honor, kept by very honest people, we
+arranged ourselves in the best manner we could, and lived there peaceably
+and agreeably during seven years, at the end of which I removed to go and
+live at the Hermitage.
+
+Theresa's father was a good old man, very mild in his disposition, and
+much afraid of his wife; for this reason he had given her the surname of
+Lieutenant Criminal, which Grimm, jocosely, afterwards transferred to the
+daughter.  Madam le Vasseur did not want sense, that is address; and
+pretended to the politeness and airs of the first circles; but she had a
+mysterious wheedling, which to me was insupportable, gave bad advice to
+her daughter, endeavored to make her dissemble with me, and separately,
+cajoled my friends at my expense, and that of each other; excepting these
+circumstances; she was a tolerably good mother, because she found her
+account in being so, and concealed the faults of her daughter to turn
+them to her own advantage.  This woman, who had so much of my care and
+attention, to whom I made so many little presents, and by whom I had it
+extremely at heart to make myself beloved, was, from the impossibility of
+my succeeding in this wish, the only cause of the uneasiness I suffered
+in my little establishment.  Except the effects of this cause I enjoyed,
+during these six or seven, years, the most perfect domestic happiness of
+which human weakness is capable.  The heart of my Theresa was that of an
+angel; our attachment increased with our intimacy, and we were more and
+more daily convinced how much we were made for each other.  Could our
+pleasures be described, their simplicity would cause laughter.  Our
+walks, tete-a-tete, on the outside of the city, where I magnificently
+spent eight or ten sous in each guinguette.--[Ale-house]--Our little
+suppers at my window, seated opposite to each other upon two little
+chairs, placed upon a trunk, which filled up the spare of the embrasure.
+In this situation the window served us as a table, we respired the fresh
+air, enjoyed the prospect of the environs and the people who passed; and,
+although upon the fourth story, looked down into the street as we ate.
+
+Who can describe, and how few can feel, the charms of these repasts,
+consisting of a quartern loaf, a few cherries, a morsel of cheese, and
+half-a-pint of wine which we drank between us?  Friendship, confidence,
+intimacy, sweetness of disposition, how delicious are your reasonings!
+We sometimes remained in this situation until midnight, and never thought
+of the hour, unless informed of it by the old lady.  But let us quit
+these details, which are either insipid or laughable; I have always said
+and felt that real enjoyment was not to be described.
+
+Much about the same time I indulged in one not so delicate, and the last
+of the kind with which I have to reproach myself.  I have observed that
+the minister Klupssel was an amiable man; my connections with him were
+almost as intimate as those I had with Grimm, and in the end became as
+familiar; Grimm and he sometimes eat at my apartment.  These repasts, a
+little more than simple, were enlivened by the witty and extravagant
+wantonness of expression of Klupssel, and the diverting Germanicisms of
+Grimm, who was not yet become a purist.
+
+Sensuality did not preside at our little orgies, but joy, which was
+preferable, reigned in them all, and we enjoyed ourselves so well
+together that we knew not how to separate.  Klupssel had furnished a
+lodging for a little girl, who, notwithstanding this, was at the service
+of anybody, because he could not support her entirely himself.  One
+evening as we were going into the coffee-house, we met him coming out to
+go and sup with her.  We rallied him; he revenged himself gallantly, by
+inviting us to the same supper, and there rallying us in our turn.  The
+poor young creature appeared to be of a good disposition, mild and little
+fitted to the way of life to which an old hag she had with her, prepared
+her in the best manner she could.  Wine and conversation enlivened us to
+such a degree that we forgot ourselves.  The amiable Klupssel was
+unwilling to do the honors of his table by halves, and we all three
+successively took a view of the next chamber, in company with his little
+friend, who knew not whether she should laugh or cry.  Grimm has always
+maintained that he never touched her; it was therefore to amuse himself
+with our impatience, that he remained so long in the other chamber, and
+if he abstained, there is not much probability of his having done so from
+scruple, because previous to his going to live with the Comte de Friese,
+he lodged with girls of the town in the same quarter of St. Roch.
+
+I left the Rue des Moineaux, where this girl lodged, as much ashamed as
+Saint Preux left the house in which he had become intoxicated, and when I
+wrote his story I well remembered my own.  Theresa perceived by some
+sign, and especially by my confusion, I had something with which I
+reproached myself; I relieved my mind by my free and immediate
+confession.  I did well, for the next day Grimm came in triumph to relate
+to her my crime with aggravation, and since that time he has never failed
+maliciously to recall it to her recollection; in this he was the more
+culpable, since I had freely and voluntarily given him my confidence, and
+had a right to expect he would not make me repent of it.  I never had a
+more convincing proof than on this occasion, of the goodness of my
+Theresa's heart; she was more shocked at the behavior of Grimm than at my
+infidelity, and I received nothing from her but tender reproaches, in
+which there was not the least appearance of anger.
+
+The simplicity of mind of this excellent girl was equal to her goodness
+of heart; and this is saying everything: but one instance of it, which is
+present to my recollection, is worthy of being related.  I had told her
+Klupssel was a minister, and chaplain to the prince of Saxe-Gotha.  A
+minister was to her so singular a man, that oddly confounding the most
+dissimilar ideas, she took it into her head to take Klupssel for the
+pope; I thought her mad the first time she told me when I came in, that
+the pope had called to see me.  I made her explain herself and lost not a
+moment in going to relate the story to Grimm and Klupssel, who amongst
+ourselves never lost the name of pope.  We gave to the girl in the Rue
+des Moineaux the name of Pope Joan.  Our laughter was incessant; it
+almost stifled us.  They, who in a letter which it hath pleased them to
+attribute to me, have made me say I never laughed but twice in my life,
+did not know me at this period, nor in my younger days; for if they had,
+the idea could never have entered into their heads.
+
+The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse; I learned
+it had gained the premium at Dijon.  This news awakened all the ideas
+which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
+fermentation of my heart of that first leaven of heroism and virtue which
+my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.  Nothing
+now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to
+fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior circumstances;
+although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation at first prevented
+me from conducting myself according to these principles, and from
+suddenly quarreling with the maxims of the age in which I lived, I from
+that moment took a decided resolution to do it.--[And of this I purposely
+delayed the execution, that irritated by contradiction f it might be
+rendered triumphant.]
+
+While I was philosophizing upon the duties of man, an event happened
+which made me better reflect upon my own.  Theresa became pregnant for
+the third time.  Too sincere with myself, too haughty in my mind to
+contradict my principles by my actions, I began to examine the
+destination of my children, and my connections with the mother, according
+to the laws of nature, justice, and reason, and those of that religion,
+pure, holy, and eternal, like its author, which men have polluted while
+they pretended to purify it, and which by their formularies they have
+reduced to a religion of words, since the difficulty of prescribing
+impossibilities is but trifling to those by whom they are not practised.
+
+If I deceived myself in my conclusions, nothing can be more astonishing
+than the security with which I depended upon them.  Were I one of those
+men unfortunately born deaf to the voice of nature, in whom no sentiment
+of justice or humanity ever took the least root, this obduracy would be
+natural.  But that warmth of heart, strong sensibility, and facility of
+forming attachments; the force with which they subdue me; my cruel
+sufferings when obliged to break them; the innate benevolence I cherished
+towards my fellow-creatures; the ardent love I bear to great virtues, to
+truth and justice, the horror in which I hold evil of every kind; the
+impossibility of hating, of injuring or wishing to injure anyone; the
+soft and lively emotion I feel at the sight of whatever is virtuous,
+generous and amiable; can these meet in the same mind with the depravity
+which without scruple treads under foot the most pleasing of all our
+duties?  No, I feel, and openly declare this to be impossible.  Never in
+his whole life could J. J.  be a man without sentiment or an unnatural
+father.  I may have been deceived, but it is impossible I should have
+lost the least of my feelings.  Were I to give my reasons, I should say
+too much; since they have seduced me, they would seduce many others.  I
+will not therefore expose those young persons by whom I may be read to
+the same danger.  I will satisfy myself by observing that my error was
+such, that in abandoning my children to public education for want of the
+means of bringing them up myself; in destining them to become workmen and
+peasants, rather than adventurers and fortune-hunters, I thought I acted
+like an honest citizen, and a good father, and considered myself as a
+member of the republic of Plato.  Since that time the regrets of my heart
+have more than once told me I was deceived; but my reason was so far from
+giving me the same intimation, that I have frequently returned thanks to
+Heaven for having by this means preserved them from the fate of their
+father, and that by which they were threatened the moment I should have
+been under the necessity of leaving them.  Had I left them to Madam
+d'Upinay, or Madam de Luxembourg, who, from friendship, generosity, or
+some other motive, offered to take care of them in due time, would they
+have been more happy, better brought up, or honester men?  To this I
+cannot answer; but I am certain they would have been taught to hate and
+perhaps betray their parents: it is much better that they have never
+known them.
+
+My third child was therefore carried to the foundling hospital as well as
+the two former, and the next two were disposed of in the same manner; for
+I have had five children in all.  This arrangement seemed to me to be so
+good, reasonable and lawful, that if I did not publicly boast of it, the
+motive by which I was withheld was merely my regard for their mother: but
+I mentioned it to all those to whom I had declared our connection, to
+Diderot, to Grimm, afterwards to M. d'Epinay, and after another interval
+to Madam de Luxembourg; and this freely and voluntarily, without being
+under the least necessity of doing it, having it in my power to conceal
+the step from all the world; for La Gouin was an honest woman, very
+discreet, and a person on whom I had the greatest reliance.  The only one
+of my friends to whom it was in some measure my interest to open myself,
+was Thierry the physician, who had the care of my poor aunt in one of her
+lyings in, in which she was very ill.  In a word, there was no mystery in
+my conduct, not only on account of my never having concealed anything
+from my friends, but because I never found any harm in it.  Everything
+considered, I chose the best destination for my children, or that which I
+thought to be such.  I could have wished, and still should be glad, had I
+been brought up as they have been.
+
+Whilst I was thus communicating what I had done, Madam. le Vasseur did
+the same thing amongst her acquaintance, but with less disinterested
+views.  I introduced her and her daughter to Madam Dupin, who, from
+friendship to me, showed them the greatest kindness.  The mother confided
+to her the secret of the daughter.  Madam Dupin, who is generous and
+kind, and to whom she never told how attentive I was to her,
+notwithstanding my moderate resources, in providing for everything,
+provided on her part for what was necessary, with a liberality which, by
+order of her mother, the daughter concealed from me during my residence
+in Paris, nor ever mentioned it until we were at the Hermitage, when she
+informed me of it, after having disclosed to me several other secrets of
+her heart.  I did not know Madam Dupin, who never took the least notice
+to me of the matter, was so well informed: I know not yet whether Madam
+de Chenonceaux, her daughter-in-law, was as much in the secret: but Madam
+de Brancueil knew the whole and could not refrain from prattling.  She
+spoke of it to me the following year, after I had left her house.  This
+induced me to write her a letter upon the subject, which will be found in
+my collections, and wherein I gave such of my reasons as I could make
+public, without exposing Madam le Vasseur and her family; the most
+determinative of them came from that quarter, and these I kept profoundly
+secret.
+
+I can rely upon the discretion of Madam Dupin, and the friendship of
+Madam de Chenonceaux; I had the same dependence upon that of Madam de
+Francuiel, who, however, was long dead before my secret made its way into
+the world.  This it could never have done except by means of the persons
+to whom I intrusted it, nor did it until after my rupture with them.  By
+this single fact they are judged; without exculpating myself from the
+blame I deserve, I prefer it to that resulting from their malignity.  My
+fault is great, but it was an error.  I have neglected my duty, but the
+desire of doing an injury never entered my heart; and the feelings of a
+father were never more eloquent in favor of children whom he never saw.
+But: betraying the confidence of friendship, violating the most sacred of
+all engagements, publishing secrets confided to us, and wantonly
+dishonoring the friend we have deceived, and who in detaching himself
+from our society still respects us, are not faults, but baseness of mind,
+and the last degree of heinousness.
+
+I have promised my confession and not my justification; on which account
+I shall stop here.  It is my duty faithfully to relate the truth, that of
+the reader to be just; more than this I never shall require of him.
+
+The marriage of M. de Chenonceaux rendered his mother's house still more
+agreeable to me, by the wit and merit of the new bride, a very amiable
+young person, who seemed to distinguish me amongst the scribes of M.
+Dupin.  She was the only daughter of the Viscountess de Rochechouart, a
+great friend of the Comte de Friese, and consequently of Grimm's who was
+very attentive to her.  However, it was I who introduced him to her
+daughter; but their characters not suiting each other, this connection
+was not of long duration; and Grimm, who from that time aimed at what was
+solid, preferred the mother, a woman of the world, to the daughter who
+wished for steady friends, such as were agreeable to her, without
+troubling her head about the least intrigue, or making any interest
+amongst the great.  Madam Dupin no longer finding in Madam de Chenonceaux
+all the docility she expected, made her house very disagreeable to her,
+and Madam de Chenonceaux, having a great opinion of her own merit, and,
+perhaps, of her birth, chose rather to give up the pleasures of society,
+and remain almost alone in her apartment, than to submit to a yoke she
+was not disposed to bear.  This species of exile increased my attachment
+to her, by that natural inclination which excites me to approach the
+wretched, I found her mind metaphysical and reflective, although at times
+a little sophistical; her conversation, which was by no means that of a
+young woman coming from a convent, had for me the greatest attractions;
+yet she was not twenty years of age.  Her complexion was seducingly fair;
+her figure would have been majestic had she held herself more upright.
+Her hair, which was fair, bordering upon ash color, and uncommonly
+beautiful, called to my recollection that of my poor mamma in the flower
+of her age, and strongly agitated my heart.  But the severe principles I
+had just laid down for myself, by which at all events I was determined to
+be guided, secured me from the danger of her and her charms.  During the
+whole summer I passed three or four hours a day in a tete-a-tete
+conversation with her, teaching her arithmetic, and fatiguing her with my
+innumerable ciphers, without uttering a single word of gallantry, or even
+once glancing my eyes upon her.  Five or six years later I should not
+have had so much wisdom or folly; but it was decreed I was never to love
+but once in my life, and that another person was to have the first and
+last sighs of my heart.
+
+Since I had lived in the house of Madam Dupin, I had always been
+satisfied with my situation, without showing the least sign of a desire
+to improve it.  The addition which, in conjunction with M. de Francueil,
+she had made to my salary, was entirely of their own accord.  This year
+M. de Francueil, whose friendship for me daily increased, had it in his
+thoughts to place me more at ease, and in a less precarious situation.
+He was receiver-general of finance.  M. Dudoyer, his cash-keeper, was old
+and rich, and wished to retire.  M. de Francueil offered me his place,
+and to prepare myself for it, I went during a few weeks, to Dudoyer, to
+take the necessary instructions.  But whether my talents were ill-suited
+to the employment, or that M. Dudoyer, who I thought wished to procure
+his place for another, was not in earnest in the instructions he gave me,
+I acquired by slow degrees, and very imperfectly, the knowledge I was in
+want of, and could never understand the nature of accounts, rendered
+intricate, perhaps designedly.  However, without having possessed myself
+of the whole scope of the business, I learned enough of the method to
+pursue it without the least difficulty; I even entered on my new office;
+I kept the cashbook and the cash; I paid and received money, took and
+gave receipts; and although this business was so ill suited to my
+inclinations as to my abilities, maturity of years beginning to render me
+sedate, I was determined to conquer my disgust, and entirely devote
+myself to my new employment.
+
+Unfortunately for me, I had no sooner begun to proceed without
+difficulty, than M. de Francueil took a little journey, during which I
+remained intrusted with the cash, which, at that time, did not amount to
+more than twenty-five to thirty thousand livres.  The anxiety of mind
+this sum of money occasioned me, made me perceive I was very unfit to be
+a cash-keeper, and I have no doubt but my uneasy situation, during his
+absence, contributed to the illness with which I was seized after his
+return.
+
+I have observed in my first part that I was born in a dying state.  A
+defect in the bladder caused me, during my early years, to suffer an
+almost continual retention of urine, and my Aunt Susan, to whose care I
+was intrusted, had inconceivable difficulty in preserving me.  However,
+she succeeded, and my robust constitution at length got the better of all
+my weakness, and my health became so well established that except the
+illness from languor, of which I have given an account, and frequent
+heats in the bladder which the least heating of the blood rendered
+troublesome, I arrived at the age of thirty almost without feeling my
+original infirmity.  The first time this happened was upon my arrival at
+Venice.  The fatigue of the voyage, and the extreme heat I had suffered,
+renewed the burnings, and gave me a pain in the loins, which continued
+until the beginning of winter.  After having seen padoana, I thought
+myself near the end of my career, but I suffered not the least
+inconvenience.  After exhausting my imagination more than my body for my
+Zulietta, I enjoyed better health than ever.  It was not until after the
+imprisonment of Diderot that the heat of blood, brought on by my journeys
+to Vincennes during the terrible heat of that summer, gave me a violent
+nephritic colic, since which I have never recovered my primitive good
+state of health.
+
+At the time of which I speak, having perhaps fatigued myself too much in
+the filthy work of the cursed receiver-general's office, I fell into a
+worse state than ever, and remained five or six weeks in my bed in the
+most melancholy state imaginable.  Madam Dupin sent me the celebrated
+Morand who, notwithstanding his address and the delicacy of his touch,
+made me suffer the greatest torments.  He advised me to have recourse to
+Daran, who, in fact gave me some relief: but Morand, when he gave Madam
+Dupin an account of the state I was in, declared to her I should not be
+alive in six months.  This afterwards came to my ear, and made me reflect
+seriously on my situation and the folly of sacrificing the repose of the
+few days I had to live to the slavery of an employment for which I felt
+nothing but disgust.  Besides, how was it possible to reconcile the
+severe principles I had just adopted to a situation with which they had
+so little relation?  Should not I, the cash-keeper of a receiver-general
+of finances, have preached poverty and disinterestedness with a very ill
+grace?  These ideas fermented so powerfully in my mind with the fever,
+and were so strongly impressed, that from that time nothing could remove
+them; and, during my convalescence, I confirmed myself with the greatest
+coolness in the resolutions I had taken during my delirium.  I forever
+abandoned all projects of fortune and advancement, resolved to pass in
+independence and poverty the little time I had to exist.  I made every
+effort of which my mind was capable to break the fetters of prejudice,
+and courageously to do everything that was right without giving myself
+the least concern about the judgment of others.  The obstacles I had to
+combat, and the efforts I made to triumph over them, are inconceivable.
+I succeeded as much as it was possible I should, and to a greater degree
+than I myself had hoped for.  Had I at the same time shaken off the yoke
+of friendship as well as that of prejudice, my design would have been
+accomplished, perhaps the greatest, at least the most useful one to
+virtue, that mortal ever conceived; but whilst I despised the foolish
+judgments of the vulgar tribe called great and wise, I suffered myself to
+be influenced and led by persons who called themselves my friends.
+These, hurt at seeing me walk alone in a new path, while I seemed to take
+measures for my happiness, used all their endeavors to render me
+ridiculous, and that they might afterwards defame me, first strove to
+make me contemptible.  It was less my literary fame than my personal
+reformation, of which I here state the period, that drew upon me their
+jealousy; they perhaps might have pardoned me for having distinguished
+myself in the art of writing; but they could never forgive my setting
+them, by my conduct, an example, which, in their eyes, seemed to reflect
+on themselves.  I was born for friendship; my mind and easy disposition
+nourished it without difficulty.  As long as I lived unknown to the
+public I was beloved by all my private acquaintance, and I had not a
+single enemy.  But the moment I acquired literary fame, I had no longer a
+friend.  This, was a great misfortune; but a still greater was that of
+being surrounded by people who called themselves my friends, and used the
+rights attached to that sacred name to lead me on to destruction.  The
+succeeding part of these memoirs will explain this odious conspiracy.  I
+here speak of its origin, and the manner of the first intrigue will
+shortly appear.
+
+In the independence in which I lived, it was, however, necessary to
+subsist.  To this effect I thought of very simple means: which were
+copying music at so much a page.  If any employment more solid would have
+fulfilled the same end I would have taken it up; but this occupation
+being to my taste, and the only one which, without personal attendance,
+could procure me daily bread, I adopted it.  Thinking I had no longer
+need of foresight, and, stifling the vanity of cash-keeper to a
+financier, I made myself a copyist of music.  I thought I had made an
+advantageous choice, and of this I so little repented, that I never
+quitted my new profession until I was forced to do it, after taking a
+fixed resolution to return to it as soon as possible.
+
+The success of my first discourse rendered the execution of this
+resolution more easy.  As soon as it had gained the premium, Diderot
+undertook to get it printed.  Whilst I was in my bed, he wrote me a note
+informing me of the publication and effect: "It takes," said he, "beyond
+all imagination; never was there an instance of alike success."
+
+This favor of the public, by no means solicited, and to an unknown
+author, gave me the first real assurance of my talents, of which,
+notwithstanding an internal sentiment, I had always had my doubts.  I
+conceived the great advantage to be drawn from it in favor of the way of
+life I had determined to pursue; and was of opinion, that a copyist of
+some celebrity in the republic of letters was not likely to want
+employment.
+
+The moment my resolution was confirmed, I wrote a note to M, de
+Francueil, communicating to him my intentions, thanking him and Madam
+Dupin for all goodness, and offering them my services in the way of my
+new profession.  Francueil did not understand my note, and, thinking I
+was still in the delirium of fever, hastened to my apartment; but he
+found me so determined, that all he could say to me was without the least
+effect.  He went to Madam Dupin, and told her and everybody he met, that
+I had become insane.  I let him say what he pleased, and pursued the plan
+I had conceived.  I began the change in my dress; I quitted laced clothes
+and white stockings; I put on a round wig, laid aside my sword, and sold
+my watch; saying to myself, with inexpressible pleasure: "Thank Heaven!
+I shall no longer want to know the hour!"  M. de Francueil had the
+goodness to wait a considerable time before he disposed of my place.  At
+length perceiving me inflexibly resolved, he gave it to M. d'Alibard,
+formerly tutor to the young Chenonceaux, and known as a botanist by his
+Flora Parisiensis.
+
+     [I doubt not but these circumstances are now differently related by
+     M. Francueil and his consorts: but I appeal to what he said of them
+     at the time and long afterwards, to everybody he knew, until the
+     forming of the conspiracy, and of which men of common sense and
+     honor, must have preserved a remembrance.]
+
+However austere my sumptuary reform might be, I did not at first extend
+it to my linen, which was fine and in great quantity, the remainder of my
+stock when at Venice, and to which I was particularly attached.  I had
+made it so much an object of cleanliness, that it became one of luxury,
+which was rather expensive.  Some persons, however, did me the favor to
+deliver me from this servitude.  On Christmas Eve, whilst the governesses
+were at vespers, and I was at the spiritual concert, the door of a
+garret, in which all our linen was hung up after being washed, was broken
+open.  Everything was stolen; and amongst other things, forty-two of my
+shirts, of very fine linen, and which were the principal part of my
+stock.  By the manner in which the neighbors described a man whom they
+had seen come out of the hotel with several parcels whilst we were all
+absent, Theresa and myself suspected her brother, whom we knew to be a
+worthless man.  The mother strongly endeavored to remove this suspicion,
+but so many circumstances concurred to prove it to be well founded, that,
+notwithstanding all she could say, our opinions remained still the same:
+I dared not make a strict search for fear of finding more than I wished
+to do.  The brother never returned to the place where I lived, and, at
+length, was no more heard of by any of us.  I was much grieved Theresa
+and myself should be connected with such a family, and I exhorted her
+more than ever to shake off so dangerous a yoke.  This adventure cured me
+of my inclination for fine linen, and since that time all I have had has
+been very common, and more suitable to the rest of my dress.
+
+Having thus completed the change of that which related to my person, all
+my cares tendered to render it solid and lasting, by striving to root out
+from my heart everything susceptible of receiving an impression from the
+judgment of men, or which, from the fear of blame, might turn me aside
+from anything good and reasonable in itself.  In consequence of the
+success of my work, my resolution made some noise in the world also,
+and procured me employment; so that I began my new profession with great
+appearance of success.  However, several causes prevented me from
+succeeding in it to the same degree I should under any other
+circumstances have done.  In the first place my ill state of health.
+The attack I had just had, brought on consequences which prevented my
+ever being so well as I was before; and I am of opinion, the physicians,
+to whose care I intrusted myself, did me as much harm as my illness.
+I was successively under the hands of Morand, Daran, Helvetius, Malouin,
+and Thyerri: men able in their profession, and all of them my friends,
+who treated me each according to his own manner, without giving me the
+least relief, and weakened me considerably.  The more I submitted to
+their direction, the yellower, thinner, and weaker I became.  My
+imagination, which they terrified, judging of my situation by the effect
+of their drugs, presented to me, on this side of the tomb, nothing but
+continued sufferings from the gravel, stone, and retention of urine.
+Everything which gave relief to others, ptisans, baths, and bleeding,
+increased my tortures.  Perceiving the bougees of Daran, the only ones
+that had any favorable effect, and without which I thought I could no
+longer exist, to give me a momentary relief, I procured a prodigious
+number of them, that, in case of Daran's death, I might never be at a
+loss.  During the eight or ten years in which I made such frequent use of
+these, they must, with what I had left, have cost me fifty louis.
+
+It will easily be judged, that such expensive and painful means did not
+permit me to work without interruption; and that a dying man is not
+ardently industrious in the business by which he gains his daily bread.
+
+Literary occupations caused another interruption not less prejudicial to
+my daily employment.  My discourse had no sooner appeared than the
+defenders of letters fell upon me as if they had agreed with each to do
+it.  My indignation was so raised at seeing so many blockheads, who did
+not understand the question, attempt to decide upon it imperiously, that
+in my answer I gave some of them the worst of it.  One M. Gautier, of
+Nancy, the first who fell under the lash of my pen, was very roughly
+treated in a letter to M. Grimm.  The second was King Stanislaus,
+himself, who did not disdain to enter the lists with me.  The honor he
+did me, obliged me to change my manner in combating his opinions; I made
+use of a graver style, but not less nervous; and without failing in
+respect to the author, I completely refuted his work.  I knew a Jesuit,
+Father de Menou, had been concerned in it.  I depended on my judgment to
+distinguish what was written by the prince, from the production of the
+monk, and falling without mercy upon all the jesuitical phrases, I
+remarked, as I went along, an anachronism which I thought could come from
+nobody but the priest.  This composition, which, for what reason I knew
+not, has been less spoken of than any of my other writings, is the only
+one of its kind.  I seized the opportunity which offered of showing to
+the public in what manner an individual may defend the cause of truth
+even against a sovereign.  It is difficult to adopt a more dignified and
+respectful manner than that in which I answered him.  I had the happiness
+to have to do with an adversary to whom, without adulation, I could show
+every mark of the esteem of which my heart was full; and this I did with
+success and a proper dignity.  My friends, concerned for my safety,
+imagined they already saw me in the Bastile.  This apprehension never
+once entered my head, and I was right in not being afraid.  The good
+prince, after reading my answer, said: "I have enough of at; I will not
+return to the charge."  I have, since that time received from him
+different marks of esteem and benevolence, some of which I shall have
+occasion to speak of; and what I had written was read in France, and
+throughout Europe, without meeting the least censure.
+
+In a little time I had another adversary whom I had not expected; this
+was the same M. Bordes, of Lyons, who ten years before had shown me much
+friendship, and from whom I had received several services.  I had not
+forgotten him, but had neglected him from idleness, and had not sent him
+my writings for want of an opportunity, without seeking for it, to get
+them conveyed to his hands.  I was therefore in the wrong, and he
+attacked me; this, however, he did politely, and I answered in the same
+manner.  He replied more decidedly.  This produced my last answer; after
+which I heard no more from him upon the subject; but he became my most
+violent enemy, took the advantage of the time of my misfortunes, to
+publish against me the most indecent libels, and made a journey to London
+on purpose to do me an injury.
+
+All this controversy employed me a good deal, and caused me a great loss
+of my time in my copying, without much contributing to the progress of
+truth, or the good of my purse.  Pissot, at that time my bookseller, gave
+me but little for my pamphlets, frequently nothing at all, and I never
+received a farthing for my first discourse.  Diderot gave it him.  I was
+obliged to wait a long time for the little he gave me, and to take it
+from him in the most trifling sums.  Notwithstanding this, my copying
+went on but slowly.  I had two things together upon my hands, which was
+the most likely means of doing them both ill.
+
+They were very opposite to each other in their effects by the different
+manners of living to which they rendered me subject.  The success of my
+first writings had given me celebrity.  My new situation excited
+curiosity.  Everybody wished to know that whimsical man who sought not
+the acquaintance of any one, and whose only desire was to live free and
+happy in the manner he had chosen; this was sufficient to make the thing
+impossible to me.  My apartment was continually full of people, who,
+under different pretences, came to take up my time.  The women employed a
+thousand artifices to engage me to dinner.  The more unpolite I was with
+people, the more obstinate they became.  I could not refuse everybody.
+While I made myself a thousand enemies by my refusals, I was incessantly
+a slave to my complaisance, and, in whatever manner I made my
+engagements, I had not an hour in a day to myself.
+
+I then perceived it was not so easy to be poor and independent, as I had
+imagined.  I wished to live by my profession: the public would not suffer
+me to do it.  A thousand means were thought of to indemnify me for the
+time I lost.  The next thing would have been showing myself like Punch,
+at so much each person.  I knew no dependence more cruel and degrading
+than this.  I saw no other method of putting an end to it than refusing
+all kinds of presents, great and small, let them come from whom they
+would.  This had no other effect than to increase the number of givers,
+who wished to have the honor of overcoming my resistance, and to force
+me, in spite of myself, to be under an obligation to them.
+
+Many, who would not have given me half-a-crown had I asked it from them,
+incessantly importuned me with their offers, and, in revenge for my
+refusal, taxed me with arrogance and ostentation.
+
+It will naturally be conceived that the resolutions I had taken, and the
+system I wished to follow, were not agreeable to Madam le Vasseur.  All
+the disinterestedness of the daughter did not prevent her from following
+the directions of her mother; and the governesses, as Gauffecourt called
+them, were not always so steady in their refusals as I was.  Although
+many things were concealed from me, I perceived so many as were necessary
+to enable me to judge that I did not see all, and this tormented me less
+by the accusation of connivance, which it was so easy for me to foresee,
+than by the cruel idea of never being master in my own apartments, nor
+even of my own person.  I prayed, conjured, and became angry, all to no
+purpose; the mother made me pass for an eternal grumbler, and a man who
+was peevish and ungovernable.  She held perpetual whisperings with my
+friends; everything in my little family was mysterious and a secret to
+me; and, that I might not incessantly expose myself to noisy quarrelling,
+I no longer dared to take notice of what passed in it.  A firmness of
+which I was not capable, would have been necessary to withdraw me from
+this domestic strife.  I knew how to complain, but not how to act: they
+suffered me to say what I pleased, and continued to act as they thought
+proper.
+
+This constant teasing, and the daily importunities to which I was
+subject, rendered the house, and my residence at Paris, disagreeable to
+me.  When my indisposition permitted me to go out, and I did not suffer
+myself to be led by my acquaintance first to one place and then to
+another, I took a walk, alone, and reflected on my grand system,
+something of which I committed to paper, bound up between two covers,
+which, with a pencil, I always had in my pocket.  In this manner, the
+unforeseen disagreeableness of a situation I had chosen entirely led me
+back to literature, to which unsuspectedly I had recourse as a means of
+releaving my mind, and thus, in the first works I wrote, I introduced the
+peevishness and ill-humor which were the cause of my undertaking them.
+There was another circumstance which contributed not a little to this;
+thrown into the world despite of myself, without having the manners of
+it, or being in a situation to adopt and conform myself to them, I took
+it into my head to adopt others of my own, to enable me to dispense with
+those of society.  My foolish timidity, which I could not conquer, having
+for principle the fear of being wanting in the common forms, I took, by
+way of encouraging myself, a resolution to tread them under foot.  I
+became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness
+which I knew not how to practice.  This austerity, conformable to my new
+principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it
+assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare
+assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer
+and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my
+nature.  Yet, not withstanding, I had the name of a misanthrope, which my
+exterior appearance and some happy expressions had given me in the world:
+it is certain I did not support the character well in private, that my
+friends and acquaintance led this untractable bear about like a lamb, and
+that, confining my sarcasms to severe but general truths, I was never
+capable of saying an uncivil thing to any person whatsoever.
+
+The 'Devin du Village' brought me completely into vogue, and presently
+after there was not a man in Paris whose company was more sought after
+than mine.  The history of this piece, which is a kind of era in my life,
+is joined with that of the connections I had at that time.  I must enter
+a little into particulars to make what is to follow the better
+understood.
+
+I had a numerous acquaintance, yet no more than two friends: Diderot and
+Grimm.  By an effect of the desire I have ever felt to unite everything
+that is dear to me, I was too much a friend to both not to make them
+shortly become so to each other.  I connected them: they agreed well
+together, and shortly become more intimate with each other than with me.
+Diderot had a numerous acquaintance, but Grimm, a stranger and a
+new-comer, had his to procure, and with the greatest pleasure I procured
+him all I could.  I had already given him Diderot.  I afterwards brought
+him acquainted with Gauffecourt.  I introduced him to Madam Chenonceaux,
+Madam D'Epinay, and the Baron d'Holbach; with whom I had become
+connected almost in spite of myself.  All my friends became his: this
+was natural: but not one of his ever became mine; which was inclining to
+the contrary. Whilst he yet lodged at the house of the Comte de Friese,
+he frequently gave us dinners in his apartment, but I never received the
+least mark of friendship from the Comte de Friese, Comte de Schomberg,
+his relation, very familiar with Grimm, nor from any other person, man
+or woman, with whom Grimm, by their means, had any connection.  I except
+the Abbe Raynal, who, although his friend, gave proofs of his being
+mine; and in cases of need, offered me his purse with a generosity not
+very common. But I knew the Abbe Raynal long before Grimm had any
+acquaintance with him, and had entertained a great regard for him on
+account of his delicate and honorable behavior to me upon a slight
+occasion, which I shall never forget.
+
+The Abbe Raynal is certainly a warm friend; of this I saw  a proof, much
+about the time of which I speak, with respect to Grimm himself, with whom
+he was very intimate.  Grimm, after having been sometime on a footing of
+friendship with Mademoiselle Fel, fell violently in love with her, and
+wished to supplant Cahusac.  The young lady, piquing herself on her
+constancy, refused her new admirer.  He took this so much to heart, that
+the appearance of his affliction became tragical.  He suddenly fell into
+the strangest state imaginable.  He passed days and nights in a continued
+lethargy.  He lay with his eyes open; and although his pulse continued to
+beat regularly, without speaking eating, or stirring, yet sometimes
+seeming to hear what was said to him, but never answering, not even by a
+sign, and remaining almost as immovable as if he had been dead, yet
+without agitation, pain, or fever.  The Abbe Raynal and myself watched
+over him; the abbe, more robust, and in better health than I was, by
+night, and I by day, without ever both being absent at one time.  The
+Comte de Friese was alarmed, and brought to him Senac, who, after having
+examined the state in which he was, said there was nothing to apprehend,
+and took his leave without giving a prescription.  My fears for my friend
+made me carefully observe the countenance of the physician, and I
+perceived him smile as he went away.  However, the patient remained
+several days almost motionless, without taking anything except a few
+preserved cherries, which from time to time I put upon his tongue, and
+which he swallowed without difficulty.  At length he, one morning, rose,
+dressed himself, and returned to his usual way of life, without either at
+that time or afterwards speaking to me or the Abbe Raynal, at least that
+I know of, or to any other person, of this singular lethargy, or the care
+we had taken of him during the time it lasted.
+
+The affair made a noise, and it would really have been a wonderful
+circumstance had the cruelty of an opera girl made a man die of despair.
+This strong passion brought Grimm into vogue; he was soon considered as a
+prodigy in love, friendship, and attachments of every kind.  Such an
+opinion made his company sought after, and procured him a good reception
+in the first circles; by which means he separated from me, with whom he
+was never inclined to associate when he could do it with anybody else.
+I perceived him to be on the point of breaking with me entirely; for the
+lively and ardent sentiments, of which he made a parade, were those which
+with less noise and pretensions, I had really conceived for him.  I was
+glad he succeeded in the world; but I did not wish him to do this by
+forgetting his friend.  I one day said to him: "Grimm, you neglect me,
+and I forgive you for it.  When the first intoxication of your success is
+over, and you begin to perceive a void in your enjoyments, I hope you
+will return to your friend, whom you will always find in the same
+sentiments; at present do not constrain yourself, I leave you at liberty
+to act as you please, and wait your leisure."  He said I was right, made
+his arrangements in consequence, and shook off all restraint, so that I
+saw no more of him except in company with our common friends.
+
+Our chief rendezvous, before he was connected with Madam d'Epinay as he
+afterwards became, was at the house of Baron d'Holbach.  This said baron
+was the son of a man who had raised himself from obscurity.  His fortune
+was considerable, and he used it nobly, receiving at his house men of
+letters and merit: and, by the knowledge he himself had acquired, was
+very worthy of holding a place amongst them.  Having been long attached
+to Diderot, he endeavored to become acquainted with me by his means, even
+before my name was known to the world.  A natural repugnancy prevented me
+a long time from answering his advances.  One day, when he asked me the
+reason of my unwillingness, I told him he was too rich.  He was, however,
+resolved to carry his point, and at length succeeded.  My greatest
+misfortune proceeded from my being unable to resist the force of marked
+attention.  I have ever had reason to repent of having yielded to it.
+
+Another acquaintance which, as soon as I had any pretensions to it, was
+converted into friendship, was that of M. Duclos.  I had several years
+before seen him, for the first time, at the Chevrette, at the house of
+Madam d'Epinay, with whom he was upon very good terms.  On that day we
+only dined together, and he returned to town in the afternoon.  But we
+had a conversation of a few moments after dinner.  Madam d'Epinay had
+mentioned me to him, and my opera of the 'Muses Gallantes'.  Duclos,
+endowed with too great talents not to be a friend to those in whom the
+like were found, was prepossessed in my favor, and invited me to go and
+see him.  Notwithstanding my former wish, increased by an acquaintance, I
+was withheld by my timidity and indolence, as long as I had no other
+passport to him than his complaisance.  But encouraged by my first
+success, and by his eulogiums, which reached my ears, I went to see him;
+he returned my visit, and thus began the connection between us, which
+will ever render him dear to me.  By him, as well as from the testimony
+of my own heart, I learned that uprightness and probity may sometimes be
+connected with the cultivation of letters.
+
+Many other connections less solid, and which I shall not here
+particularize, were the effects of my first success, and lasted until
+curiosity was satisfied.  I was a man so easily known, that on the next
+day nothing new was to be discovered in me.  However, a woman, who at
+that time was desirous of my acquaintance, became much more solidly
+attached to me than any of those whose curiosity I had excited: this was
+the Marchioness of Crequi, niece to M. le Bailli de Froulay, ambassador
+from Malta, whose brother had preceded M. de Montaigu in the embassy to
+Venice, and whom I had gone to see on my return from that city.  Madam de
+Crequi wrote to me: I visited her: she received me into her friendship.
+I sometimes dined with her.  I met at her table several men of letters,
+amongst others M. Saurin, the author of Spartacus, Barnevelt, etc., since
+become my implacable enemy; for no other reason, at least that I can
+imagine, than my bearing the name of a man whom his father has cruelly
+persecuted.
+
+It will appear that for a copyist, who ought to be employed in his
+business from morning till night, I had many interruptions, which
+rendered my days not very lucrative, and prevented me from being
+sufficiently attentive to what I did to do it well; for which reason,
+half the time I had to myself was lost in erasing errors or beginning my
+sheet anew.  This daily importunity rendered Paris more unsupportable,
+and made me ardently wish to be in the country.  I several times went to
+pass a few days at Mercoussis, the vicar of which was known to Madam le
+Vasseur, and with whom we all arranged ourselves in such a manner as not
+to make things disagreeable to him.  Grimm once went thither with us.
+
+     [Since I have neglected to relate here a trifling, but memorable
+     adventure I had with the said Grimm one day, on which we were to
+     dine at the fountain of St. Vandrille, I will let it pass: but when
+     I thought of it afterwards, I concluded that he was brooding in his
+     heart the conspiracy he has, with so much success, since carried
+     into execution.]
+
+The vicar had a tolerable voice, sung well, and, although he did not read
+music, learned his part with great facility and precision.  We passed our
+time in singing the trios I had composed at Chenonceaux.  To these I
+added two or three new ones, to the words Grimm and the vicar wrote, well
+or ill.  I cannot refrain from regretting these trios composed and sung
+in moments of pure joy, and which I left at Wootton, with all my music.
+Mademoiselle Davenport has perhaps curled her hair with them; but they
+are worthy of being preserved, and are, for the most part, of very good
+counterpoint.  It was after one of these little excursions in which I had
+the pleasure of seeing the aunt at her ease and very cheerful, and in
+which my spirits were much enlivened, that I wrote to the vicar very
+rapidly and very ill, an epistle in verse which will be found amongst my
+papers.
+
+I had nearer to Paris another station much to my liking with M. Mussard,
+my countryman, relation and friend, who at Passy had made himself a
+charming retreat, where I have passed some very peaceful moments.
+M. Mussard was a jeweller, a man of good sense, who, after having
+acquired a genteel fortune, had given his only daughter in marriage to
+M. de Valmalette, the son of an exchange broker, and maitre d'hotel to
+the king, took the wise resolution to quit business in his declining
+years, and to place an interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry
+and the end of life.  The good man Mussard, a real philosopher in
+practice, lived without care, in a very pleasant house which he himself
+had built in a very pretty garden, laid out with his own hands.  In
+digging the terraces of this garden he found fossil shells, and in such
+great quantities that his lively imagination saw nothing but shells in
+nature.  He really thought the universe was composed of shells and the
+remains of shells, and that the whole earth was only the sand of these in
+different stratae.  His attention thus constantly engaged with his
+singular discoveries, his imagination became so heated with the ideas
+they gave him, that, in his head, they would soon have been converted
+into a system, that is into folly, if, happily for his reason, but
+unfortunately for his friends, to whom he was dear, and to whom his house
+was an agreeable asylum, a most cruel and extraordinary disease had not
+put an end to his existence.  A constantly increasing tumor in his
+stomach prevented him from eating, long before the cause of it was
+discovered, and, after several years of suffering, absolutely occasioned
+him to die of hunger.  I can never, without the greatest affliction of
+mind, call to my recollection the last moments of this worthy man, who
+still received with so much pleasure, Leneips and myself, the only
+friends whom the sight of his sufferings did not separate from him until
+his last hour, when he was reduced to devouring with his eyes the repasts
+he had placed before us, scarcely having the power of swallowing a few
+drops of weak tea, which came up again a moment afterwards.  But before
+these days of sorrow, how many have I passed at his house, with the
+chosen friends he had made himself!  At the head of the list I place the
+Abbe Prevot, a very amiable man, and very sincere, whose heart vivified
+his writings, worthy of immortality, and who, neither in his disposition
+nor in society, had the least of the melancholy coloring he gave to his
+works.  Procope, the physician, a little Esop, a favorite with the
+ladies; Boulanger, the celebrated posthumous author of 'Despotisme
+Oriental', and who, I am of opinion extended the systems of Mussard on
+the duration of the world.  The female part of his friends consisted of
+Madam Denis, niece to Voltaire, who, at that time, was nothing more than
+a good kind of woman, and pretended not to wit: Madam Vanloo, certainly
+not handsome, but charming, and who sang like an angel: Madam de
+Valmalette, herself, who sang also, and who, although very thin, would
+have been very amiable had she had fewer pretensions.  Such, or very
+nearly such, was the society of M. Mussard, with which I should had been
+much pleased, had not his conchyliomania more engaged my attention; and I
+can say, with great truth, that, for upwards of six months, I worked with
+him in his cabinet with as much pleasure as he felt himself.
+
+He had long insisted upon the virtue of the waters of Passy, that they
+were proper in my case, and recommended me to come to his house to drink
+them.  To withdraw myself from the tumult of the city, I at length
+consented, and went to pass eight or ten days at Passy, which, on account
+of my being in the country, were of more service to me than the waters I
+drank during my stay there.  Mussard played the violincello, and was
+passionately found of Italian music.  This was the subject of a long
+conversation we had one evening after supper, particularly the
+'opera-buffe' we had both seen in Italy, and with which we were highly
+delighted.  My sleep having forsaken me in the night, I considered in
+what manner it would be possible to give in France an idea of this kind
+of drama.  The 'Amours de Ragonde' did not in the least resemble it.
+In the morning, whilst I took my walk and drank the waters, I hastily
+threw together a few couplets to which I adapted such airs as occurred to
+me at the moments.  I scribbled over what I had composed, in a kind of
+vaulted saloon at the end of the garden, and at tea.  I could not refrain
+from showing the airs to Mussard and to Mademoiselle du Vernois, his
+'gouvernante', who was a very good and amiable girl.  Three pieces of
+composition I had sketched out were the first monologue: 'J'ai perdu mon
+serviteur;'--the air of the Devin; 'L'amour croit s'il s'inquiete;' and
+the last duo: 'A jamais, Colin, je t'engage, etc.'  I was so far from
+thinking it worth while to continue what I had begun, that, had it not
+been for the applause and encouragement I received from both Mussard and
+Mademoiselle, I should have throw n my papers into the fire and thought
+no more of their contents, as I had frequently done by things of much the
+same merit; but I was so animated by the encomiums I received, that in
+six days, my drama, excepting a few couplets, was written.  The music
+also was so far sketched out, that all I had further to do to it after my
+return from Paris, was to compose a little of the recitative, and to add
+the middle parts, the whole of which I finished with so much rapidity,
+that in three weeks my work was ready for representation.  The only thing
+now wanting, was the divertissement, which was not composed until a long
+time afterwards.
+
+My imagination was so warmed by the composition of this work that I had
+the strongest desire to hear it performed, and would have given anything
+to have seen and heard the whole in the manner I should have chosen,
+which would have been that of Lully, who is said to have had 'Armide'
+performed for himself only.  As it was not possible I should hear the
+performance unaccompanied by the public, I could not see the effect of my
+piece without getting it received at the opera.  Unfortunately it was
+quite a new species of composition, to which the ears of the public were
+not accustomed; and besides the ill success of the 'Muses Gallantes' gave
+too much reason to fear for the Devin, if I presented it in my own name.
+Duclos relieved me from this difficulty, and engaged to get the piece
+rehearsed without mentioning the author.  That I might not discover
+myself, I did not go to the rehearsal, and the 'Petits violons',
+
+     [Rebel and Frauneur, who, when they were very young, went together
+     from house to house playing on the violin, were so called.]
+
+by whom it was directed, knew not who the author was until after a
+general plaudit had borne the testimony of the work.  Everybody present
+was so delighted with it, that, on the next day, nothing else was spoken
+of in the different companies.  M. de Cury, Intendant des Menus, who was
+present at the rehearsal, demanded the piece to have it performed at
+court.  Duclos, who knew my intentions, and thought I should be less
+master of my work at the court than at Paris, refused to give it.  Cury
+claimed it authoratively.  Duclos persisted in his refusal, and the
+dispute between them was carried to such a length, that one day they
+would have gone out from the opera-house together had they not been
+separated.  M. de Cury applied to me, and I referred him to Duclos.  This
+made it necessary to return to the latter.  The Duke d'Aumont interfered;
+and at length Duclos thought proper to yield to authority, and the piece
+was given to be played at Fontainebleau.
+
+The part to which I had been most attentive, and in which I had kept at
+the greatest distance from the common track, was the recitative.  Mine
+was accented in a manner entirely new, and accompanied the utterance of
+the word.  The directors dared not suffer this horrid innovation to pass,
+lest it should shock the ears of persons who never judge for themselves.
+Another recitative was proposed by Francueil and Jelyotte, to which I
+consented; but refused at the same time to have anything to do with it
+myself.
+
+When everything was ready and the day of performance fixed, a proposition
+was made me to go to Fontainebleau, that I might at least be at the last
+rehearsal.  I went with Mademoiselle Fel, Grimm, and I think the Abbe
+Raynal, in one of the stages to the court.  The rehearsal was tolerable:
+I was more satisfied with it than I expected to have been.  The orchestra
+was numerous, composed of the orchestras of the opera and the king's
+band.  Jelyotte played Colin, Mademoiselle Fel, Colette, Cuvillier the
+Devin: the choruses were those of the opera.  I said but little; Jelyotte
+had prepared everything; I was unwilling either to approve of or censure
+what he had done; and notwithstanding I had assumed the air of an old
+Roman, I was, in the midst of so many people, as bashful as a schoolboy.
+
+The next morning, the day of performance, I went to breakfast at the
+coffee-house 'du grand commun', where I found a great number of people.
+The rehearsal of the preceding evening, and the difficulty of getting
+into the theatre, were the subjects of conversation.  An officer present
+said he entered with the greatest ease, gave a long account of what had
+passed, described the author, and related what he had said and done; but
+what astonished me most in this long narrative, given with as much
+assurance as simplicity, was that it did not contain a syllable of truth.
+It was clear to me that he who spoke so positively of the rehearsal had
+not been at it, because, without knowing him, he had before his eyes that
+author whom he said he had seen and examined so minutely.  However, what
+was more singular still in this scene, was its effect upon me.  The
+officer was a man rather in years, he had nothing of the appearance of a
+coxcomb; his features appeared to announce a man of merit; and his cross
+of Saint Louis, an officer of long standing.  He interested me:
+notwithstanding his impudence.  Whilst he uttered his lies, I blushed,
+looked down, and was upon thorns; I, for some time, endeavored within
+myself to find the means of believing him to be in an involuntary error.
+At length, trembling lest some person should know me, and by this means
+confound him, I hastily drank my chocolate, without saying a word, and,
+holding down my head, I passed before him, got out of the coffee-house as
+soon as possible, whilst the company were making their remarks upon the
+relation that had been given.  I was no sooner in the street than I was
+in a perspiration, and had anybody known and named me before I left the
+room, I am certain all the shame and embarrassment of a guilty person
+would have appeared in my countenance, proceeding from what I felt the
+poor man would have had to have suffered had his lie been discovered.
+
+I come to one of the critical moments of my life, in which it is
+difficult to do anything more than to relate, because it is almost
+impossible that even narrative should not carry with it the marks of
+censure or apology.  I will, however, endeavor to relate how and upon
+what motives I acted, with out adding either approbation or censure.
+
+I was on that day in the same careless undress as usual, with a long
+beard and wig badly combed.  Considering this want of decency as an act
+of courage, I entered the theatre wherein the king, queen, the royal
+family, and the whole court were to enter immediately after.  I was
+conducted to a box by M. de Cury, and which belonged to him.  It was very
+spacious, upon the stage and opposite to a lesser, but more elevated one,
+in which the king sat with Madam de Pompadour.
+
+As I was surrounded by women, and the only man in front of the box, I had
+no doubt of my having been placed there purposely to be exposed to view.
+As soon as the theatre was lighted up, finding I was in the midst of
+people all extremely well dressed, I began to be less at my ease, and
+asked myself if I was in my place?  whether or not I was properly
+dressed?  After a few minutes of inquietude: "Yes," replied I, with an
+intrepidity which perhaps proceeded more from the impossibility of
+retracting than the force of all my reasoning, "I am in my place, because
+I am going to see my own piece performed, to which I have been invited,
+for which reason only  I am come here; and after all, no person has a
+greater right than I have to reap the fruit of my labor and talents; I am
+dressed as usual, neither better nor worse; and if I once begin to
+subject myself to public opinion, I shall shortly become a slave to it in
+everything.  To be always consistent with myself, I ought not to blush,
+in any place whatever, at being dressed in a manner suitable to the state
+I have chosen.  My exterior appearance is simple, but neither dirty nor
+slovenly; nor is a beard either of these in itself, because it is given
+us by nature, and according to time, place and custom, is sometimes an
+ornament.  People think I am ridiculous, nay, even absurd; but what
+signifies this to me?  I ought to know how to bear censure and ridicule,
+provided I do not deserve them."  After this little soliloquy I became so
+firm that, had it been necessary, I could have been intrepid.  But
+whether it was the effect of the presence of his majesty, or the natural
+disposition of those about me, I perceived nothing but what was civil and
+obliging in the curiosity of which I was the object. This so much
+affected me that I began to be uneasy for myself, and the fate of my
+piece; fearing I should efface the favorable prejudices which seemed to
+lead to nothing but applause.  I was armed against raillery; but, so far
+overcome, by the flattering and obliging treatment I had not expected,
+that I trembled like a child when the performance was begun.
+
+I had soon sufficient reason to be encouraged.  The piece was very ill
+played with respect to the actors, but the musical part was well sung and
+executed.  During the first scene, which was really of a delightful
+simplicity, I heard in the boxes a murmur of surprise and applause,
+which, relative to pieces of the same kind, had never yet happened.  The
+fermentation was soon increased to such a degree as to be perceptible
+through the whole audience, and of which, to speak--after the manner of
+Montesquieu--the effect was augmented by itself.  In the scene between
+the two good little folks, this effect was complete.  There is no
+clapping of hands before the king; therefore everything was heard, which
+was advantageous to the author and the piece.  I heard about me a
+whispering of women, who appeared as beautiful as angels.  They said to
+each other in a low voice: "This is charming: That is ravishing: There is
+not a sound which does not go to the heart."  The pleasure of giving this
+emotion to so many amiable persons moved me to tears; and these I could
+not contain in the first duo, when I remarked that I was not the only
+person who wept.  I collected myself for a moment, on recollecting the
+concert of M. de Treitorens.  This reminiscence had the effect of the
+slave who held the crown over the head of the general who triumphed, but
+my reflection was short, and I soon abandoned myself without interruption
+to the pleasure of enjoying my success.  However, I am certain the
+voluptuousness of the sex was more predominant than the vanity of the
+author, and had none but men been present, I certainly should not have
+had the incessant desire I felt of catching on my lips the delicious
+tears I had caused to flow.  I have known pieces excite more lively
+admiration, but I never saw so complete, delightful, and affecting an
+intoxication of the senses reign, during a whole representation,
+especially at court, and at a first performance.  They who saw this must
+recollect it, for it has never yet been equalled.
+
+The same evening the Duke d' Aumont sent to desire me to be at the palace
+the next day at eleven o'clock, when he would present me to the king.
+M. de Cury, who delivered me the message, added that he thought a pension
+was intended, and that his majesty wished to announce it to me himself.
+Will it be believed that the night of so brilliant a day was for me
+a night of anguish and perplexity?  My first idea, after that of being
+presented, was that of my frequently wanting to retire; this had made me
+suffer very considerably at the theatre, and might torment me the next
+day when I should be in the gallery, or in the king's apartment, amongst
+all the great, waiting for the passing of his majesty.  My infirmity was
+the principal cause which prevented me from mixing in polite companies,
+and enjoying the conversation of the fair.  The idea alone of the
+situation in which this want might place me, was sufficient to produce it
+to such a degree as to make me faint away, or to recur to means to which,
+in my opinion, death was much preferable.  None but persons who are
+acquainted with this situation can judge of the horror which being
+exposed to the risk of it inspires.
+
+I then supposed myself before the king, presented to his majesty, who
+deigned to stop and speak to me.  In this situation, justness of
+expression and presence of mind were peculiarly necessary in answering.
+Would my timidity which disconcerts me in presence of any stranger
+whatever, have been shaken off in presence of the King of France; or
+would it have suffered me instantly to make choice of proper expressions?
+I wished, without laying aside the austere manner I had adopted, to show
+myself sensible of the honor done me by so great a monarch, and in a
+handsome and merited eulogium to convey some great and useful truth.
+I could not prepare a suitable answer without exactly knowing what his
+majesty was to say to me; and had this been the case, I was certain that,
+in his presence, I should not recollect a word of what I had previously
+meditated.  "What," said I, "will become of me in this moment, and before
+the whole court, if, in my confusion, any of my stupid expressions should
+escape me?"  This danger alarmed and terrified me.  I trembled to such a
+degree that at all events I was determined not to expose myself to it.
+
+I lost, it is true, the pension which in some measure was offered me; but
+I at the same time exempted myself from the yoke it would have imposed.
+Adieu, truth, liberty, and courage!  How should I afterwards have dared
+to speak of disinterestedness and independence?  Had I received the
+pension I must either have become a flatterer or remained silent; and,
+moreover, who would have insured to me the payment of it!  What steps
+should I have been under the necessity of taking!  How many people must I
+have solicited!  I should have had more trouble and anxious cares in
+preserving than in doing without it.  Therefore, I thought I acted
+according to my principles by refusing, and sacrificing appearances to
+reality.  I communicated my resolution to Grimm, who said nothing against
+it.  To others I alleged my ill state of health, and left the court in
+the morning.
+
+My departure made some noise, and was generally condemned.  My reasons
+could not be known to everybody, it was therefore easy to accuse me of
+foolish pride, and thus not irritate the jealousy of such as felt they
+would not have acted as I had done.  The next day Jelyotte wrote me a
+note, in which he stated the success of my piece, and the pleasure it had
+afforded the king.  "All day long," said he, "his majesty sings, with the
+worst voice in his kingdom: 'J'ai perdu mon serviteur: J'ai perdu tout
+mon bonheur.'"  He likewise added, that in a fortnight the Devin was to
+be performed a second time; which confirmed in the eyes of the public the
+complete success of the first.
+
+Two days afterwards, about nine o'clock in the evening, as I was going to
+sup with Madam D'Epinay, I perceived a hackney-coach pass by the door.
+Somebody within made a sign to me to approach.  I did so, and got into
+it, and found the person to be Diderot.  He spoke of the pension with
+more warmth than, upon such a subject, I should have expected from a
+philosopher.  He did not blame me for having been unwilling to be
+presented to the king, but severely reproached me with my indifference
+about the pension.  He observed that although on my own account I might
+be disinterested, I ought not to be so on that of Madam Vasseur and her
+daughter; that it was my duty to seize every means of providing for their
+subsistence; and that as, after all, it could not be said I had refused
+the pension, he maintained I ought, since the king seemed disposed to
+grant it to me, to solicit and obtain it by one means or another.
+Although I was obliged to him for his good wishes, I could not relish his
+maxims, which produced a warm dispute, the first I ever had with him.
+All our disputes were of this kind, he prescribing to me what he
+pretended I ought to do, and I defending myself because I was of a
+different opinion.
+
+It was late when we parted.  I would have taken him to supper at Madam d'
+Epinay's, but he refused to go; and, notwithstanding all the efforts
+which at different times the desire of uniting those I love induced me to
+make, to prevail upon him to see her, even that of conducting her to his
+door which he kept shut against us, he constantly refused to do it, and
+never spoke of her but with the utmost contempt.  It was not until after
+I had quarrelled with both that they became acquainted and that he began
+to speak honorably of her.
+
+From this time Diderot and Grimm seemed to have undertaken to alienate
+from me the governesses, by giving them to understand that if they were
+not in easy circumstances the fault was my own, and that they never would
+be so with me.  They endeavored to prevail on them to leave me, promising
+them the privilege for retailing salt, a snuff shop, and I know not what
+other advantages by means of the influence of Madam d' Epinay.  They
+likewise wished to gain over Duclos and d'Holback, but the former
+constantly refused their proposals.  I had at the time some intimation of
+what was going forward, but I was not fully acquainted with the whole
+until long afterwards; and I frequently had reason to lament the effects
+of the blind and indiscreet zeal of my friends, who, in my ill state of
+health, striving to reduce me to the most melancholy solitude,
+endeavored, as they imagined, to render me happy by the means which, of
+all others, were the most proper to make me miserable.
+
+In the carnival following the conclusion of the year 1753, the Devin was
+performed at Paris, and in this interval I had sufficient time to compose
+the overture and divertissement.  This divertissement, such as it stands
+engraved, was to be in action from the beginning to the end, and in a
+continued subject, which in my opinion, afforded very agreeable
+representations.  But when I proposed this idea at the opera-house,
+nobody would so much as hearken to me, and I was obliged to tack together
+music and dances in the usual manner: on this account the divertissement,
+although full of charming ideas which do not diminish the beauty of
+scenes, succeeded but very middlingly.  I suppressed the recitative of
+Jelyotte, and substituted my own, such as I had first composed it, and as
+it is now engraved; and this recitative a little after the French manner,
+I confess, drawled out, instead of pronounced by the actors, far from
+shocking the ears of any person, equally succeeded with the airs, and
+seemed in the judgment of the public to possess as much musical merit.
+I dedicated my piece to Duclos, who had given it his protection, and
+declared it should be my only dedication.  I have, however, with his
+consent, written a second; but he must have thought himself more honored
+by the exception, than if I had not written a dedication to any person.
+
+I could relate many anecdotes concerning this piece, but things of
+greater importance prevent me from entering into a detail of them at
+present.  I shall perhaps resume the subject in a supplement.  There is
+however one which I cannot omit, as it relates to the greater part of
+what is to follow.  I one day examined the music of D'Holbach, in his
+closet.  After having looked over many different kinds, he said, showing
+me a collection of pieces for the harpsichord: "These were composed for
+me; they are full of taste and harmony, and unknown to everybody but
+myself.  You ought to make a selection from them for your
+divertissement."  Having in my head more subjects of airs and symphonies
+than I could make use of, I was not the least anxious to have any of his.
+However, he pressed me so much, that, from a motive of complaisance, I
+chose a Pastoral, which I abridged and converted into a trio, for the
+entry of the companions of Colette.  Some months afterwards, and whilst
+the Devin still continued to be performed, going into Grimms I found
+several people about his harpsichord, whence he hastily rose on my
+arrival.  As I accidently looked toward his music stand, I there saw the
+same collection of the Baron d'Holback, opened precisely at the piece he
+had prevailed upon me to take, assuring me at the same time that it
+should never go out of his hands.  Some time afterwards, I again saw the
+collection open on the harpischord of M. d'Papinay, one day when he gave
+a little concert.  Neither Grimm, nor anybody else, ever spoke to me of
+the air, and my reason for mentioning it here is that some time
+afterwards, a rumor was spread that I was not the author of Devin.
+As I never made a great progress in the practical part, I am persuaded
+that had it not been for my dictionary of music, it would in the end have
+been said I did not understand composition.
+
+Sometime before the 'Devin du Village' was performed, a company of
+Italian Bouffons had arrived at Paris, and were ordered to perform at the
+opera-house, without the effect they would produce there being foreseen.
+Although they were detestable, and the orchestra, at that time very
+ignorant, mutilated at will the pieces they gave, they did the French
+opera an injury that will never be repaired.  The comparison of these two
+kinds of music, heard the same evening in the same theatre, opened the
+ears of the French; nobody could endure their languid music after the
+marked and lively accents of Italian composition; and the moment the
+Bouffons had done, everybody went away.  The managers were obliged to
+change the order of representation, and let the performance of the
+Bouffons be the last.  'Egle Pigmalion' and 'le Sylphe' were successively
+given: nothing could bear the comparison.  The 'Devin du Village' was the
+only piece that did it, and this was still relished after 'la Serva
+Padroma'.  When I composed my interlude, my head was filled with these
+pieces, and they gave me the first idea of it: I was, however, far from
+imagining they would one day be passed in review by the side of my
+composition.  Had I been a plagiarist, how many pilferings would have
+been manifest, and what care would have been taken to point them out to
+the public!  But I had done nothing of the kind.  All attempts to
+discover any such thing were fruitless: nothing was found in my music
+which led to the recollection of that of any other person; and my whole
+composition compared with the pretended original, was found to be as new
+as the musical characters I had invented.  Had Mondonville or Rameau
+undergone the same ordeal, they would have lost much of their substance.
+
+The Bouffons acquired for Italian music very warm partisans.  All Paris
+was divided into two parties, the violence of which was greater than if
+an affair of state or religion had been in question.  One of them, the
+most powerful and numerous, composed of the great, of men of fortune, and
+the ladies, supported French music; the other, more lively and haughty,
+and fuller of enthusiasm, was composed of real connoisseurs, and men of
+talents, and genius.  This little group assembled at the opera-house,
+under the box belonging to the queen.  The other party filled up the rest
+of the pit and the theatre; but the heads were mostly assembled under the
+box of his majesty.  Hence the party names of Coin du Roi, Coin de la
+Reine,--[King's corner,--Queen's corner.]--then in great celebrity.
+The dispute, as it became more animated, produced several pamphlets.
+The king's corner aimed at pleasantry; it was laughed at by the 'Petit
+Prophete'.  It attempted to reason; the 'Lettre sur la Musique Francoise'
+refuted its reasoning.  These two little productions, the former of which
+was by Grimm, the latter by myself, are the only ones which have outlived
+the quarrel; all the rest are long since forgotten.
+
+But the Petit Prophete, which, notwithstanding all I could say, was for a
+long time attributed to me, was considered as a pleasantry, and did not
+produce the least inconvenience to the author: whereas the letter on
+music was taken seriously, and incensed against me the whole nation,
+which thought itself offended by this attack on its music.  The
+description of the incredible effect of this pamphlet would be worthy of
+the pen of Tacitus.  The great quarrel between the parliament and the
+clergy was then at its height.  The parliament had just been exiled; the
+fermentation was general; everything announced an approaching
+insurrection.  The pamphlet appeared: from that moment every other
+quarrel was forgotten; the perilous state of French music was the only
+thing by which the attention of the public was engaged, and the only
+insurrection was against myself.  This was so general that it has never
+since been totally calmed.  At court, the bastile or banishment was
+absolutely determined on, and a 'lettre de cachet' would have been issued
+had not M. de Voyer set forth in the most forcible manner that such a
+step would be ridiculous.  Were I to say this pamphlet probably prevented
+a revolution, the reader would imagine I was in a dream.  It is, however,
+a fact, the truth of which all Paris can attest, it being no more than
+fifteen years since the date of this singular fact.  Although no attempts
+were made on my liberty, I suffered numerous insults; and even my life
+was in danger.  The musicians of the opera orchestra humanely resolved to
+murder me as I went out of the theatre.  Of this I received information;
+but the only effect it produced on me was to make me more assiduously
+attend the opera; and I did not learn, until a considerable time
+afterwards, that M. Ancelot, officer in the mousquetaires, and who had a
+friendship for me, had prevented the effect of this conspiracy by giving
+me an escort, which, unknown to myself, accompanied me until I was out of
+danger.  The direction of the opera-house had just been given to the
+hotel de ville.  The first exploit performed by the Prevot des Marchands,
+was to take from me my freedom of the theatre, and this in the most
+uncivil manner possible.  Admission was publicly refused me on my
+presenting myself, so that I was obliged to take a ticket that I might
+not that evening have the mortification to return as I had come.  This
+injustice was the more shameful, as the only price I had set on my piece
+when I gave it to the managers was a perpetual freedom of the house; for
+although this was a right, common to every author, and which I enjoyed
+under a double title, I expressly stipulated for it in presence of M.
+Duclos.  It is true, the treasurer brought me fifty louis, for which I
+had not asked; but, besides the smallness of the sum, compared with that
+which, according to the rule, established in such cases, was due to me,
+this payment had nothing in common with the right of entry formerly
+granted, and which was entirely independent of it.  There was in this
+behavior such a complication of iniquity and brutality, that the public,
+notwithstanding its animosity against me, which was then at its highest,
+was universally shocked at it, and many persons who insulted me the
+preceding evening, the next day exclaimed in the open theatre, that it
+was shameful thus to deprive an author of his right of entry; and
+particularly one who had so well deserved it, and was entitled to claim
+it for himself and another person.  So true is the Italian proverb:
+Ogn' un ama la giustizia in cosa d altrui.--[Every one loves justice in
+the affairs of another.]
+
+In this situation the only thing I had to do was to demand my work,
+since the price I had agreed to receive for it was refused me.  For this
+purpose I wrote to M. d'Argenson, who had the department of the opera.
+I likewise enclosed to him a memoir which was unanswerable; but this, as
+well as my letter, was ineffectual, and I received no answer to either.
+The silence of that unjust man hurt me extremely, and did not contribute
+to increase the very moderate good opinion I always had of his character
+and abilities.  It was in this manner the managers kept my piece while
+they deprived me of that for which I had given it them.  From the weak to
+the strong, such an act would be a theft: from the strong to the weak,
+it is nothing more than an appropriation of property, without a right.
+
+With respect to the pecuniary advantages of the work, although it did not
+produce me a fourth part of the sum it would have done to any other.
+person, they were considerable enough to enable me to subsist several
+years, and to make amends for the ill success of copying, which went on
+but very slowly.  I received a hundred louis from the king; fifty from
+Madam de Pompadour, for the performance at Bellevue, where she herself
+played the part of Colin; fifty from the opera; and five hundred livres
+from Pissot, for the engraving; so that this interlude, which cost me no
+more than five or six weeks' application, produced, notwithstanding the
+ill treatment I received from the managers and my stupidity at court,
+almost as much money as my 'Emilius', which had cost me twenty years'
+meditation, and three years' labor.  But I paid dearly for the pecuniary
+ease I received from the piece, by the infinite vexations it brought upon
+me.  It was the germ of the secret jealousies which did not appear until
+a long time afterwards.  After its success I did not remark, either in
+Grimm, Diderot, or any of the men of letters, with whom I was acquainted,
+the same cordiality and frankness, nor that pleasure in seeing me, I had
+previously experienced.  The moment I appeared at the baron's, the
+conversation was no longer general; the company divided into small
+parties; whispered into each other's ears; and I remained alone, without
+knowing to whom to address myself.  I endured for a long time this
+mortifying neglect; and, perceiving that Madam d'Holbach, who was mild
+and amiable, still received me well, I bore with the vulgarity of her
+husband as long as it was possible.  But he one day attacked me without
+reason or pretence, and with such brutality, in presence of Diderot, who
+said not a word, and Margency, who since that time has often told me how
+much he admired the moderation and mildness of my answers, that, at
+length driven from his house, by this unworthy treatment, I took leave
+with a resolution never to enter it again.  This did not, however,
+prevent me from speaking honorably of him and his house, whilst he
+continually expressed himself relative to me in the most insulting terms,
+calling me that 'petit cuistre': the little college pedant, or servitor
+in a college, without, however, being able to charge me with having done
+either to himself or any person to whom he was attached the most trifling
+injury.  In this manner he verified my fears and predictions, I am of
+opinion my pretended friends would have pardoned me for having written
+books, and even excellent ones, because this merit was not foreign to
+themselves; but that they could not forgive my writing an opera, nor the
+brilliant success it had; because there was not one amongst them capable
+of the same, nor in a situation to aspire to like honors.  Duclos, the
+only person superior to jealousy, seemed to become more attached to me:
+he introduced me to Mademoiselle Quinault, in whose house I received
+polite attention, and civility to as great an extreme, as I had found a
+want of it in that of M. d'Holbach.
+
+Whilst the performance of the 'Devin du Village' was continued at the
+opera-house, the author of it had an advantageous negotiation with the
+managers of the French comedy.  Not having, during seven or eight years,
+been able to get my 'Narcissis' performed at the Italian theatre, I had,
+by the bad performance in French of the actors, become disgusted with it,
+and should rather have had my piece received at the French theatre than
+by them.  I mentioned this to La None, the comedian, with whom I had
+become acquainted, and who, as everybody knows, was a man of merit and an
+author.  He was pleased with the piece, and promised to get it performed
+without suffering the name of the author to be known; and in the meantime
+procured me the freedom of the theatre, which was extremely agreeable to
+me, for I always preferred it to the two others.  The piece was favorably
+received, and without the author's name being mentioned; but I have
+reason to believe it was known to the actors and actresses, and many
+other persons.  Mademoiselles Gauffin and Grandval played the amorous
+parts; and although the whole performance was, in my opinion,
+injudicious, the piece could not be said to be absolutely ill played.
+The indulgence of the public, for which I felt gratitude, surprised me;
+the audience had the patience to listen to it from the beginning to the
+end, and to permit a second representation without showing the least sign
+of disapprobation.  For my part, I was so wearied with the first, that I
+could not hold out to the end; and the moment I left the theatre, I went
+into the Cafe de Procope, where I found Boissi, and others of my
+acquaintance, who had probably been as much fatigued as myself.  I there
+humbly or haughtily avowed myself the author of the piece, judging it as
+everybody else had done.  This public avowal of an author of a piece
+which had not succeeded, was much admired, and was by no means painful to
+myself.  My self-love was flattered by the courage with which I made it:
+and I am of opinion, that, on this occasion, there was more pride in
+speaking, than there would have been foolish shame in being silent.
+However, as it was certain the piece, although insipid in the performance
+would bear to be read, I had it printed: and in the preface, which is one
+of the best things I ever wrote, I began to make my principles more
+public than I had before done.
+
+I soon had an opportunity to explain them entirely in a work of the
+greatest importance: for it was, I think, this year, 1753, that the
+programma of the Academy of Dijon upon the 'Origin of the Inequality of
+Mankind' made its appearance.  Struck with this great question, I was
+surprised the academy had dared to propose it: but since it had shown
+sufficient courage to do it, I thought I might venture to treat it, and
+immediately undertook the discussion.
+
+That I might consider this grand subject more at my ease, I went to St.
+Germain for seven or eight days with Theresa, our hostess, who was a good
+kind of woman, and one of her friends.  I consider this walk as one of
+the most agreeable ones I ever took.  The weather was very fine.  These
+good women took upon themselves all the care and expense.  Theresa amused
+herself with them; and I, free from all domestic concerns, diverted
+myself, without restraint, at the hours of dinner and supper.  All the
+rest of the day wandering in the forest, I sought for and found there the
+image of the primitive ages of which I boldly traced the history.  I
+confounded the pitiful lies of men; I dared to unveil their nature; to
+follow the progress of time, and the things by which it has been
+disfigured; and comparing the man of art with the natural man, to show
+them, in their pretended improvement, the real source of all their
+misery.  My mind, elevated by these contemplations, ascended to the
+Divinity, and thence, seeing my fellow creatures follow in the blind
+track of their prejudices that of their errors and misfortunes, I cried
+out to them, in a feeble voice, which they could not hear: "Madmen! know
+that all your evils proceed from yourselves!"
+
+From these meditations resulted the discourse on Inequality, a work more
+to the taste of Diderot than any of my other writings, and in which his
+advice was of the greatest service to me.
+
+     [At the time I wrote this, I had not the least suspicion of the
+     grand conspiracy of Diderot and Grimm.  otherwise I should easily.
+     have discovered how much the former abused my confidence, by giving
+     to my writings that severity and melancholy which were not to be
+     found in them from the moments he ceased to direct me.  The passage
+     of the philosopher, who argues with himself, and stops his ears
+     against the complaints of a man in distress, is after his manner:
+     and he gave me others still more extraordinary; which I could never
+     resolve to make use of.  But, attributing, this melancholy to that
+     he had acquired in the dungeon of Vincennes, and of which there is a
+     very sufficient dose in his Clairoal, I never once suspected the
+     least unfriendly dealing. ]
+
+It was, however, understood but by few readers, and not one of these
+would ever speak of it.  I had written it to become a competitor for the
+premium, and sent it away fully persuaded it would not obtain it; well
+convinced it was not for productions of this nature that academies were
+founded.
+
+This excursion and this occupation enlivened my spirits and was of
+service to my health.  Several years before, tormented by my disorder,
+I had entirely given myself up to the care of physicians, who, without
+alleviating my sufferings, exhausted my strength and destroyed my
+constitution.  At my return from St. Germain, I found myself stronger and
+perceived my health to be improved.  I followed this indication, and
+determined to cure myself or die without the aid of physicians and
+medicine.  I bade them forever adieu, and lived from day to day, keeping
+close when I found myself indisposed, and going abroad the moment I had
+sufficient strength to do it.  The manner of living in Paris amidst
+people of pretensions was so little to my liking; the cabals of men of
+letters, their little candor in their writings, and the air of importance
+they gave themselves in the world, were so odious to me; I found so
+little mildness, openness of heart and frankness in the intercourse even
+of my friends; that, disgusted with this life of tumult, I began ardently
+to wish to reside in the country, and not perceiving that my occupation
+permitted me to do it, I went to pass there all the time I had to spare.
+For several months I went after dinner to walk alone in the Bois de
+Boulogne, meditating on subjects for future works, and not returning
+until evening.
+
+Gauffecourt, with whom I was at that time extremely intimate, being on
+account of his employment obliged to go to Geneva, proposed to me the
+journey, to which I consented.  The state of my health was such as to
+require the care of the governess; it was therefore decided she should
+accompany us, and that her mother should remain in the house.  After thus
+having made our arrangements, we set off on the first of June, 1754.
+
+This was the period when at the age of forty-two, I for the first time in
+my life felt a diminution of my natural confidence to which I had
+abandoned myself without reserve or inconvenience.  We had a private
+carriage, in which with the same horses we travelled very slowly.
+I frequently got out and walked.  We had scarcely performed half our
+journey when Theresa showed the greatest uneasiness at being left in the
+carriage with Gauffecourt, and when, notwithstanding her remonstrances,
+I would get out as usual, she insisted upon doing the same, and walking
+with me.  I chid her for this caprice, and so strongly opposed it, that
+at length she found herself obliged to declare to me the cause whence it
+proceeded.  I thought I was in a dream; my astonishment was beyond
+expression, when I learned that my friend M. de Gauffecourt, upwards of
+sixty years of age, crippled by the gout, impotent and exhausted by
+pleasures, had, since our departure, incessantly endeavored to corrupt a
+person who belonged to his friend, and was no longer young nor handsome,
+by the most base and shameful means, such as presenting to her a purse,
+attempting to inflame her imagination by the reading of an abominable
+book, and by the sight of infamous figures, with which it was filled.
+Theresa, full of indignation, once threw his scandalous book out of the
+carriage; and I learned that on the first evening of our journey, a
+violent headache having obliged me to retire to bed before supper, he had
+employed the whole time of this tete-a-tete in actions more worthy of a
+satyr than a man of worth and honor, to whom I thought I had intrusted my
+companion and myself.  What astonishment and grief of heart for me!
+I, who until then had believed friendship to be inseparable from every
+amiable and noble sentiment which constitutes all its charm, for the
+first time in my life found myself under the necessity of connecting it
+with disdain, and of withdrawing my confidence from a man for whom I had
+an affection, and by whom I imagined myself beloved!  The wretch
+concealed from me his turpitude; and that I might not expose Theresa,
+I was obliged to conceal from him my contempt, and secretly to harbor in
+my heart such sentiments as were foreign to its nature.  Sweet and sacred
+illusion of friendship!  Gauffecourt first took the veil from before my
+eyes.  What cruel hands have since that time prevented it from again
+being drawn over them!
+
+At Lyons I quitted Gauffecourt to take the road to Savoy, being unable to
+be so near to mamma without seeing her.  I saw her--Good God, in what a
+situation!  How contemptible!  What remained to her of primitive virtue?
+Was it the same Madam de Warrens, formerly so gay and lively, to whom the
+vicar of Pontverre had given me recommendations?  How my heart was
+wounded!  The only resource I saw for her was to quit the country.  I
+earnestly but vainly repeated the invitation I had several times given
+her in my letters to come and live peacefully with me, assuring her I
+would dedicate the rest of my life, and that of Theresa, to render her
+happy.  Attached to her pension, from which, although it was regularly
+paid, she had not for a long time received the least advantage, my offers
+were lost upon her.  I again gave her a trifling part of the contents of
+my purse, much less than I ought to have done, and considerably less than
+I should have offered her had not I been certain of its not being of the
+least service to herself.  During my residence at Geneva, she made a
+journey into Chablais, and came to see me at Grange-canal.  She was in
+want of money to continue her journey: what I had in my pocket was
+insufficient to this purpose, but an hour afterwards I sent it her by
+Theresa.  Poor mamma!  I must relate this proof of the goodness of her
+heart.  A little diamond ring was the last jewel she had left.  She took
+it from her finger, to put it upon that of Theresa, who instantly
+replaced it upon that whence it had been taken, kissing the generous hand
+which she bathed with her tears.  Ah! this was the proper moment to
+discharge my debt!  I should have abandoned everything to follow her,
+and share her fate: let it be what it would.  I did nothing of the kind.
+My attention was engaged by another attachment, and I perceived the
+attachment I had to her was abated by the slender hopes there were of
+rendering it useful to either of us.  I sighed after her, my heart was
+grieved at her situation, but I did not follow her.  Of all the remorse I
+felt this was the strongest and most lasting.  I merited the terrible
+chastisement with which I have since that time incessantly been
+overwhelmed: may this have expiated my ingratitude!  Of this I appear
+guilty in my conduct, but my heart has been too much distressed by what I
+did ever to have been that of an ungrateful man.
+
+Before my departure from Paris I had sketched out the dedication of my
+discourse on the 'Inequality of Mankind'.  I finished it at Chambery, and
+dated it from that place, thinking that, to avoid all chicane, it was
+better not to date it either from France or Geneva.  The moment I arrived
+in that city I abandoned myself to the republican enthusiasm which had
+brought me to it.  This was augmented by the reception I there met with.
+Kindly treated by persons of every description, I entirely gave myself up
+to a patriotic zeal, and mortified at being excluded from the rights of a
+citizen by the possession of a religion different from that of my
+forefathers, I resolved openly to return to the latter.  I thought the
+gospel being the same for every Christian, and the only difference in
+religious opinions the result of the explanations given by men to that
+which they did not understand, it was the exclusive right of the
+sovereign power in every country to fix the mode of worship, and these
+unintelligible opinions; and that consequently it was the duty of a
+citizen to admit the one, and conform to the other in the manner
+prescribed by the law.  The conversation of the encyclopaedists, far from
+staggering my faith, gave it new strength by my natural aversion to
+disputes and party.  The study of man and the universe had everywhere
+shown me the final causes and the wisdom by which they were directed.
+The reading of the Bible, and especially that of the New Testament, to
+which I had for several years past applied myself, had given me a
+sovereign contempt for the base and stupid interpretations given to the
+words of Jesus Christ by persons the least worthy of understanding his
+divine doctrine.  In a word, philosophy, while it attached me to the
+essential part of religion, had detached me from the trash of the little
+formularies with which men had rendered it obscure.  Judging that for a
+reasonable man there were not two ways of being a Christian, I was also
+of opinion that in each country everything relative to form and
+discipline was within the jurisdiction of the laws.  From this principle,
+so social and pacific, and which has brought upon me such cruel
+persecutions, it followed that, if I wished to be a citizen of Geneva,
+I must become a Protestant, and conform to the mode of worship
+established in my country.  This I resolved upon; I moreover put myself
+under the instructions of the pastor of the parish in which I lived,
+and which was without the city.  All I desired was not to appear at the
+consistory.  However, the ecclesiastical edict was expressly to that
+effect; but it was agreed upon to dispense with it in my favor, and a
+commission of five or six members was named to receive my profession of
+faith.  Unfortunately, the minister Perdriau, a mild and an amiable man,
+took it into his head to tell me the members were rejoiced at the
+thoughts of hearing me speak in the little assembly.  This expectation
+alarmed me to such a degree that having night and day during three weeks
+studied a little discourse I had prepared, I was so confused when I ought
+to have pronounced it that I could not utter a single word, and during
+the conference I had the appearance of the most stupid schoolboy.  The
+persons deputed spoke for me, and I answered yes and no, like a
+blockhead; I was afterwards admitted to the communion, and reinstated in
+my rights as a citizen.  I was enrolled as such in the lists of guards,
+paid by none but citizens and burgesses, and I attended at a
+council-general extraordinary to receive the oath from the syndic
+Mussard.  I was so impressed with the kindness shown me on this occasion
+by the council and the consistory, and by the great civility and
+obliging behavior of the magistrates, ministers and citizens, that,
+pressed by the worthy De Luc, who was incessant in his persuasions, and
+still more so by my own inclination, I did not think of going back to
+Paris for any other purpose than to break up housekeeping, find a
+situation for M. and Madam le Vassear, or provide for their subsistence,
+and then return with Theresa to Geneva, there to settle for the rest of
+my days.
+
+After taking this resolution I suspended all serious affairs the better
+to enjoy the company of my friends until the time of my departure.
+Of all the amusements of which I partook, that with which I was most
+pleased, was sailing round the lake in a boat, with De Luc, the father,
+his daughter-in-law, his two sons, and my Theresa.  We gave seven days to
+this excursion in the finest weather possible.  I preserved a lively
+remembrance of the situation which struck me at the other extremity of
+the lake, and of which I, some years afterwards, gave a description in my
+New Eloisa.
+
+The principal connections I made at Geneva, besides the De Lucs, of which
+I have spoken, were the young Vernes, with whom I had already been
+acquainted at Paris, and of whom I then formed a better opinion than I
+afterwards had of him.  M. Perdriau, then a country pastor, now professor
+of Belles Lettres, whose mild and agreeable society will ever make me
+regret the loss of it, although he has since thought proper to detach
+himself from me; M. Jalabert, at that time professor of natural
+philosophy, since become counsellor and syndic, to whom I read my
+discourse upon Inequality (but not the dedication), with which he seemed
+to be delighted; the Professor Lullin, with whom I maintained a
+correspondence until his death, and who gave me a commission to purchase
+books for the library; the Professor Vernet, who, like most other people,
+turned his back upon me after I had given him proofs of attachment and
+confidence of which he ought to, have been sensible, if a theologian can
+be affected by anything; Chappins, clerk and successor to Gauffecourt,
+whom he wished to supplant, and who, soon afterwards, was him self
+supplanted; Marcet de Mezieres, an old friend of my father's, and who had
+also shown himself to be mine: after having well deserved of his country,
+he became a dramatic author, and, pretending to be of the council of two
+hundred, changed his principles, and, before he died, became ridiculous.
+But he from whom I expected most was M. Moultout, a very promising young
+man by his talents and his brilliant imagination, whom I have always
+loved, although his conduct with respect to me was frequently equivocal,
+and, not withstanding his being connected with my most cruel enemies,
+whom I cannot but look upon as destined to become the defender of my
+memory and the avenger of his friend.
+
+In the midst of these dissipations, I neither lost the taste for my
+solitary excursions, nor the habit of them; I frequently made long ones
+upon the banks of the lake, during which my mind, accustomed to
+reflection, did not remain idle; I digested the plan already formed
+of my political institutions, of which I shall shortly have to speak;
+I meditated a history of the Valais; the plan of a tragedy in prose,
+the subject of which, nothing less than Lucretia, did not deprive me of
+the hope of succeeding, although I had dared again to exhibit that
+unfortunate heroine, when she could no longer be suffered upon any French
+stage.  I at that time tried my abilities with Tacitus, and translated
+the first books of his history, which will be found amongst my papers.
+
+After a residence of four months at Geneva, I returned in the month of
+October to Paris; and avoided passing through Lyons that I might not
+again have to travel with Gauffecourt.  As the arrangement I had made did
+not require my being at Geneva until the spring following, I returned,
+during the winter, to my habits and occupations; the principal of the
+latter was examining the proof sheets of my discourse on the Inequality
+of Mankind, which I had procured to be printed in Holland, by the
+bookseller Rey, with whom I had just become acquainted at Geneva.  This
+work was dedicated to the republic; but as the publication might be
+unpleasing to the council, I wished to wait until it had taken its effect
+at Geneva before I returned thither.  This effect was not favorable to
+me; and the dedication, which the most pure patriotism had dictated,
+created me enemies in the council, and inspired even many of the
+burgesses with jealousy.  M. Chouet, at that time first syndic, wrote me
+a polite but very cold letter, which will be found amongst my papers.  I
+received from private persons, amongst others from Du Luc and De
+Jalabert, a few compliments, and these were all.  I did not perceive that
+a single Genevese was pleased with the hearty zeal found in the work.
+This indifference shocked all those by whom it was remarked.  I remember
+that dining one day at Clichy, at Madam Dupin's, with Crommelin, resident
+from the republic, and M. de Mairan, the latter openly declared the
+council owed me a present and public honors for the work, and that it
+would dishonor itself if it failed in either.  Crommelin, who was a black
+and mischievous little man, dared not reply in my presence, but he made a
+frightful grimace, which however forced a smile from Madam Dupin.  The
+only advantage this work procured me, besides that resulting from the
+satisfaction of my own heart, was the title of citizen given me by
+my friends, afterwards by the public after their example, and which I
+afterwards lost by having too well merited.
+
+This ill success would not, however, have prevented my retiring to
+Geneva, had not more powerful motives tended to the same effect.
+M. D'Epinay, wishing to add a wing which was wanting to the chateau of
+the Chevrette, was at an immense expense in completing it.  Going one day
+with Madam D'Epinay to see the building, we continued our walk a quarter
+of a league further to the reservoir of the waters of the park which
+joined the forest of Montmorency, and where there was a handsome kitchen
+garden, with a little lodge, much out of repair, called the Hermitage.
+This solitary and very agreeable place had struck me when I saw it for
+the first time before my journey to Geneva.  I had exclaimed in my
+transport: "Ah, madam, what a delightful habitation!  This asylum was
+purposely prepared for me."  Madam D'Epinay did not pay much attention to
+what I said; but at this second journey I was quite surprised to find,
+instead of the old decayed building, a little house almost entirely new,
+well laid out, and very habitable for a little family of three persons.
+Madam D'Epinay had caused this to be done in silence, and at a very small
+expense, by detaching a few materials and some of the work men from the
+castle.  She now said to me, on remarking my surprise: "My dear, here
+behold your asylum; it is you who have chosen it; friendship offers it to
+you.  I hope this will remove from you the cruel idea of separating from
+me."  I do not think I was ever in my life more strongly or more
+deliciously affected.  I bathed with tears the beneficent hand of my
+friend; and if I were not conquered from that very instant even, I was
+extremely staggered.  Madam D'Epinay, who would not be denied, became so
+pressing, employed so many means, so many people to circumvent me,
+proceeding even so far as to gain over Madam le Vasseur and her daughter,
+that at length she triumphed over all my resolutions. Renouncing the idea
+of residing in my own country, I resolved, I promised, to inhabit the
+Hermitage; and, whilst the building was drying, Madam D'Epinay took care
+to prepare furniture, so that everything was ready the following spring.
+
+One thing which greatly aided me in determining, was the residence
+Voltaire had chosen near Geneva; I easily comprehended this man would
+cause a revolution there, and that I should find in my country the
+manners, which drove me from Paris; that I should be under the necessity
+of incessantly struggling hard, and have no other alternative than that
+of being an unsupportable pedant, a poltroon, or a bad citizen.
+The letter Voltaire wrote me on my last work, induced me to insinuate
+my fears in my answer; and the effect this produced confirmed them.
+From that moment I considered Geneva as lost, and I was not deceived.
+I perhaps ought to have met the storm, had I thought myself capable of
+resisting it.  But what could I have done alone, timid, and speaking
+badly, against a man, arrogant, opulent, supported by the credit of the
+great, eloquent, and already the idol of the women and young men?  I was
+afraid of uselessly exposing myself to danger to no purpose.  I listened
+to nothing but my peaceful disposition, to my love of repose, which, if
+it then deceived me, still continues to deceive me on the same subject.
+By retiring to Geneva, I should have avoided great misfortunes; but I
+have my doubts whether, with all my ardent and patriotic zeal, I should
+have been able to effect anything great and useful for my country.
+
+Tronchin, who about the same time went to reside at Geneva, came
+afterwards to Paris and brought with him treasures.  At his arrival he
+came to see me, with the Chevalier Jaucourt.  Madam D'Epinay had a strong
+desire to consult him in private, but this it was not easy to do.
+She addressed herself to me, and I engaged Tronchin to go and see her.
+Thus under my auspices they began a connection, which was afterwards
+increased at my expense.  Such has ever been my destiny: the moment I had
+united two friends who were separately mine, they never failed to combine
+against me.  Although, in the conspiracy then formed by the Tronchins,
+they must all have borne me a mortal hatred.  He still continued friendly
+to me: he even wrote me a letter after his return to Geneva, to propose
+to me the place of honorary librarian.  But I had taken my resolution,
+and the offer did not tempt me to depart from it.
+
+About this time I again visited M. d'Holbach.  My visit was occasioned
+by the death of his wife, which, as well as that of Madam Francueil,
+happened whilst I was at Geneva.  Diderot, when he communicated to me
+these melancholy events, spoke of the deep affliction of the husband.
+His grief affected my heart.  I myself was grieved for the loss of that
+excellent woman, and wrote to M. d'Holbach a letter of condolence.
+I forgot all the wrongs he had done me, and at my return from Geneva,
+and after he had made the tour of France with Grimm and other friends
+to alleviate his affliction, I went to see him, and continued my visits
+until my departure for the Hermitage.  As soon as it was known in his
+circle that Madam D'Epinay was preparing me a habitation there,
+innumerable sarcasms, founded upon the want I must feel of the flattery
+and amusement of the city, and the supposition of my not being able to
+support the solitude for a fortnight, were uttered against me.  Feeling
+within myself how I stood affected, I left him and his friends to say
+what they pleased, and pursued my intention.  M. d'Holbach rendered me
+some services--
+
+     [This is an instance of the treachery of my memory.  A long time
+     after I had written what I have stated above, I learned, in
+     conversing with my wife, that it was not M. d'Holbach, but M. de
+     Chenonceaux, then one of the administrators of the Hotel Dieu, who
+     procured this place for her father.  I had so totally forgotten the
+     circumstance, and the idea of M. d'Holbach's having done it was so
+     strong in my mind that I would have sworn it had been him.]
+
+in finding a place for the old Le Vasseur, who was eighty years of age
+and a burden to his wife, from which she begged me to relieve her.
+He was put into a house of charity, where, almost as soon as he arrived
+there, age and the grief of finding himself removed from his family sent
+him to the grave.  His wife and all his children, except Theresa, did not
+much regret his loss.  But she, who loved him tenderly, has ever since
+been inconsolable, and never forgiven herself for having suffered him,
+at so advanced an age, to end his days in any other house than her own.
+
+Much about the same time I received a visit I little expected, although
+it was from a very old acquaintance.  My friend Venture, accompanied by
+another man, came upon me one morning by surprise.  What a change did I
+discover in his person!  Instead of his former gracefulness, he appeared
+sottish and vulgar, which made me extremely reserved with him.  My eyes
+deceived me, or either debauchery had stupefied his mind, or all his
+first splendor was the effect of his youth, which was past.  I saw him
+almost with indifference, and we parted rather coolly.  But when he was
+gone, the remembrance of our former connection so strongly called to my
+recollection that of my younger days, so charmingly, so prudently
+dedicated to that angelic woman (Madam de Warrens) who was not much less
+changed than himself; the little anecdotes of that happy time, the
+romantic day of Toune passed with so much innocence and enjoyment between
+those two charming girls, from whom a kiss of the hand was the only
+favor, and which, notwithstanding its being so trifling, had left me such
+lively, affecting and lasting regrets; and the ravishing delirium of a
+young heart, which I had just felt in all its force, and of which I
+thought the season forever past for me.  The tender remembrance of these
+delightful circumstances made me shed tears over my faded youth and its
+transports for ever lost to me.  Ah! how many tears should I have shed
+over their tardy and fatal return had I foreseen the evils I had yet to
+suffer from them.
+
+Before I left Paris, I enjoyed during the winter which preceded my
+retreat, a pleasure after my own heart, and of which I tasted in all its
+purity.  Palissot, academician of Nancy, known by a few dramatic
+compositions, had just had one of them performed at Luneville before the
+King of Poland.  He perhaps thought to make his court by representing in
+his piece a man who had dared to enter into a literary dispute with the
+king.  Stanislaus, who was generous, and did not like satire, was filled
+with indignation at the author's daring to be personal in his presence.
+The Comte de Tressan, by order of the prince, wrote to M. d'Alembert, as
+well as to myself, to inform me that it was the intention of his majesty
+to have Palissot expelled his academy.  My answer was a strong
+solicitation in favor of Palissot, begging M. de Tressan to intercede
+with the king in his behalf.  His pardon was granted, and M. de Tressan,
+when he communicated to me the information in the name of the monarch,
+added that the whole of what had passed should be inserted in the
+register of the academy.  I replied that this was less granting a pardon
+than perpetuating a punishment.  At length, after repeated solicitations,
+I obtained a promise, that nothing relative to the affair should be
+inserted in the register, and that no public trace should remain of it.
+The promise was accompanied, as well on the part of the king as on that
+of M. de Tressan, with assurance of esteem and respect, with which I was
+extremely flattered; and I felt on this occasion that the esteem of men
+who are themselves worthy of it, produced in the mind a sentiment
+infinitely more noble and pleasing than that of vanity.  I have
+transcribed into my collection the letters of M. de Tressan, with my
+answers to them: and the original of the former will be found amongst my
+other papers.
+
+I am perfectly aware that if ever these memoirs become public, I here
+perpetuate the remembrance of a fact which I would wish to efface every
+trace; but I transmit many others as much against my inclination.
+The grand object of my undertaking, constantly before my eyes, and the
+indispensable duty of fulfilling it to its utmost extent, will not permit
+me to be turned aside by trifling considerations, which would lead me
+from my purpose.  In my strange and unparalleled situation, I owe too
+much to truth to be further than this indebted to any person whatever.
+They who wish to know me well must be acquainted with me in every point
+of view, in every relative situation, both good and bad.  My confessions
+are necessarily connected with those of many other people: I write both
+with the same frankness in everything that relates to that which has
+befallen me; and am not obliged to spare any person more than myself,
+although it is my wish to do it.  I am determined always to be just and
+true, to say of others all the good I can, never speaking of evil except
+when it relates to my own conduct, and there is a necessity for my so
+doing.  Who, in the situation in which the world has placed me, has a
+right to require more at my hands?  My confessions are not intended to
+appear during my lifetime, nor that of those they may disagreeably
+affect.  Were I master of my own destiny, and that of the book I am now
+writing, it should never be made public until after my death and theirs.
+But the efforts which the dread of truth obliges my powerful enemies to
+make to destroy every trace of it, render it necessary for me to do
+everything, which the strictest right, and the most severe justice, will
+permit, to preserve what I have written.  Were the remembrance of me to
+be lost at my dissolution, rather than expose any person alive, I would
+without a murmur suffer an unjust and momentary reproach.  But since my
+name is to live, it is my duty to endeavor to transmit with it to
+posterity the remembrance of the unfortunate man by whom it was borne,
+such as he really was, and not such as his unjust enemies incessantly
+endeavored to describe him.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau,
+Book VIII., by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUSSEAU ***
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book 8
+#8 in our series by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
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+Title: The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book 8
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+Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
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+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+(In 12 books)
+
+Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society
+
+London, 1903
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+
+At the end of the preceding book a pause was necessary.  With this begins
+the long chain of my misfortunes deduced from their origin.
+
+Having lived in the two most splendid houses in Paris, I had,
+notwithstanding my candor and modesty, made some acquaintance.  Among
+others at Dupin's, that of the young hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha, and
+of the Baron de Thun, his governor; at the house of M. de la Popliniere,
+that of M. Seguy, friend to the Baron de Thun, and known in the literary
+world by his beautiful edition of Rousseau.  The baron invited M. Seguy
+and myself to go and pass a day or two at Fontenai sous bois, where the
+prince had a house.  As I passed Vincennes, at the sight of the dungeon,
+my feelings were acute; the effect of which the baron perceived on my
+countenance.  At supper the prince mentioned the confinement of Diderot.
+The baron, to hear what I had to say, accused the prisoner of imprudence;
+and I showed not a little of the same in the impetuous manner in which I
+defended him.  This excess of zeal, inspired by the misfortune which had
+befallen my friend, was pardoned, and the conversation immediately
+changed.  There were present two Germans in the service of the prince.
+M. Klupssel, a man of great wit, his chaplain, and who afterwards, having
+supplanted the baron, became his governor.  The other was a young man
+named M. Grimm, who served him as a reader until he could obtain some
+place, and whose indifferent appearance sufficiently proved the pressing
+necessity he was under of immediately finding one.  From this very
+evening Klupssel and I began an acquaintance which soon led to
+friendship.  That with the Sieur Grimm did not make quite so rapid a
+progress; he made but few advances, and was far from having that haughty
+presumption which prosperity afterwards gave him.  The next day at
+dinner, the conversation turned upon music; he spoke well on the subject.
+I was transported with joy when I learned from him he could play an
+accompaniment on the harpsichord.  After dinner was over music was
+introduced, and we amused ourselves the rest of the afternoon on the
+harpischord of the prince.  Thus began that friendship which, at first,
+was so agreeable to me, afterwards so fatal, and of which I shall
+hereafter have so much to say.
+
+At my return to Paris, I learned the agreeable news that Diderot was
+released from the dungeon, and that he had on his parole the castle and
+park of Vincennes for a prison, with permission to see his friends.  How
+painful was it to me not to be able instantly to fly to him!  But I was
+detained two or three days at Madam Dupin's by indispensable business.
+After ages of impatience, I flew to the arms of my friend.  He was not
+alone: D' Alembert and the treasurer of the Sainte Chapelle were with
+him.  As I entered I saw nobody but himself, I made but one step, one
+cry; I riveted my face to his: I pressed him in my arms, without speaking
+to him, except by tears and sighs: I stifled him with my affection and
+joy.  The first thing he did, after quitting my arms, was to turn himself
+towards the ecclesiastic, and say: "You see, sir, how much I am beloved
+by my friends."  My emotion was so great, that it was then impossible for
+me to reflect upon this manner of turning it to advantage; but I have
+since thought that, had I been in the place of Diderot, the idea he
+manifested would not have been the first that would have occurred to me.
+
+I found him much affected by his imprisonment.  The dungeon had made a
+terrible impression upon his mind, and, although he was very agreeably
+situated in the castle, and at liberty to, walk where he pleased in the
+park, which was not inclosed even by a wall, he wanted the society of his
+friends to prevent him from yielding to melancholy.  As I was the person
+most concerned for his sufferings, I imagined I should also be the
+friend, the sight of whom would give him consolation; on which account,
+notwithstanding very pressing occupations, I went every two days at
+farthest, either alone, or accompanied by his wife, to pass the afternoon
+with him.
+
+The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive.  Vincennes is two
+leagues from Paris.  The state of my finances not permitting me to pay
+for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on foot,
+when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive the
+sooner.  The trees by the side of the road, always lopped, according to
+the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and exhausted by
+fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being unable to proceed
+any further.  I thought a book in my hand might make me moderate my pace.
+One day I took the Mercure de France, and as I walked and read, I came to
+the following question proposed by the academy of Dijon, for the premium
+of the ensuing year, 'Has the progress of sciences and arts contributed
+to corrupt or purify morals?'
+
+The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and became
+a different man.  Although I have a lively remembrance of the impression
+it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I communicated it
+to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him.  This is one of
+the singularities of my memory which merits to be remarked.  It serves me
+in proportion to my dependence upon it; the moment I have committed to
+paper that with which it was charged, it forsakes me, and I have no
+sooner written a thing than I had forgotten it entirely.  This
+singularity is the same with respect to music.  Before I learned the use
+of notes I knew a great number of songs; the moment I had made a
+sufficient progress to sing an air set to music, I could not recollect
+any one of them; and, at present, I much doubt whether I should be able
+entirely to go through one of those of which I was the most fond.  All I
+distinctly recollect upon this occasion is, that on my arrival at
+Vincennes, I was in an agitation which approached a delirium.  Diderot
+perceived it; I told him the cause, and read to him the prosopopoeia of
+Fabricius, written with a pencil under a tree.  He encouraged me to
+pursue my ideas, and to become a competitor for the premium.  I did so,
+and from that moment I was ruined.
+
+All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable effect
+of this moment of error.
+
+My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to the
+level of my ideas.  All my little passions were stifled by the enthusiasm
+of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most astonishing, this
+effervescence continued in my mind upwards of five years, to as great a
+degree perhaps as it has ever done in that of any other man.  I composed
+the discourse in a very singular manner, and in that style which I have
+always followed in my other works.  I dedicated to it the hours of the
+night in which sleep deserted me, I meditated in my bed with my eyes
+closed, and in my mind turned over and over again my periods with
+incredible labor and care; the moment they were finished to my
+satisfaction, I deposited them in my memory, until I had an opportunity
+of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and putting on my
+clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my pen I recollected
+but little of what I had composed.  I made Madam le Vasseur my secretary;
+I had lodged her with her daughter, and husband, nearer to myself; and
+she, to save me the expense of a servant, came every morning to make my
+fire, and to do such other little things as were necessary.  As soon as
+she arrived I dictated to her while in bed what I had composed in the
+night, and this method, which for a long time I observed, preserved me
+many things I should otherwise have forgotten.
+
+As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot.  He was
+satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he
+thought necessary to be made.
+
+However, this composition, full of force and fire, absolutely wants logic
+and order; of all the works I ever wrote, this is the weakest in
+reasoning, and the most devoid of number and harmony.  With whatever
+talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily learned.
+
+I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I think,
+to Grimm, with whom, after his going to live with the Comte de Vriese, I
+began to be upon the most intimate footing.  His harpsichord served as a
+rendezvous, and I passed with him at it all the moments I had to spare,
+in singing Italian airs, and barcaroles; sometimes without intermission,
+from morning till night, or rather from night until morning; and when I
+was not to be found at Madam Dupin's, everybody concluded I was with
+Grimm at his apartment, the public walk, or theatre.  I left off going to
+the Comedie Italienne, of which I was free, to go with him, and pay, to
+the Comedie Francoise, of which he was passionately fond.  In short, so
+powerful an attraction connected me with this young man, and I became so
+inseparable from him, that the poor aunt herself was rather neglected,
+that is, I saw her less frequently; for in no moment of my life has my
+attachment to her been diminished.
+
+This impossibility of dividing, in favor of my inclinations, the little
+time I had to myself, renewed more strongly than ever the desire I had
+long entertained of having but one home for Theresa and myself; but the
+embarrassment of her numerous family, and especially the want of money to
+purchase furniture, had hitherto withheld me from accomplishing it.  An
+opportunity to endeavor at it presented itself, and of this I took
+advantage.  M. de Francueil and Madam Dupin, clearly perceiving that
+eight or nine hundred livres a year were unequal to my wants, increased
+of their own accord, my salary to fifty guineas; and Madam Dupin, having
+heard I wished to furnish myself lodgings, assisted me with some articles
+for that purpose.  With this furniture and that Theresa already had, we
+made one common stock, and, having an apartment in the Hotel de
+Languedoc, Rue de Grevelle St, Honor, kept by very honest people, we
+arranged ourselves in the best manner we could, and lived there peaceably
+and agreeably during seven years, at the end of which I removed to go and
+live at the Hermitage.
+
+Theresa's father was a good old man, very mild in his disposition, and
+much afraid of his wife; for this reason he had given her the surname of
+Lieutenant Criminal, which Grimm, jocosely, afterwards transferred to the
+daughter.  Madam le Vasseur did not want sense, that is address; and
+pretended to the politeness and airs of the first circles; but she had a
+mysterious wheedling, which to me was insupportable, gave bad advice to
+her daughter, endeavored to make her dissemble with me, and separately,
+cajoled my friends at my expense, and that of each other; excepting these
+circumstances; she was a tolerably good mother, because she found her
+account in being so, and concealed the faults of her daughter to turn
+them to her own advantage.  This woman, who had so much of my care and
+attention, to whom I made so many little presents, and by whom I had it
+extremely at heart to make myself beloved, was, from the impossibility of
+my succeeding in this wish, the only cause of the uneasiness I suffered
+in my little establishment.  Except the effects of this cause I enjoyed,
+during these six or seven, years, the most perfect domestic happiness of
+which human weakness is capable.  The heart of my Theresa was that of an
+angel; our attachment increased with our intimacy, and we were more and
+more daily convinced how much we were made for each other.  Could our
+pleasures be described, their simplicity would cause laughter.  Our
+walks, tete-a-tete, on the outside of the city, where I magnificently
+spent eight or ten sous in each guinguette.--[Ale-house]-- Our little
+suppers at my window, seated opposite to each other upon two little
+chairs, placed upon a trunk, which filled up the spare of the embrasure.
+In this situation the window served us as a table, we respired the fresh
+air, enjoyed the prospect of the environs and the people who passed; and,
+although upon the fourth story, looked down into the street as we ate.
+
+Who can describe, and how few can feel, the charms of these repasts,
+consisting of a quartern loaf, a few cherries, a morsel of cheese, and
+half-a-pint of wine which we drank between us?  Friendship, confidence,
+intimacy, sweetness of disposition, how delicious are your reasonings!
+We sometimes remained in this situation until midnight, and never thought
+of the hour, unless informed of it by the old lady.  But let us quit
+these details, which are either insipid or laughable; I have always said
+and felt that real enjoyment was not to be described.
+
+Much about the same time I indulged in one not so delicate, and the last
+of the kind with which I have to reproach myself.  I have observed that
+the minister Klupssel was an amiable man; my connections with him were
+almost as intimate as those I had with Grimm, and in the end became as
+familiar; Grimm and he sometimes eat at my apartment.  These repasts, a
+little more than simple, were enlivened by the witty and extravagant
+wantonness of expression of Klupssel, and the diverting Germanicisms of
+Grimm, who was not yet become a purist.
+
+Sensuality did not preside at our little orgies, but joy, which was
+preferable, reigned in them all, and we enjoyed ourselves so well
+together that we knew not how to separate.  Klupssel had furnished a
+lodging for a little girl, who, notwithstanding this, was at the service
+of anybody, because he could not support her entirely himself.  One
+evening as we were going into the coffee-house, we met him coming out to
+go and sup with her.  We rallied him; he revenged himself gallantly, by
+inviting us to the same supper, and there rallying us in our turn.  The
+poor young creature appeared to be of a good disposition, mild and little
+fitted to the way of life to which an old hag she had with her, prepared
+her in the best manner she could.  Wine and conversation enlivened us to
+such a degree that we forgot ourselves.  The amiable Klupssel was
+unwilling to do the honors of his table by halves, and we all three
+successively took a view of the next chamber, in company with his little
+friend, who knew not whether she should laugh or cry.  Grimm has always
+maintained that he never touched her; it was therefore to amuse himself
+with our impatience, that he remained so long in the other chamber, and
+if he abstained, there is not much probability of his having done so from
+scruple, because previous to his going to live with the Comte de Friese,
+he lodged with girls of the town in the same quarter of St. Roch.
+
+I left the Rue des Moineaux, where this girl lodged, as much ashamed as
+Saint Preux left the house in which he had become intoxicated, and when I
+wrote his story I well remembered my own.  Theresa perceived by some
+sign, and especially by my confusion, I had something with which I
+reproached myself; I relieved my mind by my free and immediate
+confession.  I did well, for the next day Grimm came in triumph to relate
+to her my crime with aggravation, and since that time he has never failed
+maliciously to recall it to her recollection; in this he was the more
+culpable, since I had freely and voluntarily given him my confidence, and
+had a right to expect he would not make me repent of it.  I never had a
+more convincing proof than on this occasion, of the goodness of my
+Theresa's heart; she was more shocked at the behavior of Grimm than at my
+infidelity, and I received nothing from her but tender reproaches, in
+which there was not the least appearance of anger.
+
+The simplicity of mind of this excellent girl was equal to her goodness
+of heart; and this is saying everything: but one instance of it, which is
+present to my recollection, is worthy of being related.  I had told her
+Klupssel was a minister, and chaplain to the prince of Saxe-Gotha.  A
+minister was to her so singular a man, that oddly confounding the most
+dissimilar ideas, she took it into her head to take Klupssel for the
+pope; I thought her mad the first time she told me when I came in, that
+the pope had called to see me.  I made her explain herself and lost not a
+moment in going to relate the story to Grimm and Klupssel, who amongst
+ourselves never lost the name of pope.  We gave to the girl in the Rue
+des Moineaux the name of Pope Joan.  Our laughter was incessant; it
+almost stifled us.  They, who in a letter which it hath pleased them to
+attribute to me, have made me say I never laughed but twice in my life,
+did not know me at this period, nor in my younger days; for if they had,
+the idea could never have entered into their heads.
+
+The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse; I learned
+it had gained the premium at Dijon.  This news awakened all the ideas
+which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
+fermentation of my heart of that first leaven of heroism and virtue which
+my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.  Nothing
+now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to
+fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior circumstances;
+although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation at first prevented
+me from conducting myself according to these principles, and from
+suddenly quarreling with the maxims of the age in which I lived, I from
+that moment took a decided resolution to do it.--[And of this I purposely
+delayed the execution, that irritated by contradiction f it might be
+rendered triumphant.]
+
+While I was philosophizing upon the duties of man, an event happened
+which made me better reflect upon my own.  Theresa became pregnant for
+the third time.  Too sincere with myself, too haughty in my mind to
+contradict my principles by my actions, I began to examine the
+destination of my children, and my connections with the mother, according
+to the laws of nature, justice, and reason, and those of that religion,
+pure, holy, and eternal, like its author, which men have polluted while
+they pretended to purify it, and which by their formularies they have
+reduced to a religion of words, since the difficulty of prescribing
+impossibilities is but trifling to those by whom they are not practised.
+
+If I deceived myself in my conclusions, nothing can be more astonishing
+than the security with which I depended upon them.  Were I one of those
+men unfortunately born deaf to the voice of nature, in whom no sentiment
+of justice or humanity ever took the least root, this obduracy would be
+natural.  But that warmth of heart, strong sensibility, and facility of
+forming attachments; the force with which they subdue me; my cruel
+sufferings when obliged to break them; the innate benevolence I cherished
+towards my fellow-creatures; the ardent love I bear to great virtues, to
+truth and justice, the horror in which I hold evil of every kind; the
+impossibility of hating, of injuring or wishing to injure anyone; the
+soft and lively emotion I feel at the sight of whatever is virtuous,
+generous and amiable; can these meet in the same mind with the depravity
+which without scruple treads under foot the most pleasing of all our
+duties?  No, I feel, and openly declare this to be impossible.  Never in
+his whole life could J. J.  be a man without sentiment or an unnatural
+father.  I may have been deceived, but it is impossible I should have
+lost the least of my feelings.  Were I to give my reasons, I should say
+too much; since they have seduced me, they would seduce many others.  I
+will not therefore expose those young persons by whom I may be read to
+the same danger.  I will satisfy myself by observing that my error was
+such, that in abandoning my children to public education for want of the
+means of bringing them up myself; in destining them to become workmen and
+peasants, rather than adventurers and fortune-hunters, I thought I acted
+like an honest citizen, and a good father, and considered myself as a
+member of the republic of Plato.  Since that time the regrets of my heart
+have more than once told me I was deceived; but my reason was so far from
+giving me the same intimation, that I have frequently returned thanks to
+Heaven for having by this means preserved them from the fate of their
+father, and that by which they were threatened the moment I should have
+been under the necessity of leaving them.  Had I left them to Madam
+d'Upinay, or Madam de Luxembourg, who, from friendship, generosity, or
+some other motive, offered to take care of them in due time, would they
+have been more happy, better brought up, or honester men?  To this I
+cannot answer; but I am certain they would have been taught to hate and
+perhaps betray their parents: it is much better that they have never
+known them.
+
+My third child was therefore carried to the foundling hospital as well as
+the two former, and the next two were disposed of in the same manner; for
+I have had five children in all.  This arrangement seemed to me to be so
+good, reasonable and lawful, that if I did not publicly boast of it, the
+motive by which I was withheld was merely my regard for their mother: but
+I mentioned it to all those to whom I had declared our connection, to
+Diderot, to Grimm, afterwards to M. d'Epinay, and after another interval
+to Madam de Luxembourg; and this freely and voluntarily, without being
+under the least necessity of doing it, having it in my power to conceal
+the step from all the world; for La Gouin was an honest woman, very
+discreet, and a person on whom I had the greatest reliance.  The only one
+of my friends to whom it was in some measure my interest to open myself,
+was Thierry the physician, who had the care of my poor aunt in one of her
+lyings in, in which she was very ill.  In a word, there was no mystery in
+my conduct, not only on account of my never having concealed anything
+from my friends, but because I never found any harm in it.  Everything
+considered, I chose the best destination for my children, or that which I
+thought to be such.  I could have wished, and still should be glad, had I
+been brought up as they have been.
+
+Whilst I was thus communicating what I had done, Madam. le Vasseur did
+the same thing amongst her acquaintance, but with less disinterested
+views.  I introduced her and her daughter to Madam Dupin, who, from
+friendship to me, showed them the greatest kindness.  The mother confided
+to her the secret of the daughter.  Madam Dupin, who is generous and
+kind, and to whom she never told how attentive I was to her,
+notwithstanding my moderate resources, in providing for everything,
+provided on her part for what was necessary, with a liberality which, by
+order of her mother, the daughter concealed from me during my residence
+in Paris, nor ever mentioned it until we were at the Hermitage, when she
+informed me of it, after having disclosed to me several other secrets of
+her heart.  I did not know Madam Dupin, who never took the least notice
+to me of the matter, was so well informed: I know not yet whether Madam
+de Chenonceaux, her daughter-in-law, was as much in the secret: but Madam
+de Brancueil knew the whole and could not refrain from prattling.  She
+spoke of it to me the following year, after I had left her house.  This
+induced me to write her a letter upon the subject, which will be found in
+my collections, and wherein I gave such of my reasons as I could make
+public, without exposing Madam le Vasseur and her family; the most
+determinative of them came from that quarter, and these I kept profoundly
+secret.
+
+I can rely upon the discretion of Madam Dupin, and the friendship of
+Madam de Chenonceaux; I had the same dependence upon that of Madam de
+Francuiel, who, however, was long dead before my secret made its way into
+the world.  This it could never have done except by means of the persons
+to whom I intrusted it, nor did it until after my rupture with them.  By
+this single fact they are judged; without exculpating myself from the
+blame I deserve, I prefer it to that resulting from their malignity.  My
+fault is great, but it was an error.  I have neglected my duty, but the
+desire of doing an injury never entered my heart; and the feelings of a
+father were never more eloquent in favor of children whom he never saw.
+But: betraying the confidence of friendship, violating the most sacred of
+all engagements, publishing secrets confided to us, and wantonly
+dishonoring the friend we have deceived, and who in detaching himself
+from our society still respects us, are not faults, but baseness of mind,
+and the last degree of heinousness.
+
+I have promised my confession and not my justification; on which account
+I shall stop here.  It is my duty faithfully to relate the truth, that of
+the reader to be just; more than this I never shall require of him.
+
+The marriage of M. de Chenonceaux rendered his mother's house still more
+agreeable to me, by the wit and merit of the new bride, a very amiable
+young person, who seemed to distinguish me amongst the scribes of M.
+Dupin.  She was the only daughter of the Viscountess de Rochechouart, a
+great friend of the Comte de Friese, and consequently of Grimm's who was
+very attentive to her.  However, it was I who introduced him to her
+daughter; but their characters not suiting each other, this connection
+was not of long duration; and Grimm, who from that time aimed at what was
+solid, preferred the mother, a woman of the world, to the daughter who
+wished for steady friends, such as were agreeable to her, without
+troubling her head about the least intrigue, or making any interest
+amongst the great.  Madam Dupin no longer finding in Madam de Chenonceaux
+all the docility she expected, made her house very disagreeable to her,
+and Madam de Chenonceaux, having a great opinion of her own merit, and,
+perhaps, of her birth, chose rather to give up the pleasures of society,
+and remain almost alone in her apartment, than to submit to a yoke she
+was not disposed to bear.  This species of exile increased my attachment
+to her, by that natural inclination which excites me to approach the
+wretched, I found her mind metaphysical and reflective, although at times
+a little sophistical; her conversation, which was by no means that of a
+young woman coming from a convent, had for me the greatest attractions;
+yet she was not twenty years of age.  Her complexion was seducingly fair;
+her figure would have been majestic had she held herself more upright.
+Her hair, which was fair, bordering upon ash color, and uncommonly
+beautiful, called to my recollection that of my poor mamma in the flower
+of her age, and strongly agitated my heart.  But the severe principles I
+had just laid down for myself, by which at all events I was determined to
+be guided, secured me from the danger of her and her charms.  During the
+whole summer I passed three or four hours a day in a tete-a-tete
+conversation with her, teaching her arithmetic, and fatiguing her with my
+innumerable ciphers, without uttering a single word of gallantry, or even
+once glancing my eyes upon her.  Five or six years later I should not
+have had so much wisdom or folly; but it was decreed I was never to love
+but once in my life, and that another person was to have the first and
+last sighs of my heart.
+
+Since I had lived in the house of Madam Dupin, I had always been
+satisfied with my situation, without showing the least sign of a desire
+to improve it.  The addition which, in conjunction with M. de Francueil,
+she had made to my salary, was entirely of their own accord.  This year
+M. de Francueil, whose friendship for me daily increased, had it in his
+thoughts to place me more at ease, and in a less precarious situation.
+He was receiver-general of finance.  M. Dudoyer, his cash-keeper, was old
+and rich, and wished to retire.  M. de Francueil offered me his place,
+and to prepare myself for it, I went during a few weeks, to Dudoyer, to
+take the necessary instructions.  But whether my talents were ill-suited
+to the employment, or that M. Dudoyer, who I thought wished to procure
+his place for another, was not in earnest in the instructions he gave me,
+I acquired by slow degrees, and very imperfectly, the knowledge I was in
+want of, and could never understand the nature of accounts, rendered
+intricate, perhaps designedly.  However, without having possessed myself
+of the whole scope of the business, I learned enough of the method to
+pursue it without the least difficulty; I even entered on my new office;
+I kept the cashbook and the cash; I paid and received money, took and
+gave receipts; and although this business was so ill suited to my
+inclinations as to my abilities, maturity of years beginning to render me
+sedate, I was determined to conquer my disgust, and entirely devote
+myself to my new employment.
+
+Unfortunately for me, I had no sooner begun to proceed without
+difficulty, than M. de Francueil took a little journey, during which I
+remained intrusted with the cash, which, at that time, did not amount to
+more than twenty-five to thirty thousand livres.  The anxiety of mind
+this sum of money occasioned me, made me perceive I was very unfit to be
+a cash-keeper, and I have no doubt but my uneasy situation, during his
+absence, contributed to the illness with which I was seized after his
+return.
+
+I have observed in my first part that I was born in a dying state.  A
+defect in the bladder caused me, during my early years, to suffer an
+almost continual retention of urine, and my Aunt Susan, to whose care I
+was intrusted, had inconceivable difficulty in preserving me.  However,
+she succeeded, and my robust constitution at length got the better of all
+my weakness, and my health became so well established that except the
+illness from languor, of which I have given an account, and frequent
+heats in the bladder which the least heating of the blood rendered
+troublesome, I arrived at the age of thirty almost without feeling my
+original infirmity.  The first time this happened was upon my arrival at
+Venice.  The fatigue of the voyage, and the extreme heat I had suffered,
+renewed the burnings, and gave me a pain in the loins, which continued
+until the beginning of winter.  After having seen padoana, I thought
+myself near the end of my career, but I suffered not the least
+inconvenience.  After exhausting my imagination more than my body for my
+Zulietta, I enjoyed better health than ever.  It was not until after the
+imprisonment of Diderot that the heat of blood, brought on by my journeys
+to Vincennes during the terrible heat of that summer, gave me a violent
+nephritic colic, since which I have never recovered my primitive good
+state of health.
+
+At the time of which I speak, having perhaps fatigued myself too much in
+the filthy work of the cursed receiver-general's office, I fell into a
+worse state than ever, and remained five or six weeks in my bed in the
+most melancholy state imaginable.  Madam Dupin sent me the celebrated
+Morand who, notwithstanding his address and the delicacy of his touch,
+made me suffer the greatest torments.  He advised me to have recourse to
+Daran, who, in fact gave me some relief: but Morand, when he gave Madam
+Dupin an account of the state I was in, declared to her I should not be
+alive in six months.  This afterwards came to my ear, and made me reflect
+seriously on my situation and the folly of sacrificing the repose of the
+few days I had to live to the slavery of an employment for which I felt
+nothing but disgust.  Besides, how was it possible to reconcile the
+severe principles I had just adopted to a situation with which they had
+so little relation?  Should not I, the cash-keeper of a receiver-general
+of finances, have preached poverty and disinterestedness with a very ill
+grace?  These ideas fermented so powerfully in my mind with the fever,
+and were so strongly impressed, that from that time nothing could remove
+them; and, during my convalescence, I confirmed myself with the greatest
+coolness in the resolutions I had taken during my delirium.  I forever
+abandoned all projects of fortune and advancement, resolved to pass in
+independence and poverty the little time I had to exist.  I made every
+effort of which my mind was capable to break the fetters of prejudice,
+and courageously to do everything that was right without giving myself
+the least concern about the judgment of others.  The obstacles I had to
+combat, and the efforts I made to triumph over them, are inconceivable.
+I succeeded as much as it was possible I should, and to a greater degree
+than I myself had hoped for.  Had I at the same time shaken off the yoke
+of friendship as well as that of prejudice, my design would have been
+accomplished, perhaps the greatest, at least the most useful one to
+virtue, that mortal ever conceived; but whilst I despised the foolish
+judgments of the vulgar tribe called great and wise, I suffered myself to
+be influenced and led by persons who called themselves my friends.
+These, hurt at seeing me walk alone in a new path, while I seemed to take
+measures for my happiness, used all their endeavors to render me
+ridiculous, and that they might afterwards defame me, first strove to
+make me contemptible.  It was less my literary fame than my personal
+reformation, of which I here state the period, that drew upon me their
+jealousy; they perhaps might have pardoned me for having distinguished
+myself in the art of writing; but they could never forgive my setting
+them, by my conduct, an example, which, in their eyes, seemed to reflect
+on themselves.  I was born for friendship; my mind and easy disposition
+nourished it without difficulty.  As long as I lived unknown to the
+public I was beloved by all my private acquaintance, and I had not a
+single enemy.  But the moment I acquired literary fame, I had no longer a
+friend.  This, was a great misfortune; but a still greater was that of
+being surrounded by people who called themselves my friends, and used the
+rights attached to that sacred name to lead me on to destruction.  The
+succeeding part of these memoirs will explain this odious conspiracy.  I
+here speak of its origin, and the manner of the first intrigue will
+shortly appear.
+
+In the independence in which I lived, it was, however, necessary to
+subsist.  To this effect I thought of very simple means: which were
+copying music at so much a page.  If any employment more solid would have
+fulfilled the same end I would have taken it up; but this occupation
+being to my taste, and the only one which, without personal attendance,
+could procure me daily bread, I adopted it.  Thinking I had no longer
+need of foresight, and, stifling the vanity of cash-keeper to a
+financier, I made myself a copyist of music.  I thought I had made an
+advantageous choice, and of this I so little repented, that I never
+quitted my new profession until I was forced to do it, after taking a
+fixed resolution to return to it as soon as possible.
+
+The success of my first discourse rendered the execution of this
+resolution more easy.  As soon as it had gained the premium, Diderot
+undertook to get it printed.  Whilst I was in my bed, he wrote me a note
+informing me of the publication and effect: "It takes," said he, "beyond
+all imagination; never was there an instance of alike success."
+
+This favor of the public, by no means solicited, and to an unknown
+author, gave me the first real assurance of my talents, of which,
+notwithstanding an internal sentiment, I had always had my doubts.  I
+conceived the great advantage to be drawn from it in favor of the way of
+life I had determined to pursue; and was of opinion, that a copyist of
+some celebrity in the republic of letters was not likely to want
+employment.
+
+The moment my resolution was confirmed, I wrote a note to M, de
+Francueil, communicating to him my intentions, thanking him and Madam
+Dupin for all goodness, and offering them my services in the way of my
+new profession.  Francueil did not understand my note, and, thinking I
+was still in the delirium of fever, hastened to my apartment; but he
+found me so determined, that all he could say to me was without the least
+effect.  He went to Madam Dupin, and told her and everybody he met, that
+I had become insane.  I let him say what he pleased, and pursued the plan
+I had conceived.  I began the change in my dress; I quitted laced clothes
+and white stockings; I put on a round wig, laid aside my sword, and sold
+my watch; saying to myself, with inexpressible pleasure: "Thank Heaven!
+I shall no longer want to know the hour!"  M. de Francueil had the
+goodness to wait a considerable time before he disposed of my place.  At
+length perceiving me inflexibly resolved, he gave it to M. d'Alibard,
+formerly tutor to the young Chenonceaux, and known as a botanist by his
+Flora Parisiensis.
+
+     [I doubt not but these circumstances are now differently related by
+     M. Francueil and his consorts: but I appeal to what he said of them
+     at the time and long afterwards, to everybody he knew, until the
+     forming of the conspiracy, and of which men of common sense and
+     honor, must have preserved a remembrance.]
+
+However austere my sumptuary reform might be, I did not at first extend
+it to my linen, which was fine and in great quantity, the remainder of my
+stock when at Venice, and to which I was particularly attached.  I had
+made it so much an object of cleanliness, that it became one of luxury,
+which was rather expensive.  Some persons, however, did me the favor to
+deliver me from this servitude.  On Christmas Eve, whilst the governesses
+were at vespers, and I was at the spiritual concert, the door of a
+garret, in which all our linen was hung up after being washed, was broken
+open.  Everything was stolen; and amongst other things, forty-two of my
+shirts, of very fine linen, and which were the principal part of my
+stock.  By the manner in which the neighbors described a man whom they
+had seen come out of the hotel with several parcels whilst we were all
+absent, Theresa and myself suspected her brother, whom we knew to be a
+worthless man.  The mother strongly endeavored to remove this suspicion,
+but so many circumstances concurred to prove it to be well founded, that,
+notwithstanding all she could say, our opinions remained still the same:
+I dared not make a strict search for fear of finding more than I wished
+to do.  The brother never returned to the place where I lived, and, at
+length, was no more heard of by any of us.  I was much grieved Theresa
+and myself should be connected with such a family, and I exhorted her
+more than ever to shake off so dangerous a yoke.  This adventure cured me
+of my inclination for fine linen, and since that time all I have had has
+been very common, and more suitable to the rest of my dress.
+
+Having thus completed the change of that which related to my person, all
+my cares tendered to render it solid and lasting, by striving to root out
+from my heart everything susceptible of receiving an impression from the
+judgment of men, or which, from the fear of blame, might turn me aside
+from anything good and reasonable in itself.  In consequence of the
+success of my work, my resolution made some noise in the world also,
+and procured me employment; so that I began my new profession with great
+appearance of success.  However, several causes prevented me from
+succeeding in it to the same degree I should under any other
+circumstances have done.  In the first place my ill state of health.
+The attack I had just had, brought on consequences which prevented my
+ever being so well as I was before; and I am of opinion, the physicians,
+to whose care I intrusted myself, did me as much harm as my illness.
+I was successively under the hands of Morand, Daran, Helvetius, Malouin,
+and Thyerri: men able in their profession, and all of them my friends,
+who treated me each according to his own manner, without giving me the
+least relief, and weakened me considerably.  The more I submitted to
+their direction, the yellower, thinner, and weaker I became.  My
+imagination, which they terrified, judging of my situation by the effect
+of their drugs, presented to me, on this side of the tomb, nothing but
+continued sufferings from the gravel, stone, and retention of urine.
+Everything which gave relief to others, ptisans, baths, and bleeding,
+increased my tortures.  Perceiving the bougees of Daran, the only ones
+that had any favorable effect, and without which I thought I could no
+longer exist, to give me a momentary relief, I procured a prodigious
+number of them, that, in case of Daran's death, I might never be at a
+loss.  During the eight or ten years in which I made such frequent use of
+these, they must, with what I had left, have cost me fifty louis.
+
+It will easily be judged, that such expensive and painful means did not
+permit me to work without interruption; and that a dying man is not
+ardently industrious in the business by which he gains his daily bread.
+
+Literary occupations caused another interruption not less prejudicial to
+my daily employment.  My discourse had no sooner appeared than the
+defenders of letters fell upon me as if they had agreed with each to do
+it.  My indignation was so raised at seeing so many blockheads, who did
+not understand the question, attempt to decide upon it imperiously, that
+in my answer I gave some of them the worst of it.  One M. Gautier, of
+Nancy, the first who fell under the lash of my pen, was very roughly
+treated in a letter to M. Grimm.  The second was King Stanislaus,
+himself, who did not disdain to enter the lists with me.  The honor he
+did me, obliged me to change my manner in combating his opinions; I made
+use of a graver style, but not less nervous; and without failing in
+respect to the author, I completely refuted his work.  I knew a Jesuit,
+Father de Menou, had been concerned in it.  I depended on my judgment to
+distinguish what was written by the prince, from the production of the
+monk, and falling without mercy upon all the jesuitical phrases, I
+remarked, as I went along, an anachronism which I thought could come from
+nobody but the priest.  This composition, which, for what reason I knew
+not, has been less spoken of than any of my other writings, is the only
+one of its kind.  I seized the opportunity which offered of showing to
+the public in what manner an individual may defend the cause of truth
+even against a sovereign.  It is difficult to adopt a more dignified and
+respectful manner than that in which I answered him.  I had the happiness
+to have to do with an adversary to whom, without adulation, I could show
+every mark of the esteem of which my heart was full; and this I did with
+success and a proper dignity.  My friends, concerned for my safety,
+imagined they already saw me in the Bastile.  This apprehension never
+once entered my head, and I was right in not being afraid.  The good
+prince, after reading my answer, said: "I have enough of at; I will not
+return to the charge."  I have, since that time received from him
+different marks of esteem and benevolence, some of which I shall have
+occasion to speak of; and what I had written was read in France, and
+throughout Europe, without meeting the least censure.
+
+In a little time I had another adversary whom I had not expected; this
+was the same M. Bordes, of Lyons, who ten years before had shown me much
+friendship, and from whom I had received several services.  I had not
+forgotten him, but had neglected him from idleness, and had not sent him
+my writings for want of an opportunity, without seeking for it, to get
+them conveyed to his hands.  I was therefore in the wrong, and he
+attacked me; this, however, he did politely, and I answered in the same
+manner.  He replied more decidedly.  This produced my last answer; after
+which I heard no more from him upon the subject; but he became my most
+violent enemy, took the advantage of the time of my misfortunes, to
+publish against me the most indecent libels, and made a journey to London
+on purpose to do me an injury.
+
+All this controversy employed me a good deal, and caused me a great loss
+of my time in my copying, without much contributing to the progress of
+truth, or the good of my purse.  Pissot, at that time my bookseller, gave
+me but little for my pamphlets, frequently nothing at all, and I never
+received a farthing for my first discourse.  Diderot gave it him.  I was
+obliged to wait a long time for the little he gave me, and to take it
+from him in the most trifling sums.  Notwithstanding this, my copying
+went on but slowly.  I had two things together upon my hands, which was
+the most likely means of doing them both ill.
+
+They were very opposite to each other in their effects by the different
+manners of living to which they rendered me subject.  The success of my
+first writings had given me celebrity.  My new situation excited
+curiosity.  Everybody wished to know that whimsical man who sought not
+the acquaintance of any one, and whose only desire was to live free and
+happy in the manner he had chosen; this was sufficient to make the thing
+impossible to me.  My apartment was continually full of people, who,
+under different pretences, came to take up my time.  The women employed a
+thousand artifices to engage me to dinner.  The more unpolite I was with
+people, the more obstinate they became.  I could not refuse everybody.
+While I made myself a thousand enemies by my refusals, I was incessantly
+a slave to my complaisance, and, in whatever manner I made my
+engagements, I had not an hour in a day to myself.
+
+I then perceived it was not so easy to be poor and independent, as I had
+imagined.  I wished to live by my profession: the public would not suffer
+me to do it.  A thousand means were thought of to indemnify me for the
+time I lost.  The next thing would have been showing myself like Punch,
+at so much each person.  I knew no dependence more cruel and degrading
+than this.  I saw no other method of putting an end to it than refusing
+all kinds of presents, great and small, let them come from whom they
+would.  This had no other effect than to increase the number of givers,
+who wished to have the honor of overcoming my resistance, and to force
+me, in spite of myself, to be under an obligation to them.
+
+Many, who would not have given me half-a-crown had I asked it from them,
+incessantly importuned me with their offers, and, in revenge for my
+refusal, taxed me with arrogance and ostentation.
+
+It will naturally be conceived that the resolutions I had taken, and the
+system I wished to follow, were not agreeable to Madam le Vasseur.  All
+the disinterestedness of the daughter did not prevent her from following
+the directions of her mother; and the governesses, as Gauffecourt called
+them, were not always so steady in their refusals as I was.  Although
+many things were concealed from me, I perceived so many as were necessary
+to enable me to judge that I did not see all, and this tormented me less
+by the accusation of connivance, which it was so easy for me to foresee,
+than by the cruel idea of never being master in my own apartments, nor
+even of my own person.  I prayed, conjured, and became angry, all to no
+purpose; the mother made me pass for an eternal grumbler, and a man who
+was peevish and ungovernable.  She held perpetual whisperings with my
+friends; everything in my little family was mysterious and a secret to
+me; and, that I might not incessantly expose myself to noisy quarrelling,
+I no longer dared to take notice of what passed in it.  A firmness of
+which I was not capable, would have been necessary to withdraw me from
+this domestic strife.  I knew how to complain, but not how to act: they
+suffered me to say what I pleased, and continued to act as they thought
+proper.
+
+This constant teasing, and the daily importunities to which I was
+subject, rendered the house, and my residence at Paris, disagreeable to
+me.  When my indisposition permitted me to go out, and I did not suffer
+myself to be led by my acquaintance first to one place and then to
+another, I took a walk, alone, and reflected on my grand system,
+something of which I committed to paper, bound up between two covers,
+which, with a pencil, I always had in my pocket.  In this manner, the
+unforeseen disagreeableness of a situation I had chosen entirely led me
+back to literature, to which unsuspectedly I had recourse as a means of
+releaving my mind, and thus, in the first works I wrote, I introduced the
+peevishness and ill-humor which were the cause of my undertaking them.
+There was another circumstance which contributed not a little to this;
+thrown into the world despite of myself, without having the manners of
+it, or being in a situation to adopt and conform myself to them, I took
+it into my head to adopt others of my own, to enable me to dispense with
+those of society.  My foolish timidity, which I could not conquer, having
+for principle the fear of being wanting in the common forms, I took, by
+way of encouraging myself, a resolution to tread them under foot.  I
+became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness
+which I knew not how to practice.  This austerity, conformable to my new
+principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it
+assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare
+assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer
+and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my
+nature.  Yet, not withstanding, I had the name of a misanthrope, which my
+exterior appearance and some happy expressions had given me in the world:
+it is certain I did not support the character well in private, that my
+friends and acquaintance led this untractable bear about like a lamb, and
+that, confining my sarcasms to severe but general truths, I was never
+capable of saying an uncivil thing to any person whatsoever.
+
+The 'Devin du Village' brought me completely into vogue, and presently
+after there was not a man in Paris whose company was more sought after
+than mine.  The history of this piece, which is a kind of era in my life,
+is joined with that of the connections I had at that time.  I must enter
+a little into particulars to make what is to follow the better
+understood.
+
+I had a numerous acquaintance, yet no more than two friends: Diderot and
+Grimm.  By an effect of the desire I have ever felt to unite everything
+that is dear to me, I was too much a friend to both not to make them
+shortly become so to each other.  I connected them: they agreed well
+together, and shortly become more intimate with each other than with me.
+Diderot had a numerous acquaintance, but Grimm, a stranger and a new-
+comer, had his to procure, and with the greatest pleasure I procured him
+all I could.  I had already given him Diderot.  I afterwards brought him
+acquainted with Gauffecourt.  I introduced him to Madam Chenonceaux,
+Madam D'Epinay, and the Baron d'Holbach; with whom I had become connected
+almost in spite of myself.  All my friends became his: this was natural:
+but not one of his ever became mine; which was inclining to the contrary.
+Whilst he yet lodged at the house of the Comte de Friese, he frequently
+gave us dinners in his apartment, but I never received the least mark of
+friendship from the Comte de Friese, Comte de Schomberg, his relation,
+very familiar with Grimm, nor from any other person, man or woman, with
+whom Grimm, by their means, had any connection.  I except the Abbe
+Raynal, who, although his friend, gave proofs of his being mine; and in
+cases of need, offered me his purse with a generosity not very common.
+But I knew the Abbe Raynal long before Grimm had any acquaintance with
+him, and had entertained a great regard for him on account of his
+delicate and honorable behavior to me upon a slight occasion, which I
+shall never forget.
+
+The Abbe Raynal is certainly a warm friend; of this I saw  a proof, much
+about the time of which I speak, with respect to Grimm himself, with whom
+he was very intimate.  Grimm, after having been sometime on a footing of
+friendship with Mademoiselle Fel, fell violently in love with her, and
+wished to supplant Cahusac.  The young lady, piquing herself on her
+constancy, refused her new admirer.  He took this so much to heart, that
+the appearance of his affliction became tragical.  He suddenly fell into
+the strangest state imaginable.  He passed days and nights in a continued
+lethargy.  He lay with his eyes open; and although his pulse continued to
+beat regularly, without speaking eating, or stirring, yet sometimes
+seeming to hear what was said to him, but never answering, not even by a
+sign, and remaining almost as immovable as if he had been dead, yet
+without agitation, pain, or fever.  The Abbe Raynal and myself watched
+over him; the abbe, more robust, and in better health than I was, by
+night, and I by day, without ever both being absent at one time.  The
+Comte de Friese was alarmed, and brought to him Senac, who, after having
+examined the state in which he was, said there was nothing to apprehend,
+and took his leave without giving a prescription.  My fears for my friend
+made me carefully observe the countenance of the physician, and I
+perceived him smile as he went away.  However, the patient remained
+several days almost motionless, without taking anything except a few
+preserved cherries, which from time to time I put upon his tongue, and
+which he swallowed without difficulty.  At length he, one morning, rose,
+dressed himself, and returned to his usual way of life, without either at
+that time or afterwards speaking to me or the Abbe Raynal, at least that
+I know of, or to any other person, of this singular lethargy, or the care
+we had taken of him during the time it lasted.
+
+The affair made a noise, and it would really have been a wonderful
+circumstance had the cruelty of an opera girl made a man die of despair.
+This strong passion brought Grimm into vogue; he was soon considered as a
+prodigy in love, friendship, and attachments of every kind.  Such an
+opinion made his company sought after, and procured him a good reception
+in the first circles; by which means he separated from me, with whom he
+was never inclined to associate when he could do it with anybody else.
+I perceived him to be on the point of breaking with me entirely; for the
+lively and ardent sentiments, of which he made a parade, were those which
+with less noise and pretensions, I had really conceived for him.  I was
+glad he succeeded in the world; but I did not wish him to do this by
+forgetting his friend.  I one day said to him: "Grimm, you neglect me,
+and I forgive you for it.  When the first intoxication of your success is
+over, and you begin to perceive a void in your enjoyments, I hope you
+will return to your friend, whom you will always find in the same
+sentiments; at present do not constrain yourself, I leave you at liberty
+to act as you please, and wait your leisure."  He said I was right, made
+his arrangements in consequence, and shook off all restraint, so that I
+saw no more of him except in company with our common friends.
+
+Our chief rendezvous, before he was connected with Madam d'Epinay as he
+afterwards became, was at the house of Baron d'Holbach.  This said baron
+was the son of a man who had raised himself from obscurity.  His fortune
+was considerable, and he used it nobly, receiving at his house men of
+letters and merit: and, by the knowledge he himself had acquired, was
+very worthy of holding a place amongst them.  Having been long attached
+to Diderot, he endeavored to become acquainted with me by his means, even
+before my name was known to the world.  A natural repugnancy prevented me
+a long time from answering his advances.  One day, when he asked me the
+reason of my unwillingness, I told him he was too rich.  He was, however,
+resolved to carry his point, and at length succeeded.  My greatest
+misfortune proceeded from my being unable to resist the force of marked
+attention.  I have ever had reason to repent of having yielded to it.
+
+Another acquaintance which, as soon as I had any pretensions to it, was
+converted into friendship, was that of M. Duclos.  I had several years
+before seen him, for the first time, at the Chevrette, at the house of
+Madam d'Epinay, with whom he was upon very good terms.  On that day we
+only dined together, and he returned to town in the afternoon.  But we
+had a conversation of a few moments after dinner.  Madam d'Epinay had
+mentioned me to him, and my opera of the 'Muses Gallantes'.  Duclos,
+endowed with too great talents not to be a friend to those in whom the
+like were found, was prepossessed in my favor, and invited me to go and
+see him.  Notwithstanding my former wish, increased by an acquaintance, I
+was withheld by my timidity and indolence, as long as I had no other
+passport to him than his complaisance.  But encouraged by my first
+success, and by his eulogiums, which reached my ears, I went to see him;
+he returned my visit, and thus began the connection between us, which
+will ever render him dear to me.  By him, as well as from the testimony
+of my own heart, I learned that uprightness and probity may sometimes be
+connected with the cultivation of letters.
+
+Many other connections less solid, and which I shall not here
+particularize, were the effects of my first success, and lasted until
+curiosity was satisfied.  I was a man so easily known, that on the next
+day nothing new was to be discovered in me.  However, a woman, who at
+that time was desirous of my acquaintance, became much more solidly
+attached to me than any of those whose curiosity I had excited: this was
+the Marchioness of Crequi, niece to M. le Bailli de Froulay, ambassador
+from Malta, whose brother had preceded M. de Montaigu in the embassy to
+Venice, and whom I had gone to see on my return from that city.  Madam de
+Crequi wrote to me: I visited her: she received me into her friendship.
+I sometimes dined with her.  I met at her table several men of letters,
+amongst others M. Saurin, the author of Spartacus, Barnevelt, etc., since
+become my implacable enemy; for no other reason, at least that I can
+imagine, than my bearing the name of a man whom his father has cruelly
+persecuted.
+
+It will appear that for a copyist, who ought to be employed in his
+business from morning till night, I had many interruptions, which
+rendered my days not very lucrative, and prevented me from being
+sufficiently attentive to what I did to do it well; for which reason,
+half the time I had to myself was lost in erasing errors or beginning my
+sheet anew.  This daily importunity rendered Paris more unsupportable,
+and made me ardently wish to be in the country.  I several times went to
+pass a few days at Mercoussis, the vicar of which was known to Madam le
+Vasseur, and with whom we all arranged ourselves in such a manner as not
+to make things disagreeable to him.  Grimm once went thither with us.
+
+     [Since I have neglected to relate here a trifling, but memorable
+     adventure I had with the said Grimm one day, on which we were to
+     dine at the fountain of St. Vandrille, I will let it pass: but when
+     I thought of it afterwards, I concluded that he was brooding in his
+     heart the conspiracy he has, with so much success, since carried
+     into execution.]
+
+The vicar had a tolerable voice, sung well, and, although he did not read
+music, learned his part with great facility and precision.  We passed our
+time in singing the trios I had composed at Chenonceaux.  To these I
+added two or three new ones, to the words Grimm and the vicar wrote, well
+or ill.  I cannot refrain from regretting these trios composed and sung
+in moments of pure joy, and which I left at Wootton, with all my music.
+Mademoiselle Davenport has perhaps curled her hair with them; but they
+are worthy of being preserved, and are, for the most part, of very good
+counterpoint.  It was after one of these little excursions in which I had
+the pleasure of seeing the aunt at her ease and very cheerful, and in
+which my spirits were much enlivened, that I wrote to the vicar very
+rapidly and very ill, an epistle in verse which will be found amongst my
+papers.
+
+I had nearer to Paris another station much to my liking with M. Mussard,
+my countryman, relation and friend, who at Passy had made himself a
+charming retreat, where I have passed some very peaceful moments.
+M. Mussard was a jeweller, a man of good sense, who, after having
+acquired a genteel fortune, had given his only daughter in marriage to
+M. de Valmalette, the son of an exchange broker, and maitre d'hotel to
+the king, took the wise resolution to quit business in his declining
+years, and to place an interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry
+and the end of life.  The good man Mussard, a real philosopher in
+practice, lived without care, in a very pleasant house which he himself
+had built in a very pretty garden, laid out with his own hands.  In
+digging the terraces of this garden he found fossil shells, and in such
+great quantities that his lively imagination saw nothing but shells in
+nature.  He really thought the universe was composed of shells and the
+remains of shells, and that the whole earth was only the sand of these in
+different stratae.  His attention thus constantly engaged with his
+singular discoveries, his imagination became so heated with the ideas
+they gave him, that, in his head, they would soon have been converted
+into a system, that is into folly, if, happily for his reason, but
+unfortunately for his friends, to whom he was dear, and to whom his house
+was an agreeable asylum, a most cruel and extraordinary disease had not
+put an end to his existence.  A constantly increasing tumor in his
+stomach prevented him from eating, long before the cause of it was
+discovered, and, after several years of suffering, absolutely occasioned
+him to die of hunger.  I can never, without the greatest affliction of
+mind, call to my recollection the last moments of this worthy man, who
+still received with so much pleasure, Leneips and myself, the only
+friends whom the sight of his sufferings did not separate from him until
+his last hour, when he was reduced to devouring with his eyes the repasts
+he had placed before us, scarcely having the power of swallowing a few
+drops of weak tea, which came up again a moment afterwards.  But before
+these days of sorrow, how many have I passed at his house, with the
+chosen friends he had made himself!  At the head of the list I place the
+Abbe Prevot, a very amiable man, and very sincere, whose heart vivified
+his writings, worthy of immortality, and who, neither in his disposition
+nor in society, had the least of the melancholy coloring he gave to his
+works.  Procope, the physician, a little Esop, a favorite with the
+ladies; Boulanger, the celebrated posthumous author of 'Despotisme
+Oriental', and who, I am of opinion extended the systems of Mussard on
+the duration of the world.  The female part of his friends consisted of
+Madam Denis, niece to Voltaire, who, at that time, was nothing more than
+a good kind of woman, and pretended not to wit: Madam Vanloo, certainly
+not handsome, but charming, and who sang like an angel: Madam de
+Valmalette, herself, who sang also, and who, although very thin, would
+have been very amiable had she had fewer pretensions.  Such, or very
+nearly such, was the society of M. Mussard, with which I should had been
+much pleased, had not his conchyliomania more engaged my attention; and I
+can say, with great truth, that, for upwards of six months, I worked with
+him in his cabinet with as much pleasure as he felt himself.
+
+He had long insisted upon the virtue of the waters of Passy, that they
+were proper in my case, and recommended me to come to his house to drink
+them.  To withdraw myself from the tumult of the city, I at length
+consented, and went to pass eight or ten days at Passy, which, on account
+of my being in the country, were of more service to me than the waters I
+drank during my stay there.  Mussard played the violincello, and was
+passionately found of Italian music.  This was the subject of a long
+conversation we had one evening after supper, particularly the 'opera-
+buffe' we had both seen in Italy, and with which we were highly
+delighted.  My sleep having forsaken me in the night, I considered in
+what manner it would be possible to give in France an idea of this kind
+of drama.  The 'Amours de Ragonde' did not in the least resemble it.
+In the morning, whilst I took my walk and drank the waters, I hastily
+threw together a few couplets to which I adapted such airs as occurred to
+me at the moments.  I scribbled over what I had composed, in a kind of
+vaulted saloon at the end of the garden, and at tea.  I could not refrain
+from showing the airs to Mussard and to Mademoiselle du Vernois, his
+'gouvernante', who was a very good and amiable girl.  Three pieces of
+composition I had sketched out were the first monologue: 'J'ai perdu mon
+serviteur;'--the air of the Devin; 'L'amour croit s'il s'inquiete;' and
+the last duo: 'A jamais, Colin, je t'engage, etc.'  I was so far from
+thinking it worth while to continue what I had begun, that, had it not
+been for the applause and encouragement I received from both Mussard and
+Mademoiselle, I should have throw n my papers into the fire and thought
+no more of their contents, as I had frequently done by things of much the
+same merit; but I was so animated by the encomiums I received, that in
+six days, my drama, excepting a few couplets, was written.  The music
+also was so far sketched out, that all I had further to do to it after my
+return from Paris, was to compose a little of the recitative, and to add
+the middle parts, the whole of which I finished with so much rapidity,
+that in three weeks my work was ready for representation.  The only thing
+now wanting, was the divertissement, which was not composed until a long
+time afterwards.
+
+My imagination was so warmed by the composition of this work that I had
+the strongest desire to hear it performed, and would have given anything
+to have seen and heard the whole in the manner I should have chosen,
+which would have been that of Lully, who is said to have had 'Armide'
+performed for himself only.  As it was not possible I should hear the
+performance unaccompanied by the public, I could not see the effect of my
+piece without getting it received at the opera.  Unfortunately it was
+quite a new species of composition, to which the ears of the public were
+not accustomed; and besides the ill success of the 'Muses Gallantes' gave
+too much reason to fear for the Devin, if I presented it in my own name.
+Duclos relieved me from this difficulty, and engaged to get the piece
+rehearsed without mentioning the author.  That I might not discover
+myself, I did not go to the rehearsal, and the 'Petits violons',
+
+     [Rebel and Frauneur, who, when they were very young, went together
+     from house to house playing on the violin, were so called.]
+
+by whom it was directed, knew not who the author was until after a
+general plaudit had borne the testimony of the work.  Everybody present
+was so delighted with it, that, on the next day, nothing else was spoken
+of in the different companies.  M. de Cury, Intendant des Menus, who was
+present at the rehearsal, demanded the piece to have it performed at
+court.  Duclos, who knew my intentions, and thought I should be less
+master of my work at the court than at Paris, refused to give it.  Cury
+claimed it authoratively.  Duclos persisted in his refusal, and the
+dispute between them was carried to such a length, that one day they
+would have gone out from the opera-house together had they not been
+separated.  M. de Cury applied to me, and I referred him to Duclos.  This
+made it necessary to return to the latter.  The Duke d'Aumont interfered;
+and at length Duclos thought proper to yield to authority, and the piece
+was given to be played at Fontainebleau.
+
+The part to which I had been most attentive, and in which I had kept at
+the greatest distance from the common track, was the recitative.  Mine
+was accented in a manner entirely new, and accompanied the utterance of
+the word.  The directors dared not suffer this horrid innovation to pass,
+lest it should shock the ears of persons who never judge for themselves.
+Another recitative was proposed by Francueil and Jelyotte, to which I
+consented; but refused at the same time to have anything to do with it
+myself.
+
+When everything was ready and the day of performance fixed, a proposition
+was made me to go to Fontainebleau, that I might at least be at the last
+rehearsal.  I went with Mademoiselle Fel, Grimm, and I think the Abbe
+Raynal, in one of the stages to the court.  The rehearsal was tolerable:
+I was more satisfied with it than I expected to have been.  The orchestra
+was numerous, composed of the orchestras of the opera and the king's
+band.  Jelyotte played Colin, Mademoiselle Fel, Colette, Cuvillier the
+Devin: the choruses were those of the opera.  I said but little; Jelyotte
+had prepared everything; I was unwilling either to approve of or censure
+what he had done; and notwithstanding I had assumed the air of an old
+Roman, I was, in the midst of so many people, as bashful as a schoolboy.
+
+The next morning, the day of performance, I went to breakfast at the
+coffee-house 'du grand commun', where I found a great number of people.
+The rehearsal of the preceding evening, and the difficulty of getting
+into the theatre, were the subjects of conversation.  An officer present
+said he entered with the greatest ease, gave a long account of what had
+passed, described the author, and related what he had said and done; but
+what astonished me most in this long narrative, given with as much
+assurance as simplicity, was that it did not contain a syllable of truth.
+It was clear to me that he who spoke so positively of the rehearsal had
+not been at it, because, without knowing him, he had before his eyes that
+author whom he said he had seen and examined so minutely.  However, what
+was more singular still in this scene, was its effect upon me.  The
+officer was a man rather in years, he had nothing of the appearance of a
+coxcomb; his features appeared to announce a man of merit; and his cross
+of Saint Louis, an officer of long standing.  He interested me:
+notwithstanding his impudence.  Whilst he uttered his lies, I blushed,
+looked down, and was upon thorns; I, for some time, endeavored within
+myself to find the means of believing him to be in an involuntary error.
+At length, trembling lest some person should know me, and by this means
+confound him, I hastily drank my chocolate, without saying a word, and,
+holding down my head, I passed before him, got out of the coffee-house as
+soon as possible, whilst the company were making their remarks upon the
+relation that had been given.  I was no sooner in the street than I was
+in a perspiration, and had anybody known and named me before I left the
+room, I am certain all the shame and embarrassment of a guilty person
+would have appeared in my countenance, proceeding from what I felt the
+poor man would have had to have suffered had his lie been discovered.
+
+I come to one of the critical moments of my life, in which it is
+difficult to do anything more than to relate, because it is almost
+impossible that even narrative should not carry with it the marks of
+censure or apology.  I will, however, endeavor to relate how and upon
+what motives I acted, with out adding either approbation or censure.
+
+I was on that day in the same careless undress as usual, with a long
+beard and wig badly combed.  Considering this want of decency as an act
+of courage, I entered the theatre wherein the king, queen, the royal
+family, and the whole court were to enter immediately after.  I was
+conducted to a box by M. de Cury, and which belonged to him.  It was very
+spacious, upon the stage and opposite to a lesser, but more elevated one,
+in which the king sat with Madam de Pompadour.
+
+As I was surrounded by women, and the only man in front of the box, I had
+no doubt of my having been placed there purposely to be exposed to view.
+As soon as the theatre was lighted up, finding I was in the midst of
+people all extremely well dressed, I began to be less at my ease, and
+asked myself if I was in my place?  whether or not I was properly
+dressed?  After a few minutes of inquietude: "Yes," replied I, with an
+intrepidity which perhaps proceeded more from the impossibility of
+retracting than the force of all my reasoning, "I am in my place, because
+I am going to see my own piece performed, to which I have been invited,
+for which reason only  I am come here; and after all, no person has a
+greater right than I have to reap the fruit of my labor and talents; I am
+dressed as usual, neither better nor worse; and if I once begin to
+subject myself to public opinion, I shall shortly become a slave to it in
+everything.  To be always consistent with myself, I ought not to blush,
+in any place whatever, at being dressed in a manner suitable to the state
+I have chosen.  My exterior appearance is simple, but neither dirty nor
+slovenly; nor is a beard either of these in itself, because it is given
+us by nature, and according to time, place and custom, is sometimes an
+ornament.  People think I am ridiculous, nay, even absurd; but what
+signifies this to me?  I ought to know how to bear censure and ridicule,
+provided I do not deserve them.  "After this little soliloquy I became so
+firm that, had it been necessary, I could have been intrepid.  But
+whether it was the effect of the presence of his majesty, or the natural
+disposition of those about me, I perceived nothing but what was civil and
+obliging in the curiosity of which I was the object. This so much
+affected me that I began to be uneasy for myself, and the fate of my
+piece; fearing I should efface the favorable prejudices which seemed to
+lead to nothing but applause.  I was armed against raillery; but, so far
+overcome, by the flattering and obliging treatment I had not expected,
+that I trembled like a child when the performance was begun.
+
+I had soon sufficient reason to be encouraged.  The piece was very ill
+played with respect to the actors, but the musical part was well sung and
+executed.  During the first scene, which was really of a delightful
+simplicity, I heard in the boxes a murmur of surprise and applause,
+which, relative to pieces of the same kind, had never yet happened.  The
+fermentation was soon increased to such a degree as to be perceptible
+through the whole audience, and of which, to speak--after the manner of
+Montesquieu--the effect was augmented by itself.  In the scene between
+the two good little folks, this effect was complete.  There is no
+clapping of hands before the king; therefore everything was heard, which
+was advantageous to the author and the piece.  I heard about me a
+whispering of women, who appeared as beautiful as angels.  They said to
+each other in a low voice: "This is charming: That is ravishing: There is
+not a sound which does not go to the heart."  The pleasure of giving this
+emotion to so many amiable persons moved me to tears; and these I could
+not contain in the first duo, when I remarked that I was not the only
+person who wept.  I collected myself for a moment, on recollecting the
+concert of M. de Treitorens.  This reminiscence had the effect of the
+slave who held the crown over the head of the general who triumphed, but
+my reflection was short, and I soon abandoned myself without interruption
+to the pleasure of enjoying my success.  However, I am certain the
+voluptuousness of the sex was more predominant than the vanity of the
+author, and had none but men been present, I certainly should not have
+had the incessant desire I felt of catching on my lips the delicious
+tears I had caused to flow.  I have known pieces excite more lively
+admiration, but I never saw so complete, delightful, and affecting an
+intoxication of the senses reign, during a whole representation,
+especially at court, and at a first performance.  They who saw this must
+recollect it, for it has never yet been equalled.
+
+The same evening the Duke d' Aumont sent to desire me to be at the palace
+the next day at eleven o'clock, when he would present me to the king.
+M. de Cury, who delivered me the message, added that he thought a pension
+was intended, and that his majesty wished to announce it to me himself.
+Will it be believed that the night of so brilliant a day was for me
+a night of anguish and perplexity?  My first idea, after that of being
+presented, was that of my frequently wanting to retire; this had made me
+suffer very considerably at the theatre, and might torment me the next
+day when I should be in the gallery, or in the king's apartment, amongst
+all the great, waiting for the passing of his majesty.  My infirmity was
+the principal cause which prevented me from mixing in polite companies,
+and enjoying the conversation of the fair.  The idea alone of the
+situation in which this want might place me, was sufficient to produce it
+to such a degree as to make me faint away, or to recur to means to which,
+in my opinion, death was much preferable.  None but persons who are
+acquainted with this situation can judge of the horror which being
+exposed to the risk of it inspires.
+
+I then supposed myself before the king, presented to his majesty, who
+deigned to stop and speak to me.  In this situation, justness of
+expression and presence of mind were peculiarly necessary in answering.
+Would my timidity which disconcerts me in presence of any stranger
+whatever, have been shaken off in presence of the King of France; or
+would it have suffered me instantly to make choice of proper expressions?
+I wished, without laying aside the austere manner I had adopted, to show
+myself sensible of the honor done me by so great a monarch, and in a
+handsome and merited eulogium to convey some great and useful truth.
+I could not prepare a suitable answer without exactly knowing what his
+majesty was to say to me; and had this been the case, I was certain that,
+in his presence, I should not recollect a word of what I had previously
+meditated.  "What," said I, "will become of me in this moment, and before
+the whole court, if, in my confusion, any of my stupid expressions should
+escape me?"  This danger alarmed and terrified me.  I trembled to such a
+degree that at all events I was determined not to expose myself to it.
+
+I lost, it is true, the pension which in some measure was offered me; but
+I at the same time exempted myself from the yoke it would have imposed.
+Adieu, truth, liberty, and courage!  How should I afterwards have dared
+to speak of disinterestedness and independence?  Had I received the
+pension I must either have become a flatterer or remained silent; and,
+moreover, who would have insured to me the payment of it!  What steps
+should I have been under the necessity of taking!  How many people must I
+have solicited!  I should have had more trouble and anxious cares in
+preserving than in doing without it.  Therefore, I thought I acted
+according to my principles by refusing, and sacrificing appearances to
+reality.  I communicated my resolution to Grimm, who said nothing against
+it.  To others I alleged my ill state of health, and left the court in
+the morning.
+
+My departure made some noise, and was generally condemned.  My reasons
+could not be known to everybody, it was therefore easy to accuse me of
+foolish pride, and thus not irritate the jealousy of such as felt they
+would not have acted as I had done.  The next day Jelyotte wrote me a
+note, in which he stated the success of my piece, and the pleasure it had
+afforded the king.  "All day long," said he, "his majesty sings, with the
+worst voice in his kingdom: 'J'ai perdu mon serviteur: J'ai perdu tout
+mon bonheur.'"  He likewise added, that in a fortnight the Devin was to
+be performed a second time; which confirmed in the eyes of the public the
+complete success of the first.
+
+Two days afterwards, about nine o'clock in the evening, as I was going to
+sup with Madam D'Epinay, I perceived a hackney-coach pass by the door.
+Somebody within made a sign to me to approach.  I did so, and got into
+it, and found the person to be Diderot.  He spoke of the pension with
+more warmth than, upon such a subject, I should have expected from a
+philosopher.  He did not blame me for having been unwilling to be
+presented to the king, but severely reproached me with my indifference
+about the pension.  He observed that although on my own account I might
+be disinterested, I ought not to be so on that of Madam Vasseur and her
+daughter; that it was my duty to seize every means of providing for their
+subsistence; and that as, after all, it could not be said I had refused
+the pension, he maintained I ought, since the king seemed disposed to
+grant it to me, to solicit and obtain it by one means or another.
+Although I was obliged to him for his good wishes, I could not relish his
+maxims, which produced a warm dispute, the first I ever had with him.
+All our disputes were of this kind, he prescribing to me what he
+pretended I ought to do, and I defending myself because I was of a
+different opinion.
+
+It was late when we parted.  I would have taken him to supper at Madam d'
+Epinay's, but he refused to go; and, notwithstanding all the efforts
+which at different times the desire of uniting those I love induced me to
+make, to prevail upon him to see her, even that of conducting her to his
+door which he kept shut against us, he constantly refused to do it, and
+never spoke of her but with the utmost contempt.  It was not until after
+I had quarrelled with both that they became acquainted and that he began
+to speak honorably of her.
+
+From this time Diderot and Grimm seemed to have undertaken to alienate
+from me the governesses, by giving them to understand that if they were
+not in easy circumstances the fault was my own, and that they never would
+be so with me.  They endeavored to prevail on them to leave me, promising
+them the privilege for retailing salt, a snuff shop, and I know not what
+other advantages by means of the influence of Madam d' Epinay.  They
+likewise wished to gain over Duclos and d'Holback, but the former
+constantly refused their proposals.  I had at the time some intimation of
+what was going forward, but I was not fully acquainted with the whole
+until long afterwards; and I frequently had reason to lament the effects
+of the blind and indiscreet zeal of my friends, who, in my ill state of
+health, striving to reduce me to the most melancholy solitude,
+endeavored, as they imagined, to render me happy by the means which, of
+all others, were the most proper to make me miserable.
+
+In the carnival following the conclusion of the year 1753, the Devin was
+performed at Paris, and in this interval I had sufficient time to compose
+the overture and divertissement.  This divertissement, such as it stands
+engraved, was to be in action from the beginning to the end, and in a
+continued subject, which in my opinion, afforded very agreeable
+representations.  But when I proposed this idea at the opera-house,
+nobody would so much as hearken to me, and I was obliged to tack together
+music and dances in the usual manner: on this account the divertissement,
+although full of charming ideas which do not diminish the beauty of
+scenes, succeeded but very middlingly.  I suppressed the recitative of
+Jelyotte, and substituted my own, such as I had first composed it, and as
+it is now engraved; and this recitative a little after the French manner,
+I confess, drawled out, instead of pronounced by the actors, far from
+shocking the ears of any person, equally succeeded with the airs, and
+seemed in the judgment of the public to possess as much musical merit.
+I dedicated my piece to Duclos, who had given it his protection, and
+declared it should be my only dedication.  I have, however, with his
+consent, written a second; but he must have thought himself more honored
+by the exception, than if I had not written a dedication to any person.
+
+I could relate many anecdotes concerning this piece, but things of
+greater importance prevent me from entering into a detail of them at
+present.  I shall perhaps resume the subject in a supplement.  There is
+however one which I cannot omit, as it relates to the greater part of
+what is to follow.  I one day examined the music of D'Holbach, in his
+closet.  After having looked over many different kinds, he said, showing
+me a collection of pieces for the harpsichord: "These were composed for
+me; they are full of taste and harmony, and unknown to everybody but
+myself.  You ought to make a selection from them for your
+divertissement."  Having in my head more subjects of airs and symphonies
+than I could make use of, I was not the least anxious to have any of his.
+However, he pressed me so much, that, from a motive of complaisance, I
+chose a Pastoral, which I abridged and converted into a trio, for the
+entry of the companions of Colette.  Some months afterwards, and whilst
+the Devin still continued to be performed, going into Grimms I found
+several people about his harpsichord, whence he hastily rose on my
+arrival.  As I accidently looked toward his music stand, I there saw the
+same collection of the Baron d'Holback, opened precisely at the piece he
+had prevailed upon me to take, assuring me at the same time that it
+should never go out of his hands.  Some time afterwards, I again saw the
+collection open on the harpischord of M. d'Papinay, one day when he gave
+a little concert.  Neither Grimm, nor anybody else, ever spoke to me of
+the air, and my reason for mentioning it here is that some time
+afterwards, a rumor was spread that I was not the author of Devin.
+As I never made a great progress in the practical part, I am persuaded
+that had it not been for my dictionary of music, it would in the end have
+been said I did not understand composition.
+
+Sometime before the 'Devin du Village' was performed, a company of
+Italian Bouffons had arrived at Paris, and were ordered to perform at the
+opera-house, without the effect they would produce there being foreseen.
+Although they were detestable, and the orchestra, at that time very
+ignorant, mutilated at will the pieces they gave, they did the French
+opera an injury that will never be repaired.  The comparison of these two
+kinds of music, heard the same evening in the same theatre, opened the
+ears of the French; nobody could endure their languid music after the
+marked and lively accents of Italian composition; and the moment the
+Bouffons had done, everybody went away.  The managers were obliged to
+change the order of representation, and let the performance of the
+Bouffons be the last.  'Egle Pigmalion' and 'le Sylphe' were successively
+given: nothing could bear the comparison.  The 'Devin du Village' was the
+only piece that did it, and this was still relished after 'la Serva
+Padroma'.  When I composed my interlude, my head was filled with these
+pieces, and they gave me the first idea of it: I was, however, far from
+imagining they would one day be passed in review by the side of my
+composition.  Had I been a plagiarist, how many pilferings would have
+been manifest, and what care would have been taken to point them out to
+the public!  But I had done nothing of the kind.  All attempts to
+discover any such thing were fruitless: nothing was found in my music
+which led to the recollection of that of any other person; and my whole
+composition compared with the pretended original, was found to be as new
+as the musical characters I had invented.  Had Mondonville or Rameau
+undergone the same ordeal, they would have lost much of their substance.
+
+The Bouffons acquired for Italian music very warm partisans.  All Paris
+was divided into two parties, the violence of which was greater than if
+an affair of state or religion had been in question.  One of them, the
+most powerful and numerous, composed of the great, of men of fortune, and
+the ladies, supported French music; the other, more lively and haughty,
+and fuller of enthusiasm, was composed of real connoisseurs, and men of
+talents, and genius.  This little group assembled at the opera-house,
+under the box belonging to the queen.  The other party filled up the rest
+of the pit and the theatre; but the heads were mostly assembled under the
+box of his majesty.  Hence the party names of Coin du Roi, Coin de la
+Reine,--[King's corner,--Queen's corner.]-- then in great celebrity.
+The dispute, as it became more animated, produced several pamphlets.
+The king's corner aimed at pleasantry; it was laughed at by the 'Petit
+Prophete'.  It attempted to reason; the 'Lettre sur la Musique Francoise'
+refuted its reasoning.  These two little productions, the former of which
+was by Grimm, the latter by myself, are the only ones which have outlived
+the quarrel; all the rest are long since forgotten.
+
+But the Petit Prophete, which, notwithstanding all I could say, was for a
+long time attributed to me, was considered as a pleasantry, and did not
+produce the least inconvenience to the author: whereas the letter on
+music was taken seriously, and incensed against me the whole nation,
+which thought itself offended by this attack on its music.  The
+description of the incredible effect of this pamphlet would be worthy of
+the pen of Tacitus.  The great quarrel between the parliament and the
+clergy was then at its height.  The parliament had just been exiled; the
+fermentation was general; everything announced an approaching
+insurrection.  The pamphlet appeared: from that moment every other
+quarrel was forgotten; the perilous state of French music was the only
+thing by which the attention of the public was engaged, and the only
+insurrection was against myself.  This was so general that it has never
+since been totally calmed.  At court, the bastile or banishment was
+absolutely determined on, and a 'lettre de cachet' would have been issued
+had not M. de Voyer set forth in the most forcible manner that such a
+step would be ridiculous.  Were I to say this pamphlet probably prevented
+a revolution, the reader would imagine I was in a dream.  It is, however,
+a fact, the truth of which all Paris can attest, it being no more than
+fifteen years since the date of this singular fact.  Although no attempts
+were made on my liberty, I suffered numerous insults; and even my life
+was in danger.  The musicians of the opera orchestra humanely resolved to
+murder me as I went out of the theatre.  Of this I received information;
+but the only effect it produced on me was to make me more assiduously
+attend the opera; and I did not learn, until a considerable time
+afterwards, that M. Ancelot, officer in the mousquetaires, and who had a
+friendship for me, had prevented the effect of this conspiracy by giving
+me an escort, which, unknown to myself, accompanied me until I was out of
+danger.  The direction of the opera-house had just been given to the
+hotel de ville.  The first exploit performed by the Prevot des Marchands,
+was to take from me my freedom of the theatre, and this in the most
+uncivil manner possible.  Admission was publicly refused me on my
+presenting myself, so that I was obliged to take a ticket that I might
+not that evening have the mortification to return as I had come.  This
+injustice was the more shameful, as the only price I had set on my piece
+when I gave it to the managers was a perpetual freedom of the house; for
+although this was a right, common to every author, and which I enjoyed
+under a double title, I expressly stipulated for it in presence of M.
+Duclos.  It is true, the treasurer brought me fifty louis, for which I
+had not asked; but, besides the smallness of the sum, compared with that
+which, according to the rule, established in such cases, was due to me,
+this payment had nothing in common with the right of entry formerly
+granted, and which was entirely independent of it.  There was in this
+behavior such a complication of iniquity and brutality, that the public,
+notwithstanding its animosity against me, which was then at its highest,
+was universally shocked at it, and many persons who insulted me the
+preceding evening, the next day exclaimed in the open theatre, that it
+was shameful thus to deprive an author of his right of entry; and
+particularly one who had so well deserved it, and was entitled to claim
+it for himself and another person.  So true is the Italian proverb:
+Ogn' un ama la giustizia in cosa d altrui.--[Every one loves justice in
+the affairs of another.]
+
+In this situation the only thing I had to do was to demand my work,
+since the price I had agreed to receive for it was refused me.  For this
+purpose I wrote to M. d'Argenson, who had the department of the opera.
+I likewise enclosed to him a memoir which was unanswerable; but this, as
+well as my letter, was ineffectual, and I received no answer to either.
+The silence of that unjust man hurt me extremely, and did not contribute
+to increase the very moderate good opinion I always had of his character
+and abilities.  It was in this manner the managers kept my piece while
+they deprived me of that for which I had given it them.  From the weak to
+the strong, such an act would be a theft: from the strong to the weak,
+it is nothing more than an appropriation of property, without a right.
+
+With respect to the pecuniary advantages of the work, although it did not
+produce me a fourth part of the sum it would have done to any other.
+person, they were considerable enough to enable me to subsist several
+years, and to make amends for the ill success of copying, which went on
+but very slowly.  I received a hundred louis from the king; fifty from
+Madam de Pompadour, for the performance at Bellevue, where she herself
+played the part of Colin; fifty from the opera; and five hundred livres
+from Pissot, for the engraving; so that this interlude, which cost me no
+more than five or six weeks' application, produced, notwithstanding the
+ill treatment I received from the managers and my stupidity at court,
+almost as much money as my 'Emilius', which had cost me twenty years'
+meditation, and three years' labor.  But I paid dearly for the pecuniary
+ease I received from the piece, by the infinite vexations it brought upon
+me.  It was the germ of the secret jealousies which did not appear until
+a long time afterwards.  After its success I did not remark, either in
+Grimm, Diderot, or any of the men of letters, with whom I was acquainted,
+the same cordiality and frankness, nor that pleasure in seeing me, I had
+previously experienced.  The moment I appeared at the baron's, the
+conversation was no longer general; the company divided into small
+parties; whispered into each other's ears; and I remained alone, without
+knowing to whom to address myself.  I endured for a long time this
+mortifying neglect; and, perceiving that Madam d'Holbach, who was mild
+and amiable, still received me well, I bore with the vulgarity of her
+husband as long as it was possible.  But he one day attacked me without
+reason or pretence, and with such brutality, in presence of Diderot, who
+said not a word, and Margency, who since that time has often told me how
+much he admired the moderation and mildness of my answers, that, at
+length driven from his house, by this unworthy treatment, I took leave
+with a resolution never to enter it again.  This did not, however,
+prevent me from speaking honorably of him and his house, whilst he
+continually expressed himself relative to me in the most insulting terms,
+calling me that 'petit cuistre': the little college pedant, or servitor
+in a college, without, however, being able to charge me with having done
+either to himself or any person to whom he was attached the most trifling
+injury.  In this manner he verified my fears and predictions, I am of
+opinion my pretended friends would have pardoned me for having written
+books, and even excellent ones, because this merit was not foreign to
+themselves; but that they could not forgive my writing an opera, nor the
+brilliant success it had; because there was not one amongst them capable
+of the same, nor in a situation to aspire to like honors.  Duclos, the
+only person superior to jealousy, seemed to become more attached to me:
+he introduced me to Mademoiselle Quinault, in whose house I received
+polite attention, and civility to as great an extreme, as I had found a
+want of it in that of M. d'Holbach.
+
+Whilst the performance of the 'Devin du Village' was continued at the
+opera-house, the author of it had an advantageous negotiation with the
+managers of the French comedy.  Not having, during seven or eight years,
+been able to get my 'Narcissis' performed at the Italian theatre, I had,
+by the bad performance in French of the actors, become disgusted with it,
+and should rather have had my piece received at the French theatre than
+by them.  I mentioned this to La None, the comedian, with whom I had
+become acquainted, and who, as everybody knows, was a man of merit and an
+author.  He was pleased with the piece, and promised to get it performed
+without suffering the name of the author to be known; and in the meantime
+procured me the freedom of the theatre, which was extremely agreeable to
+me, for I always preferred it to the two others.  The piece was favorably
+received, and without the author's name being mentioned; but I have
+reason to believe it was known to the actors and actresses, and many
+other persons.  Mademoiselles Gauffin and Grandval played the amorous
+parts; and although the whole performance was, in my opinion,
+injudicious, the piece could not be said to be absolutely ill played.
+The indulgence of the public, for which I felt gratitude, surprised me;
+the audience had the patience to listen to it from the beginning to the
+end, and to permit a second representation without showing the least sign
+of disapprobation.  For my part, I was so wearied with the first, that I
+could not hold out to the end; and the moment I left the theatre, I went
+into the Cafe de Procope, where I found Boissi, and others of my
+acquaintance, who had probably been as much fatigued as myself.  I there
+humbly or haughtily avowed myself the author of the piece, judging it as
+everybody else had done.  This public avowal of an author of a piece
+which had not succeeded, was much admired, and was by no means painful to
+myself.  My self-love was flattered by the courage with which I made it:
+and I am of opinion, that, on this occasion, there was more pride in
+speaking, than there would have been foolish shame in being silent.
+However, as it was certain the piece, although insipid in the performance
+would bear to be read, I had it printed: and in the preface, which is one
+of the best things I ever wrote, I began to make my principles more
+public than I had before done.
+
+I soon had an opportunity to explain them entirely in a work of the
+greatest importance: for it was, I think, this year, 1753, that the
+programma of the Academy of Dijon upon the 'Origin of the Inequality of
+Mankind' made its appearance.  Struck with this great question, I was
+surprised the academy had dared to propose it: but since it had shown
+sufficient courage to do it, I thought I might venture to treat it, and
+immediately undertook the discussion.
+
+That I might consider this grand subject more at my ease, I went to St.
+Germain for seven or eight days with Theresa, our hostess, who was a good
+kind of woman, and one of her friends.  I consider this walk as one of
+the most agreeable ones I ever took.  The weather was very fine.  These
+good women took upon themselves all the care and expense.  Theresa amused
+herself with them; and I, free from all domestic concerns, diverted
+myself, without restraint, at the hours of dinner and supper.  All the
+rest of the day wandering in the forest, I sought for and found there the
+image of the primitive ages of which I boldly traced the history.  I
+confounded the pitiful lies of men; I dared to unveil their nature; to
+follow the progress of time, and the things by which it has been
+disfigured; and comparing the man of art with the natural man, to show
+them, in their pretended improvement, the real source of all their
+misery.  My mind, elevated by these contemplations, ascended to the
+Divinity, and thence, seeing my fellow creatures follow in the blind
+track of their prejudices that of their errors and misfortunes, I cried
+out to them, in a feeble voice, which they could not hear: "Madmen! know
+that all your evils proceed from yourselves!"
+
+From these meditations resulted the discourse on Inequality, a work more
+to the taste of Diderot than any of my other writings, and in which his
+advice was of the greatest service to me.
+
+     [At the time I wrote this, I had not the least suspicion of the
+     grand conspiracy of Diderot and Grimm.  otherwise I should easily.
+     have discovered how much the former abused my confidence, by giving
+     to my writings that severity and melancholy which were not to be
+     found in them from the moments he ceased to direct me.  The passage
+     of the philosopher, who argues with himself, and stops his ears
+     against the complaints of a man in distress, is after his manner:
+     and he gave me others still more extraordinary; which I could never
+     resolve to make use of.  But, attributing, this melancholy to that
+     he had acquired in the dungeon of Vincennes, and of which there is a
+     very sufficient dose in his Clairoal, I never once suspected the
+     least unfriendly dealing. ]
+
+It was, however, understood but by few readers, and not one of these
+would ever speak of it.  I had written it to become a competitor for the
+premium, and sent it away fully persuaded it would not obtain it; well
+convinced it was not for productions of this nature that academies were
+founded.
+
+This excursion and this occupation enlivened my spirits and was of
+service to my health.  Several years before, tormented by my disorder,
+I had entirely given myself up to the care of physicians, who, without
+alleviating my sufferings, exhausted my strength and destroyed my
+constitution.  At my return from St. Germain, I found myself stronger and
+perceived my health to be improved.  I followed this indication, and
+determined to cure myself or die without the aid of physicians and
+medicine.  I bade them forever adieu, and lived from day to day, keeping
+close when I found myself indisposed, and going abroad the moment I had
+sufficient strength to do it.  The manner of living in Paris amidst
+people of pretensions was so little to my liking; the cabals of men of
+letters, their little candor in their writings, and the air of importance
+they gave themselves in the world, were so odious to me; I found so
+little mildness, openness of heart and frankness in the intercourse even
+of my friends; that, disgusted with this life of tumult, I began ardently
+to wish to reside in the country, and not perceiving that my occupation
+permitted me to do it, I went to pass there all the time I had to spare.
+For several months I went after dinner to walk alone in the Bois de
+Boulogne, meditating on subjects for future works, and not returning
+until evening.
+
+Gauffecourt, with whom I was at that time extremely intimate, being on
+account of his employment obliged to go to Geneva, proposed to me the
+journey, to which I consented.  The state of my health was such as to
+require the care of the governess; it was therefore decided she should
+accompany us, and that her mother should remain in the house.  After thus
+having made our arrangements, we set off on the first of June, 1754.
+
+This was the period when at the age of forty-two, I for the first time in
+my life felt a diminution of my natural confidence to which I had
+abandoned myself without reserve or inconvenience.  We had a private
+carriage, in which with the same horses we travelled very slowly.
+I frequently got out and walked.  We had scarcely performed half our
+journey when Theresa showed the greatest uneasiness at being left in the
+carriage with Gauffecourt, and when, notwithstanding her remonstrances,
+I would get out as usual, she insisted upon doing the same, and walking
+with me.  I chid her for this caprice, and so strongly opposed it, that
+at length she found herself obliged to declare to me the cause whence it
+proceeded.  I thought I was in a dream; my astonishment was beyond
+expression, when I learned that my friend M. de Gauffecourt, upwards of
+sixty years of age, crippled by the gout, impotent and exhausted by
+pleasures, had, since our departure, incessantly endeavored to corrupt a
+person who belonged to his friend, and was no longer young nor handsome,
+by the most base and shameful means, such as presenting to her a purse,
+attempting to inflame her imagination by the reading of an abominable
+book, and by the sight of infamous figures, with which it was filled.
+Theresa, full of indignation, once threw his scandalous book out of the
+carriage; and I learned that on the first evening of our journey, a
+violent headache having obliged me to retire to bed before supper, he had
+employed the whole time of this tete-a-tete in actions more worthy of a
+satyr than a man of worth and honor, to whom I thought I had intrusted my
+companion and myself.  What astonishment and grief of heart for me!
+I, who until then had believed friendship to be inseparable from every
+amiable and noble sentiment which constitutes all its charm, for the
+first time in my life found myself under the necessity of connecting it
+with disdain, and of withdrawing my confidence from a man for whom I had
+an affection, and by whom I imagined myself beloved!  The wretch
+concealed from me his turpitude; and that I might not expose Theresa,
+I was obliged to conceal from him my contempt, and secretly to harbor in
+my heart such sentiments as were foreign to its nature.  Sweet and sacred
+illusion of friendship!  Gauffecourt first took the veil from before my
+eyes.  What cruel hands have since that time prevented it from again
+being drawn over them!
+
+At Lyons I quitted Gauffecourt to take the road to Savoy, being unable to
+be so near to mamma without seeing her.  I saw her--Good God, in what a
+situation!  How contemptible!  What remained to her of primitive virtue?
+Was it the same Madam de Warrens, formerly so gay and lively, to whom the
+vicar of Pontverre had given me recommendations?  How my heart was
+wounded!  The only resource I saw for her was to quit the country.  I
+earnestly but vainly repeated the invitation I had several times given
+her in my letters to come and live peacefully with me, assuring her I
+would dedicate the rest of my life, and that of Theresa, to render her
+happy.  Attached to her pension, from which, although it was regularly
+paid, she had not for a long time received the least advantage, my offers
+were lost upon her.  I again gave her a trifling part of the contents of
+my purse, much less than I ought to have done, and considerably less than
+I should have offered her had not I been certain of its not being of the
+least service to herself.  During my residence at Geneva, she made a
+journey into Chablais, and came to see me at Grange-canal.  She was in
+want of money to continue her journey: what I had in my pocket was
+insufficient to this purpose, but an hour afterwards I sent it her by
+Theresa.  Poor mamma!  I must relate this proof of the goodness of her
+heart.  A little diamond ring was the last jewel she had left.  She took
+it from her finger, to put it upon that of Theresa, who instantly
+replaced it upon that whence it had been taken, kissing the generous hand
+which she bathed with her tears.  Ah! this was the proper moment to
+discharge my debt!  I should have abandoned everything to follow her,
+and share her fate: let it be what it would.  I did nothing of the kind.
+My attention was engaged by another attachment, and I perceived the
+attachment I had to her was abated by the slender hopes there were of
+rendering it useful to either of us.  I sighed after her, my heart was
+grieved at her situation, but I did not follow her.  Of all the remorse I
+felt this was the strongest and most lasting.  I merited the terrible
+chastisement with which I have since that time incessantly been
+overwhelmed: may this have expiated my ingratitude!  Of this I appear
+guilty in my conduct, but my heart has been too much distressed by what I
+did ever to have been that of an ungrateful man.
+
+Before my departure from Paris I had sketched out the dedication of my
+discourse on the 'Inequality of Mankind'.  I finished it at Chambery, and
+dated it from that place, thinking that, to avoid all chicane, it was
+better not to date it either from France or Geneva.  The moment I arrived
+in that city I abandoned myself to the republican enthusiasm which had
+brought me to it.  This was augmented by the reception I there met with.
+Kindly treated by persons of every description, I entirely gave myself up
+to a patriotic zeal, and mortified at being excluded from the rights of a
+citizen by the possession of a religion different from that of my
+forefathers, I resolved openly to return to the latter.  I thought the
+gospel being the same for every Christian, and the only difference in
+religious opinions the result of the explanations given by men to that
+which they did not understand, it was the exclusive right of the
+sovereign power in every country to fix the mode of worship, and these
+unintelligible opinions; and that consequently it was the duty of a
+citizen to admit the one, and conform to the other in the manner
+prescribed by the law.  The conversation of the encyclopaedists, far from
+staggering my faith, gave it new strength by my natural aversion to
+disputes and party.  The study of man and the universe had everywhere
+shown me the final causes and the wisdom by which they were directed.
+The reading of the Bible, and especially that of the New Testament, to
+which I had for several years past applied myself, had given me a
+sovereign contempt for the base and stupid interpretations given to the
+words of Jesus Christ by persons the least worthy of understanding his
+divine doctrine.  In a word, philosophy, while it attached me to the
+essential part of religion, had detached me from the trash of the little
+formularies with which men had rendered it obscure.  Judging that for a
+reasonable man there were not two ways of being a Christian, I was also
+of opinion that in each country everything relative to form and
+discipline was within the jurisdiction of the laws.  From this principle,
+so social and pacific, and which has brought upon me such cruel
+persecutions, it followed that, if I wished to be a citizen of Geneva,
+I must become a Protestant, and conform to the mode of worship
+established in my country.  This I resolved upon; I moreover put myself
+under the instructions of the pastor of the parish in which I lived,
+and which was without the city.  All I desired was not to appear at the
+consistory.  However, the ecclesiastical edict was expressly to that
+effect; but it was agreed upon to dispense with it in my favor, and a
+commission of five or six members was named to receive my profession of
+faith.  Unfortunately, the minister Perdriau, a mild and an amiable man,
+took it into his head to tell me the members were rejoiced at the
+thoughts of hearing me speak in the little assembly.  This expectation
+alarmed me to such a degree that having night and day during three weeks
+studied a little discourse I had prepared, I was so confused when I ought
+to have pronounced it that I could not utter a single word, and during
+the conference I had the appearance of the most stupid schoolboy.  The
+persons deputed spoke for me, and I answered yes and no, like a
+blockhead; I was afterwards admitted to the communion, and reinstated in
+my rights as a citizen.  I was enrolled as such in the lists of guards,
+paid by none but citizens and burgesses, and I attended at a council-
+general extraordinary to receive the oath from the syndic Mussard.  I was
+so impressed with the kindness shown me on this occasion by the council
+and the consistory, and by the great civility and obliging behavior of
+the magistrates, ministers and citizens, that, pressed by the worthy De
+Luc, who was incessant in his persuasions, and still more so by my own
+inclination, I did not think of going back to Paris for any other purpose
+than to break up housekeeping, find a situation for M. and Madam le
+Vassear, or provide for their subsistence, and then return with Theresa
+to Geneva, there to settle for the rest of my days.
+
+After taking this resolution I suspended all serious affairs the better
+to enjoy the company of my friends until the time of my departure.
+Of all the amusements of which I partook, that with which I was most
+pleased, was sailing round the lake in a boat, with De Luc, the father,
+his daughter-in-law, his two sons, and my Theresa.  We gave seven days to
+this excursion in the finest weather possible.  I preserved a lively
+remembrance of the situation which struck me at the other extremity of
+the lake, and of which I, some years afterwards, gave a description in my
+New Eloisa.
+
+The principal connections I made at Geneva, besides the De Lucs, of which
+I have spoken, were the young Vernes, with whom I had already been
+acquainted at Paris, and of whom I then formed a better opinion than I
+afterwards had of him.  M. Perdriau, then a country pastor, now professor
+of Belles Lettres, whose mild and agreeable society will ever make me
+regret the loss of it, although he has since thought proper to detach
+himself from me; M. Jalabert, at that time professor of natural
+philosophy, since become counsellor and syndic, to whom I read my
+discourse upon Inequality (but not the dedication), with which he seemed
+to be delighted; the Professor Lullin, with whom I maintained a
+correspondence until his death, and who gave me a commission to purchase
+books for the library; the Professor Vernet, who, like most other people,
+turned his back upon me after I had given him proofs of attachment and
+confidence of which he ought to, have been sensible, if a theologian can
+be affected by anything; Chappins, clerk and successor to Gauffecourt,
+whom he wished to supplant, and who, soon afterwards, was him self
+supplanted; Marcet de Mezieres, an old friend of my father's, and who had
+also shown himself to be mine: after having well deserved of his country,
+he became a dramatic author, and, pretending to be of the council of two
+hundred, changed his principles, and, before he died, became ridiculous.
+But he from whom I expected most was M. Moultout, a very promising young
+man by his talents and his brilliant imagination, whom I have always
+loved, although his conduct with respect to me was frequently equivocal,
+and, not withstanding his being connected with my most cruel enemies,
+whom I cannot but look upon as destined to become the defender of my
+memory and the avenger of his friend.
+
+In the midst of these dissipations, I neither lost the taste for my
+solitary excursions, nor the habit of them; I frequently made long ones
+upon the banks of the lake, during which my mind, accustomed to
+reflection, did not remain idle; I digested the plan already formed
+of my political institutions, of which I shall shortly have to speak;
+I meditated a history of the Valais; the plan of a tragedy in prose,
+the subject of which, nothing less than Lucretia, did not deprive me of
+the hope of succeeding, although I had dared again to exhibit that
+unfortunate heroine, when she could no longer be suffered upon any French
+stage.  I at that time tried my abilities with Tacitus, and translated
+the first books of his history, which will be found amongst my papers.
+
+After a residence of four months at Geneva, I returned in the month of
+October to Paris; and avoided passing through Lyons that I might not
+again have to travel with Gauffecourt.  As the arrangement I had made did
+not require my being at Geneva until the spring following, I returned,
+during the winter, to my habits and occupations; the principal of the
+latter was examining the proof sheets of my discourse on the Inequality
+of Mankind, which I had procured to be printed in Holland, by the
+bookseller Rey, with whom I had just become acquainted at Geneva.  This
+work was dedicated to the republic; but as the publication might be
+unpleasing to the council, I wished to wait until it had taken its effect
+at Geneva before I returned thither.  This effect was not favorable to
+me; and the dedication, which the most pure patriotism had dictated,
+created me enemies in the council, and inspired even many of the
+burgesses with jealousy.  M. Chouet, at that time first syndic, wrote me
+a polite but very cold letter, which will be found amongst my papers.  I
+received from private persons, amongst others from Du Luc and De
+Jalabert, a few compliments, and these were all.  I did not perceive that
+a single Genevese was pleased with the hearty zeal found in the work.
+This indifference shocked all those by whom it was remarked.  I remember
+that dining one day at Clichy, at Madam Dupin's, with Crommelin, resident
+from the republic, and M. de Mairan, the latter openly declared the
+council owed me a present and public honors for the work, and that it
+would dishonor itself if it failed in either.  Crommelin, who was a black
+and mischievous little man, dared not reply in my presence, but he made a
+frightful grimace, which however forced a smile from Madam Dupin.  The
+only advantage this work procured me, besides that resulting from the
+satisfaction of my own heart, was the title of citizen given me by
+my friends, afterwards by the public after their example, and which I
+afterwards lost by having too well merited.
+
+This ill success would not, however, have prevented my retiring to
+Geneva, had not more powerful motives tended to the same effect.
+M. D'Epinay, wishing to add a wing which was wanting to the chateau of
+the Chevrette, was at an immense expense in completing it.  Going one day
+with Madam D'Epinay to see the building, we continued our walk a quarter
+of a league further to the reservoir of the waters of the park which
+joined the forest of Montmorency, and where there was a handsome kitchen
+garden, with a little lodge, much out of repair, called the Hermitage.
+This solitary and very agreeable place had struck me when I saw it for
+the first time before my journey to Geneva.  I had exclaimed in my
+transport: "Ah, madam, what a delightful habitation!  This asylum was
+purposely prepared for me."  Madam D'Epinay did not pay much attention to
+what I said; but at this second journey I was quite surprised to find,
+instead of the old decayed building, a little house almost entirely new,
+well laid out, and very habitable for a little family of three persons.
+Madam D'Epinay had caused this to be done in silence, and at a very small
+expense, by detaching a few materials and some of the work men from the
+castle.  She now said to me, on remarking my surprise: "My dear, here
+behold your asylum; it is you who have chosen it; friendship offers it to
+you.  I hope this will remove from you the cruel idea of separating from
+me."  I do not think I was ever in my life more strongly or more
+deliciously affected.  I bathed with tears the beneficent hand of my
+friend; and if I were not conquered from that very instant even, I was
+extremely staggered.  Madam D'Epinay, who would not be denied, became so
+pressing, employed so many means, so many people to circumvent me,
+proceeding even so far as to gain over Madam le Vasseur and her daughter,
+that at length she triumphed over all my resolutions. Renouncing the idea
+of residing in my own country, I resolved, I promised, to inhabit the
+Hermitage; and, whilst the building was drying, Madam D'Epinay took care
+to prepare furniture, so that everything was ready the following spring.
+
+One thing which greatly aided me in determining, was the residence
+Voltaire had chosen near Geneva; I easily comprehended this man would
+cause a revolution there, and that I should find in my country the
+manners, which drove me from Paris; that I should be under the necessity
+of incessantly struggling hard, and have no other alternative than that
+of being an unsupportable pedant, a poltroon, or a bad citizen.
+The letter Voltaire wrote me on my last work, induced me to insinuate
+my fears in my answer; and the effect this produced confirmed them.
+From that moment I considered Geneva as lost, and I was not deceived.
+I perhaps ought to have met the storm, had I thought myself capable of
+resisting it.  But what could I have done alone, timid, and speaking
+badly, against a man, arrogant, opulent, supported by the credit of the
+great, eloquent, and already the idol of the women and young men?  I was
+afraid of uselessly exposing myself to danger to no purpose.  I listened
+to nothing but my peaceful disposition, to my love of repose, which, if
+it then deceived me, still continues to deceive me on the same subject.
+By retiring to Geneva, I should have avoided great misfortunes; but I
+have my doubts whether, with all my ardent and patriotic zeal, I should
+have been able to effect anything great and useful for my country.
+
+Tronchin, who about the same time went to reside at Geneva, came
+afterwards to Paris and brought with him treasures.  At his arrival he
+came to see me, with the Chevalier Jaucourt.  Madam D'Epinay had a strong
+desire to consult him in private, but this it was not easy to do.
+She addressed herself to me, and I engaged Tronchin to go and see her.
+Thus under my auspices they began a connection, which was afterwards
+increased at my expense.  Such has ever been my destiny: the moment I had
+united two friends who were separately mine, they never failed to combine
+against me.  Although, in the conspiracy then formed by the Tronchins,
+they must all have borne me a mortal hatred.  He still continued friendly
+to me: he even wrote me a letter after his return to Geneva, to propose
+to me the place of honorary librarian.  But I had taken my resolution,
+and the offer did not tempt me to depart from it.
+
+About this time I again visited M. d'Holbach.  My visit was occasioned
+by the death of his wife, which, as well as that of Madam Francueil,
+happened whilst I was at Geneva.  Diderot, when he communicated to me
+these melancholy events, spoke of the deep affliction of the husband.
+His grief affected my heart.  I myself was grieved for the loss of that
+excellent woman, and wrote to M. d'Holbach a letter of condolence.
+I forgot all the wrongs he had done me, and at my return from Geneva,
+and after he had made the tour of France with Grimm and other friends
+to alleviate his affliction, I went to see him, and continued my visits
+until my departure for the Hermitage.  As soon as it was known in his
+circle that Madam D'Epinay was preparing me a habitation there,
+innumerable sarcasms, founded upon the want I must feel of the flattery
+and amusement of the city, and the supposition of my not being able to
+support the solitude for a fortnight, were uttered against me.  Feeling
+within myself how I stood affected, I left him and his friends to say
+what they pleased, and pursued my intention.  M. d'Holbach rendered me
+some services--
+
+     [This is an instance of the treachery of my memory.  A long time
+     after I had written what I have stated above, I learned, in
+     conversing with my wife, that it was not M. d'Holbach, but M. de
+     Chenonceaux, then one of the administrators of the Hotel Dieu, who
+     procured this place for her father.  I had so totally forgotten the
+     circumstance, and the idea of M. d'Holbach's having done it was so
+     strong in my mind that I would have sworn it had been him.]
+
+in finding a place for the old Le Vasseur, who was eighty years of age
+and a burden to his wife, from which she begged me to relieve her.
+He was put into a house of charity, where, almost as soon as he arrived
+there, age and the grief of finding himself removed from his family sent
+him to the grave.  His wife and all his children, except Theresa, did not
+much regret his loss.  But she, who loved him tenderly, has ever since
+been inconsolable, and never forgiven herself for having suffered him,
+at so advanced an age, to end his days in any other house than her own.
+
+Much about the same time I received a visit I little expected, although
+it was from a very old acquaintance.  My friend Venture, accompanied by
+another man, came upon me one morning by surprise.  What a change did I
+discover in his person!  Instead of his former gracefulness, he appeared
+sottish and vulgar, which made me extremely reserved with him.  My eyes
+deceived me, or either debauchery had stupefied his mind, or all his
+first splendor was the effect of his youth, which was past.  I saw him
+almost with indifference, and we parted rather coolly.  But when he was
+gone, the remembrance of our former connection so strongly called to my
+recollection that of my younger days, so charmingly, so prudently
+dedicated to that angelic woman (Madam de Warrens) who was not much less
+changed than himself; the little anecdotes of that happy time, the
+romantic day of Toune passed with so much innocence and enjoyment between
+those two charming girls, from whom a kiss of the hand was the only
+favor, and which, notwithstanding its being so trifling, had left me such
+lively, affecting and lasting regrets; and the ravishing delirium of a
+young heart, which I had just felt in all its force, and of which I
+thought the season forever past for me.  The tender remembrance of these
+delightful circumstances made me shed tears over my faded youth and its
+transports for ever lost to me.  Ah! how many tears should I have shed
+over their tardy and fatal return had I foreseen the evils I had yet to
+suffer from them.
+
+Before I left Paris, I enjoyed during the winter which preceded my
+retreat, a pleasure after my own heart, and of which I tasted in all its
+purity.  Palissot, academician of Nancy, known by a few dramatic
+compositions, had just had one of them performed at Luneville before the
+King of Poland.  He perhaps thought to make his court by representing in
+his piece a man who had dared to enter into a literary dispute with the
+king.  Stanislaus, who was generous, and did not like satire, was filled
+with indignation at the author's daring to be personal in his presence.
+The Comte de Tressan, by order of the prince, wrote to M. d'Alembert, as
+well as to myself, to inform me that it was the intention of his majesty
+to have Palissot expelled his academy.  My answer was a strong
+solicitation in favor of Palissot, begging M. de Tressan to intercede
+with the king in his behalf.  His pardon was granted, and M. de Tressan,
+when he communicated to me the information in the name of the monarch,
+added that the whole of what had passed should be inserted in the
+register of the academy.  I replied that this was less granting a pardon
+than perpetuating a punishment.  At length, after repeated solicitations,
+I obtained a promise, that nothing relative to the affair should be
+inserted in the register, and that no public trace should remain of it.
+The promise was accompanied, as well on the part of the king as on that
+of M. de Tressan, with assurance of esteem and respect, with which I was
+extremely flattered; and I felt on this occasion that the esteem of men
+who are themselves worthy of it, produced in the mind a sentiment
+infinitely more noble and pleasing than that of vanity.  I have
+transcribed into my collection the letters of M. de Tressan, with my
+answers to them: and the original of the former will be found amongst my
+other papers.
+
+I am perfectly aware that if ever these memoirs become public, I here
+perpetuate the remembrance of a fact which I would wish to efface every
+trace; but I transmit many others as much against my inclination.
+The grand object of my undertaking, constantly before my eyes, and the
+indispensable duty of fulfilling it to its utmost extent, will not permit
+me to be turned aside by trifling considerations, which would lead me
+from my purpose.  In my strange and unparalleled situation, I owe too
+much to truth to be further than this indebted to any person whatever.
+They who wish to know me well must be acquainted with me in every point
+of view, in every relative situation, both good and bad.  My confessions
+are necessarily connected with those of many other people: I write both
+with the same frankness in everything that relates to that which has
+befallen me; and am not obliged to spare any person more than myself,
+although it is my wish to do it.  I am determined always to be just and
+true, to say of others all the good I can, never speaking of evil except
+when it relates to my own conduct, and there is a necessity for my so
+doing.  Who, in the situation in which the world has placed me, has a
+right to require more at my hands?  My confessions are not intended to
+appear during my lifetime, nor that of those they may disagreeably
+affect.  Were I master of my own destiny, and that of the book I am now
+writing, it should never be made public until after my death and theirs.
+But the efforts which the dread of truth obliges my powerful enemies to
+make to destroy every trace of it, render it necessary for me to do
+everything, which the strictest right, and the most severe justice, will
+permit, to preserve what I have written.  Were the remembrance of me to
+be lost at my dissolution, rather than expose any person alive, I would
+without a murmur suffer an unjust and momentary reproach.  But since my
+name is to live, it is my duty to endeavor to transmit with it to
+posterity the remembrance of the unfortunate man by whom it was borne,
+such as he really was, and not such as his unjust enemies incessantly
+endeavored to describe him.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All your evils proceed from yourselves
+Considering this want of decency as an act of courage
+Die without the aid of physicians
+I had a numerous acquaintance, yet no more than two friends
+Knew how to complain, but not how to act
+Moment I acquired literary fame, I had no longer a friend
+There is no clapping of hands before the king
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Confessions of Rousseau, v8
+by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
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